Vampires for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

Another commission for "Viasat Magazine", this time for an article on vampires in modern-day film. The brief was to illustrate how celluloid bloodsuckers of the 21st century are more likely to be found stalking their victims in the local night-club than in the dark & dingy graveyard of yore. My first sketches looked like this:


The AD, who wanted the kind of colourful, comic-book style of illustration I've had success with in the past ( examples of which I'll post at a later date!) went for the third sketch, which was also my favourite. He quite rightly pointed out that my vampires were looking all Goth-like and traditional, though, so I updated their attire (and hairstyles) for the subsequent sketch:

I tried to have the disco's mirror-ball echo the full moon of the traditional vampire environment, and in the final colour version added dry-ice swirling around like graveyard mist. Our vampire couple each got an indeterminate bloody drink to suck on too. Bloody Marys, extra-bloody!

Humphrey Bogart for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

These drawings were made for "Viasat Magazine", to illustrate an article on Hollywood's changed attitude towards smoking on film. The AD wanted to use Bogie - once tobacco's poster-boy in Hollywood - to show the detrimental effect of all those years of smoking on celluloid (and in real life). The idea being that we would see the young, healthy star alongside how he looked shortly before his death. My sketches looked like this:

The AD thought they were fine, but stressed that I needed to take the old Bogart further; he was dying of cancer, but I had drawn him old & craggy as opposed to old and sick. I worked up the artwork in pencil - we wanted a slightly retro, old-school film poster feel to them so I didn't want them looking too flashy. I scanned the drawings into my Mac and coloured them up in Photoshop:

The AD thought Bogart still wasn't looking sick enough, so I aged him further and gave him a green tinge in the final version, with bloodshot eyes: