When Ryan first contacted me, he was looking for a long illo to go along the top of the 2 pages.
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When he got the sketches, he liked the first crowd scene and thought it might work better running along the bottom of the page, maybe with some more "I <3 NY" type additions.
From there, i suggested having some times-square-ish buildings running up the sides of the page with NY-centric billboards:
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He approved & we were off!
I had a busy schedule at the time and had to pull an all-nighter to finish this one, but I re-discovered 'The Shadow' on Netflix while I worked. Now whenever I look at the final I think of The Shadow and Alec Baldwin, which aren't the worst things to think of I guess.
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I was happy with how it came out, but I was REALLY HAPPY when Ryan showed me the final layout with the text he added! SO AWESOME!
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One of the thrills of illustration is getting your pictures paired with great design. It's like making a nice dessert and seeing it combined with a delicious meal and then eating it all.