I Made Caricatures Of Famous Horror Authors

Every year I try to do something extra for the Halloween season. In past years I had made a drawing every other day for the entire month of October. I had also made flash sheets for tattooing (my day job), and some paintings. This year I had recently acquired an iPad Pro and wanted to do something different. Instead of the usual Halloween characters that you see and read about, I wanted to pay homage to the creators. I started with Edgar Allan Poe as he has the most recognizable face. Next was Stephen King, followed by H.P. Lovecraft. I finished with Bram Stoker, and his beard gave me quite a bit of trouble. Each was made digitally, start to finish. I started with a sketch in red, added layers, and built up the colors. Each one took about 4-5 hours to complete. I tossed in a caricature of Frank Zappa at the end because I didn't want to forget Rocktober amid all the Halloween festivities. The Tesla sketch is on it's way to being finished, and illustrates how I make my red sketches to start. H.P. Lovecraft is clearly my favorite of this series. Besides both of us being Rhode Islanders, his face was very easy to translate into a caricature style. I also had to resist the urge to fully soften/smooth my strokes. I wanted to make sure they stayed "painterly", and not look so soft and airbrushed as digital art seems to do. So here they are, my attempts at honoring some pretty awesome people who really know how paint a scene with their words (and music and science).