Photo Faffing On A Lazar Theme For Friday Night Vampy Vibes.

Carl’s trying (and failing) to enjoy a cup of tea in a greasy spoon on the beachfront. Who’s sitting opposite him, I wonder… 🤔

📷 Photo faffing (imperfect and just for DQ fun) - original photo of MG by Uli Weber for Style Italia and of the greasy spoon from whynow.co.uk blog 📷

Daddy Cool - A work in progress 🧛🧛‍♀️ (to go with Chapter 26 of The Visitor on AO3) using new brushes for Procreate from BigPearLiu. Love ‘em!

Kawaii Vamps - Abigail Style

❤️🧛🧛‍♀️❤️ (made these using Procreate - borrowed the epic characters from Abigail 2024 - obvs!)

If Lazar were a Ken doll… he might look like this.

It was not at all my intention but the undeniable result of practising portraits in Procreate today. I’m secretly in love with Ken so I’m fine with it. 😝

Reference photo was found on Pinterest. I used a chaotic mixture of LHR, Liliyth, Tetiana Deniz and original Procreate brushes… so that’s probably why he looks so odd. But he kinda makes me smile nonetheless.

Onwards and upwards! ✍️💖🧛‍♂️ Just keep drawing (vampires).

Whose your favorite Comfort character in Abigail? And why?

Joey! I just love that she’s so smart (and bloomin’ beautiful) and skilled and funny but also flawed. I find her relationship with Abigail fascinating and confusing and can never 100% work it out. I’m always pondering the fact she was spared by both Abigail and Lazaar. What weird vampire code of conduct is this?! I love her final WTF line in the film and the way Melissa Barrera delivers it and I think about that a lot. I wonder what on earth she did next after driving away (and will always hope there’s a sequel and she’s a vampire). And - of course - I love the idea of Lazaar falling for Joey… even though that doesn’t actually happen in the film (it really does in my mind 😂). She’s a comfort character for me because there are so many things to wonder about her and I think Melissa Barrera absolutely smashed her portrayal. Soooo, not a very original answer from me, I’m afraid. How about you?

Still imagining that Abigail epilogue? Yes, I am.

In my mind, this is Joeys’s house. She has a visitor, as you can see 🧛🔍🖤

⬆️ (enjoying the luminance brushes on Procreate a little too much 😂)

📷 Fan art photo collaging using Procreate - photo of MG from ADOW - photo of MB by Luis de la Luz - stock/my own photos of garden furniture, foliage, house, etc. 📷

And there’s an imaginary scenario (for @cecipaez-blog1 ). I don’t own the characters, I haven’t properly studied the film, I have no idea what I’m talking about, really: it’s just for fun 🎡.

——————————————

A Visitor - Part 2 - Ready or Not

— imaginary mini epilogue to Abigail (2024) featuring Joey/Ana and Lazaar —

You often feel like you’re being watched. It’s a hazard of your line of work and the questionable company you keep. But tonight, as you clear away the debris of an evening with friends in your backyard, the feeling is palpable.

You pause to listen and gauge the sensation. The fairy lights strung overhead dance slightly in a warm swirl of summer air, making the shadows below you throb in and out of focus. A wind chime twinkles, with slight menace, from the garden next door.

Get a grip, you tell yourself.

Get inside and lock the door, your body tells itself.

Just as you have composed yourself and are about to continue the clean up job, a clear, luxuriant voice cuts through the warm night air behind you.

“Not interrupting anything, I hope?”

Your movement slows as immediately you identify the speaker. You straighten and speak his name:

“Lazaar.”

You are surprised by the evenness of your tone, when your pulse seems to feel the exact opposite.

You turn and, with another rush of the tepid breeze, he emerges from the shadow of a tree. His hands are in his pockets. His posture is soft. But his stare is far from it. He walks slowly towards you, enquiringly.

“I had friends over for dinner,” you gesture towards the empty pizza boxes piled in your arms and the beer bottles which clink together in your clawed fingers.

He nods and his gaze flickers towards the house.

“Everyone left,” you find yourself needlessly reassuring him.

“I see.”

You can’t quite see if he’s smirking but it feels as though he might be. As he observes the clutter in your arms, the movement of his eyes is languid and appraising. “May I?” he reaches towards the empty bottles to relieve you slightly of your load.

You’re taken aback by the offer, but agree, “Sure.”

As the bottles are transferred, you notice his nostrils flare. You realise he’s trying to ascertain what kind of company you have kept. His brow smoothes and you assume he is satisfied by his investigations; it was, after all, a girls’ night in.

Without being asked, he walks over to the bin store and deposits the bottles in the correct one. Returning to take the pizza boxes from your arms, he repeats the process. You observe that you find this bizarrely incongruous show of domesticity wildly attractive.

As he saunters back towards you, he looks at the open door to the house. You stand there wondering if you are actually going to invite a vampire into your home.

“Why are you here, Lazaar?” The question emerges low and slow into the sultry air. You didn’t mean it to sound so provocative but you’re coming to realise you have little control around this man. Creature. Fantasy figure.

The piercing gaze is on you now. The vampire looks slightly agitated by your question. You watch as he steels himself and sits down upon the garden wall. He shrugs:

“I find that you…” his gaze drops to his hands, “you… are on my mind.”

You take a deep breath to quell the lilting, fizzing sensation rising within you. You note the unassuming nature of his posture as he sits on the wall, deliberately metres away from you. Yet this calculatedly unthreatening stance does nothing to mask his agitation.

Numbed and blurred slightly by the moderate amount of beer you’ve consumed, you probe your instincts more carefully. You find there is no fight or flight here. No threat. You feel the same submissive calm of a few nights ago when you saw him in his garden. The same curiosity. The same heady lurch of your insides when he so much as looks at you.

