Sunday, March 10, 2013

Making of a Toons On Tap Poster - Session 25: Cleopatra

To my co-organizers, beware.  Next session is going to be shiny.  I intend to hose you down with gold glitter until you sparkle like Liberace.  Of course, the real shining star of session 25 will be international burlesque artist Coco Framboise as the evening's model.  

Coco will be draped in an elegant, flowing costume as the ancient royal Cleopatra.  The poster, I determined, should shine like riches.

After the J.D. painting, I've been feeling more confident working with textured brushes in Photoshop.  Everything I'm doing ends up looking soft focus, but I like it.  I may need to convince Jeffrey to petroleum jelly up his camera lens, Penthouse style, when photographing Coco.

Originally, I wanted her in a symmetrical pose with hands clenched to the arm rests of a massive throne.  Then, I remembered I had seen that exact pose a few dozen times in the House of Cards promos scattered all over town.  Oops.  I love how a good ad burrows its way into my skull whether I notice it or not.

Through posing it out myself, I chose to elongate her seated pose with outstretched arms and crossed legs.  At first, I had her head tilted back to look in the direction of her arm.  With that haircut, however, I couldn't stop thinking of the impalement scene from Cannibal Holocaust.  I had to change it.

Fun with Liquify
I just discovered the pucker and bloat functions of the liquify tool.  Oh, the possibilities.

The final poster, for web
As with the last poster, I restricted myself to creating all the text with one typeface.  I looked back at an old poster (session four), and I had used four different gimmicky 70s fonts haphazardly on a platic-tree-green and vomit-yellow background.  (Why?)  And yet, I pray I'll be as embarrassed by this poster in a year as I was over that monster.  Whenever I cringe at my old stuff, I'm happy that I've since gotten better.

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