Posterized

For this assignment, I couldn't help myself-the idea of making an imaginary band poster made me so giddy I decided to do so for both posters. This was probably because creating 2-D art for musical artists is kind of sort of a small dream of mine, and this project allowed me to pretend I was in that normally unattainable position. To make up for this blatant rule violation, the result of my relentless addiction, I offer an extra (yes, extra!) poster. Please accept this third piece-my free gift to you-as compensation for falling off the wagon. Thank you.

Naturally, the band name I chose eludes to my musical heroes, who I had the honor of meeting recently (see previous post), Foals. I went with "Quadrupeds"-four-legged animal, plural, sans the cliche "The" before it equals an homage to a great indie/electro-funk band without directly ripping them off. The idea is that Quadrupeds is a three piece band and each of us (Ian Chachere, Jenny Kladzyk, and myself-totally wish this was reality) got to steal the spotlight for each poster.

I used the iconic imagery of a more famous hero of mine, Ziggy Stardust himself-the great David Bowie, to catch people's attention. I figured mimicking the cover of his "Heroes" album was an appropriate choice for the poster I'm depicted in. Jenny's picture was based off a Bowie tour poster that utilizes five flat colors and circle shapes, and Ian of course donned the famous lightning bolt across his mug.

These images differ from any I've done before because each poster required a photo shoot of sorts. Each modded photo required a model, specific location, specific pose and, the most difficult and time consuming aspect, complex make-up. All of the "war paint", as my uncle calls it, was done by yours truly. That part took a while, but was fun and something I had total control over. That's why the hardest shot to get wasn't of my friends and their intense make-up, but my own shot. I had no control over the camera angle or positioning of myself to match the unmatchable Bowie pose. We had to take five times more pictures for that poster than the other two to finally achieve a semi-correct pose. A photoshop tool I used more intensely than in any of my previous images in this class was the pen tool for Jenny's (third) poster. I carefully cut around sections of her photo to capture all the meticulous details in her face and especially her hair. Complicated selections like that are fun, but tedious. It took so long that I never got a chance to add text to the silly thing!

I plan on finishing up the third poster soon and in the mean time hope our next assignment is equally as fun and challenging!