Super Punch: X-Men First Class Art Contest

Super Punch has a design a better poster Art Contest for the upcoming X-Men movie and I decided to participate and…Ta-da! This is my entry.

You would not believe how much fun I had doing this. I always have fun participating in John's contests – and no, it's not because there are 4, count em 4, Last Exit to Nowhere shirts on the line (my fave shirt is Nostromo, with my Nexus 6 a very close second). I do it for the challenge and for the fun of it all.

Okay, this may sound like a tangent but hear me out, let me start by telling you how awesome I think my daughter is. She will sit at her computer and open up a program and play. She doesn't ask how do you do this, or that. She. Just. Plays. And she makes some amazing and creative stuff.Where as I tend to be the type who ponders about stuff and I try to find a book that will help me/guide me/show me/inspire me…whatever. So I decided to just see what happens when I open up photoshop, trust my instincts and play – now I am hooked.

Now on to the poster. Most of the current available imagery for this movie is pretty bland, you might find a nice shot of the helmet, you might find a nice shot of the actor but usually not the same shot. So I sketched out several ideas based on the available imagery, then I found an okay shot of Michael Fassbender (an awesome and versatile actor by the way) and I found a nice shot of the Magneto helmet, merged them together and then, as I said before, I just played. So this poster ties into my love of painted posters and my desire to keep things simple, and yeah it's a big head but I like to think I did it with style. I could have probably done more with the title treatment but for me this was about painting and playing.

The one thing I added was a  cooler tag line. I understand where the powers that be are going with the whole "before they were this, they were that" approach, but right in the trailer is this cool line where Erik/Magneto says "Peace was never an option". I think that adds a little menace to the big head shot.

So there you go.