More Process Behind Session 24: Beetlejuice

Part one of the process can be read here. 

This poster needed to be done quicker than usual as the boys and I were nearing our gallery reception.  Sadly, not every poster can be as detailed as the Daytona album art one.  Also, some of our regulars were wondering if we were retiring after our one year anniversary.  This event needed to be posted, and fast.

First, I drew from the Beetlejuice cartoon model sheets to familiarize myself with the characters.     Inspired by classical, contrapposto life drawing poses, I drew thumbnails of Beetlejuice as an art model and Lydia Deetz as an art student.  Although we don't do classical poses at Toons On Tap... ever... I knew a classical pose on the poster would read as a life drawing class.  

"Draw me like your French girls, babe."

On animation paper, I roughed out their poses.  

As Jeremy would be the one doing clean up, I asked him to critique the drawings.  His biggest suggestions were to improve the weak construction on Beetlejuice's head, and change the size relation of the two characters.  After fixing the drawings, I cleaned them up in pencil on a new sheet of animation paper.  

Next, I scanned the line drawings and cleaned them up in ToonBoom Animate.  After exporting the drawings, I traced the lines in Illustrator and imported them as vector graphics into Photoshop for Jeremy to colour.  Why it takes me three programs to do line art I don't even know.

Referencing the model sheets and screen caps of the show, Jeremy coloured the art.  Also, he gave Lydia three sketchbooks and stood Beetlejuice on a platform.  Moreover, he caught my mistake of drawing Lydia without any shoes!  After adding the text to the poster, we had enough to start a Facebook event page and cease the fears of our retirement.

For print promotion, however, this poster looked pretty lazy.  I painted in a purple blue background and added our Facebook page within a beetle shape.  Of everything in the poster, the beetle is my favourite.

When Charlie Bonifacio confirmed as our special guest artist, we rearranged the text to include him.  Alas, the beetle had to go, but as this poster was mainly for web promotion, it wasn't crucial.  

As for next session...

More to come