It’s no secret that these two vampires (Falco and Azra) of mine were in the military — in more than one way. They both grew up in a militarized environment and joined up with the Durandalite military. Later one, far further down the line, they separately joined their respective armies to help fight during World War II. Since they’re both fluent in German, they were helpful in translating, amongst other things.

In looking at some old army photos from World War II, I wanted to draw some portraits of them as they would have been photographed. I did a little researching on uniforms and what they looked like, and while not everything is entirely accurate in my photo, I went for most aesthetically pleasing to me. Plus I was excited to make a vintage style portrait that portrayed the look of an old photo.

I didn’t go too crazy on details on this one because I knew that I was going to be blurring out most of the finer details once I vintage-ized the image. So honestly it did not take me too long to create. A little petting and blending here and there, but ultimately not as much as I normally do.

I decided to make them in black and white because I usually start my works in some form of monochromatic color anyway to get my highs and lows worked out. Besides, they didn’t have color photos back then! Why put all the work into a color work when I was just going to strip it of color anyway?

Trying out a texture overlay for maximum vintage effect:

Test on the vintage sort of brownish colors: