Dawn of the Vampire by William Hill
Posted on | August 15, 2008 | No Comments
Art Direction Janis Rossi
I received the assignment for Dawn of the Vampire in the spring of 1989. This was not the first horror book cover that I’ve done but it is one of my favorites and my first Vampire book cover.
The technique was a combination of photography, darkroom maneuvers and acrylic airbrush.
I was living on a lake, in Woodbury, a bucolic town snuggled in the rolling hills of Connecticut, quintessential Americana.
The art direction was simple and straightforward. Give me a vampire rising out of the water with a full moon on the horizon and make it scarry.
My biggest Challenge was finding the right model. This was not something I could shoot in a studio in NYC. So I looked for a model among my friends and neighbors. I had been living in Connecticut for less then a year so friends where few and far between. I had gotten to know a few locals at my favorite diner, Laurel Café, named after the former owner.
The current owner and my favorite waitress was Jody. She was in her thirties with blond hair, a ruddy complexion and German good looks. It was her friends and family that made me feel at home.
One of her friends was a big handsome kid with dark hair with the coolest car I’ve ever seen. It was a hotrod that had been flopped, chopped, and channeled. Roy was a professional bull rider. In fact it seems Jody grew up on a horse ranch so she new a lot of cowboys. Her mother was even a barrel racer.
Ok back to Dawn of the Vampire. Jody was having a party at her house so I talked Roy into getting into the water and took some pretty interesting pictures.. Some how they all looked more like Return of the Living Dead, just not quite right.
My next victum was a friend of mine, a jazz musician, who was up visiting from Chicago. He had a long laconic face, big hands and slender fingers.. I prepared for the shoot by dressing him up with fake fingernails and painted his face and hands white.
He backed into the cold lake water at dusk and I followed with my camera careful to keep it dry. This time the light was perfect and the shots came out better then I expected.
Many thanks to Mark Krumich still playing Jazz in clubs around Miami.
Tags: Dawn of the Vampires > Pinnacle Horror > Vampire illustrations > William Hill > Windsor Publishing Group
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