My first introduction to Nightmare was in Marvel Comics Presents, drawn by Sam Keith and riding a purple horse. I remember being a huge Sam Keith fan and just snatching up anything he had done at the time. I don’t remember too much about those stories now, but that was quite an impression to make. The intent for this was just a foreboding image of Nightmare in his element: bringing people’s worst fears to life.

This one basically coloured itself! Nightmare has this very garish all green outfit, so I tried to play off that with opposite colours (while trying very hard not to make this Christmas themed). I wanted Nightmare to have the focus, so I pulled back the harshness of the inks with some colour holds very similar to the base colour of the background. Coupled with some lighter gradient as a halo to highlight Nightmare and it was all pulled together.

Labels: Ditkoctober, Nightmare, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko