The Breakfast Club (Count Chocula)

Count Chocula 

Next up for the Monster Cereal characters, here's Count Chocula.  I had re-watched the 1922 classic, "Nosferatu", this past Halloween (IMHO, one of the creepiest versions of a vampire yet put on screen), so it was obvious for Count Chocula to be modeled after him, of course.  As the movie was relatively fresh in my mind, I didn't bother with any photo references this time around, either.

For those interested in the process, well, you know the drill... :-)

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STEP ONE:  I used a mixture of gesso and size (glue) on a 5" x 7-1/2" piece of Crescent 102 illustration board.  I then drew out the image with vine charcoal, charcoal pencil, and carbon pencil, using a kneaded eraser to lift out any highlights, or to lighten an area (although, many times, I use the kneaded eraser to draw almost as much as my pencils/charcoal).  Once finished, I imported it into PhotoShop.

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STEP TWO:  In PhotoShop, I created a new layer set to "Multiply" and did a linear gradient from a lighter brown on the bottom to a darker brown on the top.

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STEP THREE:  To keep everything monochromatic, on the gradient layer I did highlights with light browns and white, and shadows with darker browns.  I really tried to push the darks and lights, to give it more of a sense of forced drama--trying to give it a little bit of the movie "Nosferatu" feel to it.

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This was done with charcoal and carbon pencil on a 5" x 7-1/2" Crescent 102 illustration board, then colored digitally in PhotoShop.

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