Super Punch - Kick-Ass Contest: Hit Girl

John Straun ran a contest some time ago on his site Super Punch and all I can say is - this is why I need to practice on my illustrations.

I would have to say that John's contests have inspired me to break out of the rut I was in creatively. I'm one of those types who needed a reason to do something (it's a lame excuse but it's the only one I have). So whenever he would have a contest (and this started over a year ago when he had a nose art competition) I would enter, not because I wanted to win, but because it was fun to do.

To tell the truth I forgot how much fun it is to just pick up a pencil and draw. For the most part, when I do something for John's contests, I like to use traditional methods (watercolour, pencil, etc). Although I did go digital for the Knight of Wands piece I did for his Tarot Card project but that was because I wanted to create something that looked like an airport information card.

The Calgary Cinematheque - Metropolis

Okay, when I first got the call from the Calgary Cinematheque that they would like me to help out, I was given a brief list over the phone of the upcoming movies. The third film on the list was Metropolis - complete and uncut, and as the rest of the list was being read all I could think about was the line from Jerry Maguire when Renée Zellweger says "you had me at hello".

A tough movie to do a poster for, in my opinion, because there have already been some amazing, iconic posters created. I wanted to do right by this film. I worked on a few graphic treatments that looked a little design-ee and then I thought that what I would really like to see is something like what Ludwig Hohlwein might have done. I also wanted to homage to the original poster with the rays of light behind the false Maria. So there you have it. I really need to bust out my paints and practice.

The film is being shown on November 18th at the Uptown in Calgary. It will have live musical accompaniment  by the world famous Alloy Orchestra, and it has been fully restored with scenes that have long been thought lost. 

Below are some of the early poster drafts I did too.

The Calgary Cinematheque - Ikiru

This was a movie I had never seen before. I picked up the Criterion Collection dvd to watch so that I would get a sense of what it was about. All I can say is WOW. Crushing bureaucracy and beneath it all a little hope. On top of getting to design posters I am being exposed to films I have either not seen or, not seen in a while.

Here is Roger Ebert's review of the film.

By the way, if you have ever worked for government, there is a scene at the beginning that made me laugh out loud (I don't know if that was the intent, probably not, but I thought it was funny anyway) in which a group of women are trying to get a park built and they get told, and I am paraphrasing here, "not my department. That scene is as true today as it was in 1952.

The Calgary Cinematheque - Easy Rider

Up next for the Cinematheque was Easy Rider.

I wanted to create a different look for this poster than what had been created in the past. Usually the artwork focused on the road, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda or Jack Nicholson. I wanted to focus on the symbol of their freedom, the bike, and in particular, Captain America's bike. It has such an iconic shape to it that I thought those who know and appreciate the film would hone in on it. And aside from the black and gray bits I wanted to keep the overall look very red, white and blue.

The Calgary Cinematheque - Rashomon

This year, on top of volunteering for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo,  I decided to volunteer for the Calgary Cinematheque. I have always wanted to design film posters and the Cinematheque runs classic films at local theatres. So when I contacted them they were willing to give me a shot.

My hope is to create a poster that I, or someone like me, would rip off of a construction site wall and put in a place of honor in my own office.

First up: Rashomon. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I think what I need to do though is grab my paints and practice illustrating again because I'm too used to trying to create things in the computer and I really wanted this to look like an old 50's era painted poster. I think that compositionally I captured that feel but I need to work on it.

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo continued

Here's the ad I mentioned in my previous post. I never claimed to be a copy writer but I kind of liked the headline and sub head that I came up with. Simple and directed at a specific group. We wanted to make Malcolm McDowell the focus on this ad because Leonard Nimoy had been getting most of the attention for the show and we just wanted Alex DeLarge to have his turn.

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo

I volunteered to help out with some of the design elements for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this year, it was through the Expo (thanks Kandrix) that I was given the honor of working with the town of Vulcan (thanks Dayna) on the Welcome Home project for Leonard Nimoy.

With the Expo I got to work on the program, develop badges, T-shirts, some advertising components and some of the booth materials. I also developed some propaganda posters that didn't see the light of day aside from my blog here.

It was afantastic event that allowed me to meet some very cool people that I have idolized since I was a kid. Leonard Nimoy was fantastic (I still remember tracing, then drawing freehand the image of Spock off of his "Leonard Nimoy Presents: Mr. Spock's Music From Space" album), Billie Dee Williams was pretty cool (he wrote a whole bunch of stuff on the box of my nephews Lando Mighty Mugg, and he signed my Empire Strikes Back poster). But in my book Malcolm McDowell is the coolest guy on the planet, he signed my Clockwork Orange and Time After Time posters and my Stanley Kubrick Archives book and my daughter and I got to have a nice, but brief, conversation with him (my daughter hasn't seen Clockwork but she has seen, and liked, Time After Time).

Iron Man (the first one)

I can't believe I never uploaded this poster I did a while back. This was before the first Iron Man movie came out (which I liked better than Iron Man 2). The type is something I played with in Photoshop and the background is made up of about 5 stock images.

I was, and am, pretty happy with the end result. I wanted to show the original image I grabbed off of Allmoviephotos.com (the photo is by Jamie Bivers) so you can see I played with the colours quite a bit to make him really shiny. I have another one that features big floating heads but I'm not too happy with it so I let it sit out this dance.

Anyway, it's an oldie but a goodie.

Final Spock Welcome Home Image

When Leonard Nimoy came to Vulcan in April I was asked to come up with an image that would appear on T-shirts and posters. I originally did a rough Shepard Fairey imitation which I was happy with (see "Welcome Home, Spock" post) but it was nixed. So I did my Andy Warhol impression and come up with the final.

Here are some of the other attempts as well as my final Shepard Fairey homage which I made into a T-shirt for myself (and I got quite a few compliments, especially regarding the stardate).

Old Dutch/Fast and Furious promo

I was given the opportunity to work on a cross promo a while back for Old Dutch Potato Chips and the movie Fast and Furious.

It was a lot of fun and could have been even more so. My original idea (I guess original is debatable) was to create character specific bags (kind of a collect them/trade them sort of thing). Five flavours, one for each actor and a fifth bag for either the car or the final key art (I thought the car would be pretty cool since it was featured so prominently). This idea met with some favourable response from the powers that be, but when it came down to the wire it was decided to tie in only to the key art for the film (created by Concept Arts).

I understood and I was looking forward to getting the full size, layered artwork for the poster but the only thing provided was the key art for the CD, and it was the flat file to boot.

So even with those challenges I think the end result worked out quite well. They were eye catching in the stores and it was one of the more popular promotions that Old Dutch ran (maybe the film had something to do with it too).