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Making Posters
Well, I officially have a Blog... and will try to make it interesting in the hopes that people might actually return once in awhile to my site in order to see what's new etc. It seems with sites like Facebook, nobody really needs their own Blog or website anymore... ah well...
This past Spring I was hired by a promoter (my buddy Zak) to create two posters for two different Trans Am shows. One was in Edmonton, and the other in Calgary with Shout Out Out Out Out. I wanted to make the posters so they would be related even though the shows were in two seperate cities. So after some deliberation, I chose a Circus theme and I did something I don't normally do - I documented my progress at certain stages. (Now, that I am turning these progress images into a blog, I wish I had taken more photos/image shots along the way).
Assuming that anyone finds this sort of thing interesting, here's a look at my process:
1. First I taped some 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper together and drew in pencil, outlining afterwards in ink. I used smaller paper so that I could remove the tape afterwards and scan each sheet into the computer (where I can then piece it all back together in Photoshop). The cat is named Pete. Sometimes he likes to lie around on my desk when I work. I enjoy his company as long as he doesn't start rolling around into my work area.
2. Once drawn, I clean up some of the ink lines with white out (if necessary) and thicken certain lines to create a variety in line quality.
3. Once in the computer I can save a lot of time cleaning up smudges and line mistakes. I adjust the levels to absolute black and white.
4. Next if I am not sure, I'll flip the image to see if anything stands out as too unbalanced or strange to the eye. This is easy enough to do with a mirror, but Photoshop is also easy enough. For the sake of this explanation I highlighted the areas (with red circles) that stood out to me right away. The cigar smoker's mouth being the biggest concern
5. So, using a tablet pen, I'll often fix any problems right there in the computer as opposed to drawing on paper and rescanning. Mouth less crooked, bunny straightened, Ball more round and fire breather's hand moved.
6. In order to colour, I flip the image back around. I tend to keep my colour choices as limited as possible and prefer to repeat colours often for balance. I'll usually color at first keeping the tones flat using a paint bucket . As you can tell, I started going into the muscle man with a second tone already to see how it might work. This is done freehand using the tablet pen and the Photoshop marquee tools.
7. Through the phases of colouring I tend to jump around a lot and rely on the computer to keep it fast and easy. It's all trial and error until I've covered every area of the image.Sometimes I'll colour the lines as well in order to have them stand out better (such as with the fire).
8. The colouring is often my favorite part of the whole process. I spent so many years using paint and markers to create artwork and found the effort so much harder. The computer makes everything so much easier since I can take risks knowing that Ctrl Z is always an option. Photoshop is more interesting to me than most video games... so I really do find it entertaining.
9. Now, to try and turn this into two posters, I had to break the image into two images. For this, I used the lasso tool in Photoshop and created a jagged edge. I should also mention that I measured before hand and had intended from the very beginning to split this image straight through the middle:
10. Next of course comes the text... Text (for me) is by far the biggest struggle when making a poster. Sometimes I make my own lettering free hand, other times (such as in this case) it is WA-A-A-AY easier to use existing fonts from the computer. I tend to spend hours moving letters around, trying to fit fonts and words into the poster artwork. Sometimes I think I'm being clever and other times I slap it in and send it off. These posters took me quite awhile to sort out the text and overall I was happy enough with the result. From start to finish, this was easily a 30 hour project.
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Dude!!! Awesome stuff! great site! I remember back when you were just drawing on the store windows...I need too sleeve up with some of your stuff!
Cool. I enjoyed reading about yr process. Looks like you might have the High Score on photoshop.
BTW: I will steal the mirror image trick. I use to do that with paintings, so why not in photoshop? Huzzah!
found you via gigposters.com
great blog and well very entertaining ;-)...
"Photoshop is more interesting to me than most video games..."
YEAH!!! same here...
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hey man...looks slick!
i like the clean interface and man...yer as anal-retentive with your process posts as you are with your artwork!
looking "pro" as always, congrats!
After all these years, I get to see how you do it. I didn't realize it took so long. Since High School I've been a long time fan. Take it easy man.
Shane
Tim - great article!
Glad to see you've got the shop working. Sheena and I will put our order in shortly.
O