Wild Bill Shootout

Just finished this one yesterday! This is an illustration for an upcoming ebook called "Showdowns, Shootouts and Rivalries" by . The scene is of Wild Bill Hickock's shooting at the hands of "Broken Nose Jack" McCall in 1876. Text explaining more in detail will be placed later on the left-hand side of this picture (hence the blank area) .

This was all painted using Photoshop and Manga Studio, using photo reference. There are no photos of the shooting, of course, and the actual saloon it happened in burned down without any pictures taken as well (Nuttal and Mann's Saloon Number 10 in Deadwood) . Plus, there is only one known picture of McCall, and it's an old, grainy daguerreotype (I believe it is a daguerreotype) of his top half, in more formal clothing. So his outfit is more or less guesswork. However, I kept it simple. And the saloon was a guess as well, though the reference I used was of similar buildings from the area. The red lamps are for the dramatic lighting effects, and though there's no evidence that there were red lamps in Saloon Number 10, they were certainly used in other such places . Even the wallpaper design is of the period. John's gun would probably not be exactly the one he would have used, but I couldn't find out what his model/make was, so I went with a generic six-shooter.

Anyway, this was fun to do! Research is part of the enjoyment I get from these projects ^__^

EDIT: Check out the promo here on Youtube [link] !