Apples, and Bats and Vampires, Oh My! Spooky Illustrations 2026 Begins
Welcome back, friends and welcome to Spooky Season. Spooky Season has officially kicked off and I couldn't be more excited or terrified. lol. I'm also really excited and happy to share the first of this year's edition of Spooky Illustration Series. I will admit that, because I am working on so many things at the moment and trying to juggle them all, I decided to scale back Spooky Illustrations this years some. Instead of doing an illustration per week, I will be just doing one per month. I know this may disappoint some of you, but I just don't see any other way around it.
Anyway... Spooky Season is here. I love this Season so much. I love Autumn so much as it kicks off Holiday Alley from now until the end of the year. It's such a magical time of year... Apple Picking, the Pumpkin Patch, Apple Cider, Candied Apples, Apple Pie, Apple Crisp, Apple Butter... I'm getting hungry now, lol. Candy Corn, Candy Corn Pumpkins, Making spooky costumes, decorating your house in spooky things, an appreciation for the Macabre, Making Tributes to past ancestors... There are SO MANY WAYS to participate and celebrate in Spooky Season. Take your pick. (Pun intended)
As many of you may know, I participated in Inktober a few years ago, and it almost killed me lol. Well almost... Which is appropriate for the season. It's such an intense and dedicated thing to participate in. I've done it twice and, to be honest, I think I'm "done" with that. I've done it and that's enough for me. It was such a grueling art challenge, it makes me NOT "shiver with antici......
.....pation" 😉
It made me miss the Good Ole Days of Illustration Friday... I know. I talk about I.F. ALL THE TIME and whine about its absence from this dark and horrible world we are now living in. However, I really did enjoy those art challenges. A week is a perfect amount of time to develop and complete an Illustration. So, this year (like last year), as Inktober is gearing up, I decided that I would do something a little different to participate. I decided I would do a monthly (just for this year) Spooky Season-themed illustration based on one of their daily prompts as if it were Illustration Friday. I would make an illustration, blog about it, and post it. I promise, I will get back to doing it weekly in 2027.
...I know. I know... promises. promises.
I made a discovery regarding Inktober last year. It's Inktober 52. A weekly drawing challenge that is year-round. I may participate in 2027. As for now, I reviewed their weekly prompt, reviewed 7 of the daily prompts for regular Inktober, and then chose one of those prompts to base an illustration on. Now, I know what you may be thinking... that's cheating... and maybe it is, a little, but it's not like I had anything in my head for any of the prompts as I was reviewing it, then picking the one that closely fit what I already had in mind... I didn't have ANYTHING in mind. I just picked the prompt that most appealed to me, and then I brainstormed illustration ideas for it.
Now, Spooky Season Illustrations 2026 is on... like Donkey Kong. I think I want to make this a regular annual thing. I am having a lot of fun with it.
The first prompt that I selected was APPLE, which I felt was the perfect choice for September since that is apple-picking month. And instantly I knew that I wanted to make this apple into a vampire... couldn't tell you exactly why. The idea just popped into my head and I thought, "Well, that would be fun." I know I have done other vampire related illustrations in the past, but I never drew an apple as a vampire, and, let's all be honest, it's fun to draw vampires. You can never have enough vampire drawings, that's what I say. I also thought, since we are always taking bites out of apples (whether it is bobbing for apples [a fun holiday party tradition] or just trying to keep the doctor away) what if an apple bit back?
While we are on the topic of apples, I do want to share a lament. My friends and I were planning to go apple picking this past September (something that has become one of my favorite seasonal northern traditions as a converted-northerner). However the weekend we chose to go was rained out by a surprise Nor'easter (one of my not so favorite northern realities). We were all sad and mopey and disappointed, but hopefully maybe we can go next year without weather hinderance. Fingers crossed.
I have done a few Spooky things this October, so far, but I will share that with October's Spooky Illustration. One thing I will share, even though this was done outside of Spooky Season, I went with a friend to see The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway. It was fantastic and everything you could imagine it being. Luke Evans was a Powerhouse as Frank-N-Furter and I LOVED Rachel Dratch as the Narrator. The whole production was so nostalgic and eerie and spooky and just the perfect vibe for Spooky Season (even though it wasn't spooky season when I went) Even the entirety of Studio 54 was decorated to the 9's for this production. Green and red all over. I was very impressed. I enjoyed it so much.
Back to apples and vampires... well actually lets have a little talk about vampires. Americans are just fascinated and obsessed with vampires. The shadowy creature has touched our culture in so many ways and in so many incarnations: Dark Shadows, The Munsters, True Blood, Twilight, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Van Helsing, What We Do in the Shadows, Vampire in Brooklyn, Dracula Dead and Loving It, Count Chocula... and many many many more. But where did this obsession begin? Was it with Bram Stoker's amazingly thrilling novel Dracula that was first published in 1897? Where does this creature and it's lore originate from?
The myth of the vampire did not emerge from a single source, but rather evolved from a patchwork of ancient folklore and spiritual anxieties spanning thousands of years. Long before Bram Stoker popularized the caped aristocrat, early civilizations used blood-drinking monsters to explain the unexplainable. In ancient Mesopotamia, texts warned of the Lamashtu, a demonic entity that consumed the blood of infants, while Greek mythology featured the Lamia and Empusa, shapeshifting monsters that seductively lured victims to drain their life force. These early myths shared a common thread: they personified the terrifying, unseen forces behind sudden illness, infant mortality, and the unpredictable nature of death.
