pretty rough and hard to make out (sorry). basically, since i didn't know much about what rva wanted, i went ahead and went with a safe bet and tried to make it A: spooky (it was for the halloween issue after all) and B: as richmond as possible. so i included the distinctive richmond skyline, a roadmap of rva, a pic of richmond native/creeper edgar allen poe with a skull superimposed over his face (ooooooooooh), and at the bottom, an image of one of the story's ghost children playing. if you're wondering what's up with his hair: the original idea was to have ravens coming out of it, medusa-style. i still like this idea, and i developed it further in another sketch for a different pic. after my editor went through my sketches (i prob did about 7 or so) and picked out the ones he liked, i decided to drop the raven-hair idea. oh well. next sketch:
this was the final sketch, the one i had to show to my editor, so it had to be cleaner and more finalized than the first one. more of the details are worked out. you can see his facial features better; each element of the pic is clearer and easier to understand; and i've started working on how each of these very different images will blend into the next in order to make one cohesive image. much cleaner, and no notes to myself in the margin. which brings us to the final image:
this--along with a lot of stuff i did for rva--was a great learning experience. i've never done a pic quite this way; the layout, the coloring (which i almost never do), the effects; you can pretty much name it. now, over a year later, i can say i still like this image and how it turned out. especially the bottom part with the ghosts of the 2 little girls. creepy. there are some aspects i'd tweak and change of course, but for the most part i like it. unfortunately, it didn't end up making the cut. oh well. maybe next time, rva magazine. in the meantime, here's the other image that i'd had finished for them, which i also still like.
this one was more fun than the other one. it's simple, and you know exactly what the article is gonna be about, while the pic itself remains pretty abstract in regard to any sort of specifics as far as the article's actual content. it shows abstract, ghost-ish creatures (when i was working on it i kept calling them ghoulies), emerging out from behind another distinctive feature known to any richmonder: the statue of robert e lee on monument ave.
and yep, you guessed right. neither one of these ended up getting used at all by rva. try as you might, sometimes with these kinds of gigs, if they don't pay ya, they don't appreciate ya. that said, it was still a fun experience working for rva, and there are a lot of really great, talented people over there. sometimes, this is just how these things go. oh well. i still like em, and at least i got a couple solid images for the portfolio. try again, and try better next time, as they say.
see you next time, kids.
