Redd Skull Comics ad

I'm going to start working on the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo program in the next few days and I thought I would take care of an ad for Redd Skull comics (which I was going to have to do before the program went to publication anyway). When I asked the owner if there was anything he had in mind for his ad he said "whatever" - he had a cold that day so I cut him some slack. By the way, I want to mention that Redd Skull is the best shop in town in my opinion, and I'm not just saying that because I did the ad. Go to Redd Skull.

Anyway, with that creative direction firmly planted in my mind I decided to look up some images of the character Red Skull and see what I could do. I found a concept illustration for the movie that I really liked and I modified it (hopefully I modified it enough), it's a fairly standard hero/villain pose so hopefully people don't think to poorly of me. I sketched out a version of Red Skull's head that I liked, and I put it all together basing it on an old propaganda poster that I really like…this post makes me sound extremely derivative but really I'm not. Anyway, I pieced it all together, threw it all into Photoshop and began playing with my brushes (not a euphemism).

I was very happy with how it turned out. The store owner was also very happy, the only things he asked was that I add a monocle, because his logo has one to differentiate it from the Marvel character, add the Captain America shield in place of the stars I have in the text (I didn't like it, that's why this version is the way it is - the shields were tooooooo much), and lastly he wanted his booth number for the upcoming Expo put on the ad (Booth 615 if you go to the show, he has a lot of amazing stuff).

So this is it.