Retailer Nosferatu in the Window

"Nosferatu In the Window" is an exercise I did to work on architectural shapes, shadows, lighting, the mixing and use of "black" pigments,* and, well, because it's Halloween season!
Clearly my love of comic books and graphic novels is on display here. I learned to draw the human figure from comic books and "Eerie," "Creepy," and "Vampirella" (all black and white pen-and-ink work) were some of my favorites.
After completing my sketch (which combined two reference photos), I "masked" the stone wall and figure with drawing gum to prevent paint from reaching them. I then began painting with the window frame and the walls of the room using a medium red-brown mix. Once that had dried thoroughly, I used a pigment rich wash of a "black" of my own mixing to add the shadows.
To render the stone wall, I began with a light gray wash and added glazes (allowing each to dry thoroughly before adding the next) to end with the "granite" color.
Turning retailer to the night sky, I mixed a very dark black and painted three layers of it to give me a bit of a "scratch board" on which I would later "pick out" the stars with an X-acto knife.
Turning to the old blood-sucker himself, I removed the drawing gum masking and began laying multiple washes of a very light gray of my own mixing, graduating to darker grays for the "glazes" that followed, building the layers to effect the shadows of face and clothing lit by moonlight, leaving the white of the paper to stand in for the brightest value. I chose to keep him in shades of gray because: a) the moon's light sucks a lot of color right out of a subject, and b) most of us know him from the black and white, silent film from 1922.
When all was settled and dry, I used a damp brush to remove paint for the highlights of the stone wall and the wood around the window's panes.
*The black pigments are considerably darker than this photo reflects. Getting a lot of "bounce" even in lowest light when I photograph.
"Nosferatu in the Window" is an approximately 8 x 10" image on 9 x 12" Arches fine grain, cold pressed, 140" watercolor paper.