Poster project: The Deady mantis

 

I watched this old sci-fi film this week and it was much better than I remembered so I decided to add it to my little movie poster project. I painted the mantis in Krita. Luckily, that was my plan, as my Huion tablet was all over the screen in Affinity and only less so in Krita. Huion has not updated the driver in years and the image started at 24x36" so it was LARGE. I had to cut the size in half to get decent performance on my 10 i9 processer iMac.  Irritating but I did it anyway. I used shots from the film and references of real praying mantis for pose. 

Poster Illustration: Beast from 20 000 Fathoms

 I started this a LONG time ago. I spent a moment here and there making the film title and choosing the look for the monster. I am a big Harryhausen fan and this is one of my favourite films of his. I did the title in Affinity Designer, but the rest in Krita. Krita was running slower me this project, not sure why maybe the next update will help that. Like my other posters I am sort of using some ideas from the original posters, like the logos but simplifying the image overall for a cleaner look. The scales and bumps were a challenge and I decided to keep the feet a little clunky looking like the stop motion model they are based on. I toyed with the idea of doing it black and White but decided colour was too much fun. 

Poster Illustration: Mothra

 Mothra was maybe my least favourite of the giant monsters as a kid but this was fun to paint. For some reason I drew her on a HUGE canvas, like 60 inches wide and then inserted her in another project to add the graphics and words. It's a different format than all my other monster posters but so what? I originally was going to crop out most of the wings she could be in a close up on a vertical canvas but it seemed a waste of all the work I did. 

Poster: Gamera

Yes Gamera, the giant flying turtle and friend of all children. My mom's favourite giant monster so I had to do it. 

I used my "giant monster style" I didn't know I had. Simple background, silhouette with white ink lines to add details with hints of colour. I really like drawing white on black. I used to do scratch boards in secondary school and every now and then and I just like the look of it. 

Poster: King Kong

 I love the original King Kong, it was my Aunt Helen's favourite movie. She saw it many times when it was released. The looks of the creatures and the jungle scenes are just amazing and Kong is one of the few effects that really reads as a real character even today. 

This went through something like 30 iterations before I stopped changing things. Should Fay Ray be on the top of the Empire State? Should I draw the planes coming for Kong? At first it was to be just a long shot of the Empire State with kong seen tiny at the top and the planes arriving.  Finally after going though the film a few times I saw some interesting shots I had not seen used before and decided a mostly silhouetted Kong hanging off the building inspired by the screenshots and Willis O'Brian's preproduction drawings with an art deco design inspired by the opening credits might be best. 

The logo was interesting. It looks normal enough watching the film but if you start to recreate it it's sort of Escher-like in its construction. The letters looked carved but actually could never exist in the real world. I drew a simplified version of the tower and kept Kong mostly black with white highlights and some subtle dark greys to fill in details around his face. I looked at how the stop motion puppet was constructed to draw the feet and hands. 

There were a bunch of RKO logos in the 30s and I picked one that looked the most interesting with the other deco details. I added grain to the background elements so it would have that airbrushed from the period but excluded Kong and the titles so they would be super clear and stand out more. All things considered I am happy with this as it looks like what I was going for and combined my drawing and design skills in equal measure. I think so, anyway. I struggled with where to to put the title as it was on the bottom and small for most of the process and I did not want to cover his upper hand but it fits more on the top and larger and gives it more a feel of a poster from the time the film was released. 

A good start for 2021!

Poster: Monster Zero

Otherwise known as King Ghidorah. I had a nice long chat with my my friend Mike today about art and other things and I was inspired enough to do another giant monster poster.I had been planning this for a few days so it didn't just happen out of nowhere, but my ideas came together and I thought I should strike while I was in the mood to create something. 

The title took longer than I thought. I tried it in 3D but there were all sorts of problems getting the textures right. (I wanted it to be made of rock for some reason.) In the end I went with just using Affinity Designer and adding more subtle  effects to the text.  *EDIT: I could not help myself and did more work on the 3D titles and solved the problems I was having.)

I struggled a bit with the lightning rays... should i do them or not. They seemed over the top so in they went. I used the sort of style I did for Godzilla but with three heads, two tails and wings Ghidoraj was much more dynamic. Again I went through movies to find references but I also discovered some of the toy figures and studio publicity photos had ideas I could mix and match. 

This looks like comic book cover to me but I think it makes a good poster as well.