ARTWORK PROCESS: Leyak, Daughter of the Vampire Queen

This piece was for a Magic the Gathering card for my Digital Illustration Class. I have everything put into a Google Slide for easily compiling, so forgive the image quality.

First, I started out with research.

Research always comes first!

I knew from the beginning I wanted to do a black card. While I am not a huge fan of horror as a genre, I love drawing slightly horrific and uncomfortable images. From my Francis Bacon Era, I suppose. I also experimented with attempting green cards, but they didn't come out as engaging as some of the black cards.

Here are my supplemental moodboards:

Then, going onto thumbnails:

The stars are next to my favorite compositions, which I ended up moving on with.

My favorites ended up being unsurprisingly- two black cards. One based on the Indonesian folk creature- the Leyak, and one based on the Babydoll Head trail in Georgia. I did sketches for both of them, and the professor and I mutually agreed that the Leyak was much more engaging and less technically challenging.

For context: The Leyak is a creature with a head and entrails down the neck. They feed off of newborns and the blood of pregnant women.

Next, were color comps.

The one I took straight from a James Jean piece were chosen. It conveyed sickliness well and didn't look like some weird Halloween movie.

A quick work in progress, until it became the final product!