Your Wife Has a Lovely Neck Mug

I love the scene in Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens after Count Orlok bites Ellen Hutter's "lovely neck." As Orlok slowly looks up, with his twisted claw wrapped around the head of his victim, he stares directly into the camera for a beat, which makes for one of the creepiest scenes ever. As I often do, I captured my own still of this scene for reference and tried to pay tribute to the moment by painting in a dark, minimal 2-tone feel inspired by the grim but stark look of the movie. To contrast the near-black brushwork, I created a graphic background with my signature gradient banding in purple. Then I fit everything into an oval with a grainy vignette to sort of fuse vintage and modern into one look and tie it all together.