The specific "vampire" archetype we recognize today crystallized during the vampire hysteria of the 18th century in Eastern Europe. Rural communities in regions like Serbia, Romania, and Hungary, gripped by lack of scientific knowledge, looked to the supernatural to explain plagues and premature deaths. When bodies were exhumed to find signs of witchcraft, villagers mistook natural decomposition—such as bloating, receding gums that made teeth look longer, and blood trickling from the mouth—as evidence of the undead returning to feast. High-profile, documented cases like those of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole in Serbia forced Western European scholars and theologians to officially investigate, inadvertently launching the vampire into mainstream Western consciousness.
As the myth transitioned from folklore to 19th-century Gothic literature, the creature underwent a radical transformation from a bloated, putrid peasant to a charismatic aristocrat. John Polidori’s 1819 novella The Vampyre introduced Lord Ruthven, an elite predator who used charm to infiltrate high society, a concept later perfected by Bram Stoker in 1897 with Dracula. By merging Eastern European folklore with Victorian anxieties about sexuality, disease, and foreign invasion, literature transformed the vampire into a complex psychological symbol. No longer just a mindless monster, the creature became an alluring antagonist that reflected the hidden desires and fears of the times.
Centuries later, human fascination with vampires remains unwavering because the creature serves as a metaphor for the human condition. At its core, the vampire embodies our deepest existential anxieties: the terror of death and our desperate craving for immortality. While other monsters like zombies represent mindless decay, the vampire retains its intellect, memories, and identity forever. This eternal youth, however, comes with a steep cost. It forces audiences to grapple with the philosophical weight of loneliness, the burden of outliving loved ones, and the moral corruption required to survive.
The vampire endures because it allows society to safely explore forbidden desires and social deviance. The act of biting is inherently intimate, blending violence with a dark, intoxicating sensuality that challenges conventional morality. In the Victorian era, the vampire represented repressed sexuality and the fear of STD outbreaks; in modern storytelling, like Interview with the Vampire or Twilight, the creature has been recontextualized to explore themes of isolation, addiction, and the struggle to belong. Twilight specifically explores the struggles with sexual abstinence and the religious pressure to "wait for marriage." Because the vampire can be constantly redesigned to reflect the changing cultural and sexual anxieties of any generation, it remains one of humanity's most resilient and hauntingly attractive cultural icons. As long as there is taboo in human society, there will always be a place for the vampire to lay their coffin.
Let's talk a little about Count Drac-Gala (thanks , Drew). I wanted my little apple vampire to be as cliché a vampire as possible. I reached back as far as the Golden Age of Hollywood to pick reference for this little guy. Since his aesthetic was going to appear more simplified in style, i wanted to really add some details that "screamed" Dracula. The outfit is mostly from a mixture of different vampire costumes I reference/sourced. However, I wanted his cape to reflect the wings of a bat, the infamous creature that vampires can shape shift into. His fangs and mouth are made from a literal "bite" out of the apple. You can see the core that lies inside the mouth. I let the inside of Jim Henson's Muppets play a part in shaping what that core would look like. I wanted it to look like a core and simultaneously look like the inside of a Muppets mouth, which I think is very "cute" (which leans into the style choice Ill mention in just a minute). Th leaf lies down perfectly in the center of his head and echoes the hair style of Bela Lugosi, whom played Dracula in the 1931 cult classic Hollywood hit of the same name. I also integrated coffins and a skull in the background. The only thing I lament, in retrospect, is that I didn't give him a broach with either a spider or something else conceptual in nature.
I also wanted to dive back into the wonderful illustrative and "cute" world of Kawaii, which literally translates to "cute, adorable or loveable". Some of you may remember my Candied Onion from last year was also done in the Kawaii style. For those of you who don't know what this is or are unfamiliar with the popular cultural phenomenon in Japan, Kawaii encompasses a broad "cuteness culture" that can be seen everywhere now even though it's origins are rooted in Japan. Its aesthetic is often defined by characters with large eyes, small bodies, and pastel colors. In the illustration world, there is an associated term known as Chibi. Chibi is an illustration style used for characters that have large heads and small bodies, which creates a "cute" child-like appearance. I really wanted to incorporate this aesthetic into my illustration.
This really wraps up what I wanted to talk about with this illustration. I hope you all enjoy the "cuteness" and "spookiness" as much as I have. This illustration was really really fun to work on. I love this season! I hope you all go out and do something really fun and really spooky this weekend. Maybe bob for apples or find a great scary movie or novel to sink your fangs into. I plan to celebrate with a little bit of "fanged" (spiked) mulled apple cider that I mulled yesterday. Yum!!!!
Until we meet again in the shadows, I leave you with a tune from one of my favorite artists, Say Hi. Say Hi wrote 2 records about vampires. Both are great and fun. This tune is off of the 2006 album, Impeccable Blahs... highly recommend a listen.
Until next time, friends,
Keep dreaming, keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing, and most important of all, keep making art.
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