“Ditto,” you hear yourself say, with a slight smile.

The look that now passes his features is positively devilish and you witness his first genuine smile at you in return.

But the warmth of the moment curdles instantly. You gasp as you notice the uniformity and whiteness of his teeth. They look normal and far from razor-sharp. A wave of nausea resonates with the shock pulsing through your body.

“Your mouth…” you breathe, your fingers finding your own lips by way of explanation.

His smile fades and he moves towards you but stops abruptly when you recoil.

“You’re not…” you breathe and your heart begins to thump as confusion and panic flood your senses, “you’re not in your true form. This - this isn’t you. It’s just an illusion… what are you doing? What game are you playing? Why are you here? I think you should…”

“Ana…” he interrupts, his voice gentle but stricken, “Ana, it’s all right…”

“I must be crazy. What the f*ck was I thinking…,” your mouth is dry and your legs are shaking as you try to back further towards the house.

“Ana, please,” his palms are raised in surrender as he takes two more cautious steps towards you. As the moonlit shadows slide over his features, you watch his face transform into something more familiar. His pupils darken until void of all light, his irises take on an ethereal glow and his fangs become clearly visible beneath a snarling lip.

Your heart stills as you realise that this sight, which should terrify you, has in fact achieved the opposite effect.

“There now…” he soothes, the old-worldly timbre chiming again in his voice. He tilts his face up to catch the moonlight further.

Otherwise he remains very still. Waiting. Watching.

His breath is patchy and you can see the anguish in his eyes.

“Why did you change?” your voice is unsteady, as though you might cry.

“My form… I can... I wanted to be something less alarming… more palatable… more safe.” His brow furrows and his lips close firmly. In the moonlight, you notice a muscle ticking in his jawline.

His vulnerability in this moment is exquisite.

“I did it for you,” he murmurs and this dissolves your doubt as swiftly as it had appeared.

“Well don’t,” you fold your arms but take two steps towards him, “don’t do that again.” your voice softens.

“I shan’t,” he bows his head reverently and relief floods through his tone.

When he lifts his head again, his gaze is searching, “But I want to take the form that you desire.”

The last word rips through you, quite literally, and he speaks again:

“How do you want me to be, Ana?”

⬆️ Photo-collage-fan-faffery / the wanderings of my mind as I read the Department Q books

Windswept scenario - Department Q

Above is another (imaginary) candid snap of ‘The Carl and Rachel dance’. It’s early on in the dance - book 2 ish - at the point when the screenwriters have forced them together on the beach (somehow?!) and there’s such a vibe: he’s definitely interested but she still needs a lot of convincing. It’s a bright day but breezy and stickily, saltily damp; the sea spray is everywhere and the fresh air is electric between them. They’re asked to pose for a photo (who knows why?!) and Carl leaps at the opportunity to put his arm around her. It’s a touch - a contact - that’s not happened before. The warmth of him makes her stomach churn deliciously and she dips her gaze and smiles at the realisation. The camera catches the moment. Then the contact is broken. They look coyly - sideways and both suppressing smirks - at each other before continuing along the beach with the rest of the group.

[Cut to some dark, harrowing kidnap scenes - this is a thriller after all].

—

In the books, Adler-Olsen gives only the most tantalising glimpses of ‘The Dance’ between these two. Hence my ramblings 😂 I wonder how the dynamic will pan out in the show. Towards the end of Department Q Book 1 in Carl’s internal monologue, he confesses to being ‘crazy’ about her, despite her wearing a wedding ring (which is later removed). Adler-Olsen leaves us to guess what changes her mind eventually. But if Carl Mørck looks like Matthew Goode it’s not that much of a mystery, is it? 😂🫠

📷 Original pics from @asgoodeasgold (I’m so envious that these are actually your pictures I could cry) and Wikipedia; faffed around with, inexpertly, by me 📷

Oh no 😩😣

Also… I could have just used MDCM hunting in a beanie. Would have been a lot quicker and I could have screenshotted it myself. Oh well! We live and learn…

Lazar

📷🧛 Photo edit (see three originals below, which I mashed together and then drew over using LHR brushes in Procreate and then added PS cinematic filter) 📷🧛

📷 ⬆️ Original images found on Pinterest 📷

💛💛💛💛💛🫠

Oh my.

I haven’t (yet) seen Stoker so I wasn’t aware of ‘The Mustard Effect’.

I am now.

Thank you 🫠

💛🩶🖤 Lazaar and Joey 4EVA (in my mind at least) 🖤🩶💛

Inspired by some of the amazing Good Omens fan art out there, I experimented with a different style and a new (MaxPacks) brush set in Procreate. This sketch is intended to capture loving a vampire - not knowing if he’s going to bite you or kiss you… and feeling happy either way 😜 Still not over Lazaar and Joey, evidently 😂

Added some yellow options especially for @asgoodeasgold because she LOVES a yellow filter 😜😬🙃

📷 References used: screenshot edit by @asgoodeasgold (below) and photo on Melissa Barrera’s instagram 📷

⬆️ Fan-art-photo-faffery using Procreate - photos of MG and KM edited just for fun to make them Carl and Rachel on a Department Q theme as I read the books

That cheered Carl up at least 🙃

There is a scenario for this somewhere in my addled brain. But, for now, let’s just guess what’s tickled him. I love MG’s cheeky grin in the @asgoodeasgold screenshot. Can’t wait to see what he does with Carl Mørck. I think I’ve said that before… 😂

I’m enjoying messing around on Procreate again. Photoshop would probably be the better platform but I’d need to take some serious lessons. Maybe in the summer holidays.

⬆️ Original photos (not mine; borrowed and played around with just for fun). From @asgoodeasgold, Getty (?) and whynow.co.uk

[90s filter just had to be done for the legendary Kelly]