Hollywood's darkside for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

Fresh off the press, here is yet another illustration I was commissioned to do for "Viasat Magazine". This time the AD wanted a more serious look, to match the serious tone of the piece - murder in Hollywood. The magazine was running a story on true crime in Tinsletown, and the brief was to show the darker side of the glamourous Hollywood we know from the big screen. I sent the AD these first roughs:

She liked 3 and 4 best, so I was given the choice of developing the one I liked most. After a bit of deliberation I went for image 4. I felt the illustration had more potential - the dark world of murder juxtaposed with the bright Hollywood life outside, the police crime scene milieu, the Hollywood icons looking on..
To get the realism I wanted for the murder victim, I had myself photographed as I wanted the corpse to look in the finished illustration.


Using that photograph, I drew up another sketch upon which I built the final artwork:


The view out of the window in the final artwork, below, is actually a collage of photographic elements from various Hollywood street scenes - I took quite a bit of licence with the famous Hollywood sign, for example - it's not that big! I used a filter on the final image, so as to retain as much realism in the final artwork as possible and yet not have part of it looking like a photograph. I think it worked out well, and the AD was very happy with the final piece :