Cassandra Peterson

I have always been cagey about doing nudes — some childhood psychological damage, no doubt. A friend suggested I do a reclining nude portrait, though, and my mind went to Cassandra Peterson, AKA Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She did some photo sets before settling on the character who would make her famous. She is an amazing, savvy, and beautiful woman.

This is mostly done in Procreate. The soft lines are a product of me using the airbrush tool for most of the coloring. I don’t particularly like the airbrush tool, but haven’t got the hang of the blending tool the way I need yet. Her right arm didn’t turn out well, but the rest is all right. Near the end I applied a very low opacity layer with a bunch of splattered dots to get across some combination of freckles and soft-focus photography, and I think that worked out very well.