Happy belated New Year! What a way to start 2010!
I must say I'm very happy to be back in the studio; I missed it so much. The holidays are great, but not very productive for this guy due to lots of travel. But I got back just in time for an awesome assignment!
Las Vegas Weekly contacted me with the new year to do a iconic portrait of THE KING! The reason being that today is the birthday of Elvis. There was no particular concept to the cover, but they wanted me to try out a contemplative hands-to-mouth concept. After I worked up these roughs, we agreed that the hands would not work well with the original layout so we decided to just work with a classy head shot:
I tightened up the rough into a clean sketch that I was pretty happy with:
And worked in a "golden light" for that holy/religious feel:
Sadly, the golden aura had to go as they had just recently run a similarly colored image. So the AD suggested black (which wouldn't work without the logo), and I think it looks very mysterious: perfect for Elvis!
Want to read the article? Click here. Thanks to Las Vegas Weekly for a really fun and educational assignment, and hail to the King, baby!Enjoy the Day,
Chris
chris-whetzel.com
