The 1955 movie Guys and Dolls is a musical about gamblers Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson and their escapades in finding love and living a straight and narrow life while betting and gambling their way through it all.
I drew some sketches as I watched the movie to help ideate what my cityscape painting was going to be themed, realizing that the tailored big suits of the male gamblers could be simplified into representational board game pieces. This was the impetus for the Guys and Dolls board-game-themed illustration.
My ideations featured different spins on the same central idea, mixing the gambling nightlife of 50's NYC with the aesthetics of retro board games from around that time. The visual juxtaposition of gambling marketed towards children got a laugh out of me.
