This project was commissioned by Real McCoy Rum for a local event at a bar featuring two nationally known bartenders who would be headlining the night. The brief only asked to create an illustration based around the concept of the "Siren's Call" for a Halloween night, given that the location of the event was the Mermaid Bar I went to task immediately with my first concept.
I had a very clear idea what I wanted to do from the get go so this rough sketch became my reference and framework for the digital illustration that would sprout from it. The composition was meant to be tight so as to fit a more comic book cover art motif. The basic idea would be these massive monstrous mermaid sirens huddling around a coupe glass as if they were witches around a cauldron fixing a potion with mariners stuck within the drink itself at their mercy.
From there it was just a matter of digitally inking the art within Photoshop. Including refining the text that I would be drawing out underneath.
As the illustration was coming along I began to add the other details to design the makings of a comic book cover by way of a classic silver age font, DK Longreach that I roughened up in Illustrator before transferring over to Photoshop. The addition of the Hip Tiki imagery was from a previous logo design made for the Hip Tiki product the Tiki Traveler which is owned by me and using the Tiki Island font as well underneath. The full colors on the characters and art had finally taken shape as well.
From here, the final product, the finished illustration now with a proper painted dark background as well as a creased paper texture overlaid on top to give it an aged and vintage look to the cover art. The client only needed to brand it with their logo as the sponsor and has since used it for the promotion of the event.
