The Making of a Poster

When my friends Michael and Chy Shaudis told me they were going to start a Zombie Festival called Tacoma Zombpocalypse, I was thrilled. And I immediately signed up to have a table at the event. I first met Michael and Chy when Michael became a member of The CLAW. It was only natural then that Michael would call upon some of the talent at hand to do a series of posters for the event. Mark Brill did the first poster.

 

I first saw his poster at Crypticon where Mark Brill and I were sharing a table. The Shaudis's were also there sharing a bit of table space with Poison Apple. Now it was my turn to create a poster. Mark Brill already used the Tacoma Dome as a landmark and I didn't want to repeat that. I did want to play off the "Zombie Hunter" character he created. The next landmark that came to mind was the neglected Old City Hall Clock Tower. I remembered that James Stowe, another member of The CLAW, submitted a poster design to the Grand Theater back in 2008.

 

I always thought it should've been the winning entry. I was bummed when it wasn't used. Stowe is a great guy. A couple of months ago at a CLAW drawing session we all pulled sounds out of a hat and had to draw a picture which used that sound. The sound I drew was "Tchakka!" I drew Stowe cocking a shotgun.

Stowe thought it was great. So I decided to pay an homage to both Stowe's art and the man himself but using both of these elements in my final poster design.

And that my dear friends is the story of the making of this poster. Limited signed editions of this poster without the copy will be available in the near future. I will let you know when they come off the presses.

The Return of Stickman #1312

Here is the news story that inspired today's strip. I made up the bit about the wallet.

You might recall that I did the poster for the Ellensburg Film Festival. Well, they liked the poster so much that we decided to use elements from it for passes, tickets, and the like. You can see those designs on their festivals Facebook page. I finally got part of their movie list and am drawing up some reviews for shorts as well as full length features. I'm trying to decide whether or not to go with a single panel, or a three panel for my reviews of the shorts. Your thoughts?

Selling Books at Waysgoose

Instead of drawing a movie review this weekend I was selling books at Wayzgoose. Held at King's Books in Tacoma, Wayzgoose is a printing celebration. The CLAW was invited to one of the teams creating large steamroller posters. I'm pretty please with the design of the poster, done by me and James Stowe. I had a great time at the event and sold more merchandise than I did last year too.

The Return of Stickman #1185 and Roller Derby Poster

One of my projects this week was finishing up on a Roller Derby Poster for a big match up between two leagues. My good friend James Stowe has been drawing posters for the Dockyard Derby Dames for a while and got me curious about doing one. The only direction I received for this poster was, "Just make sure it has a rollerskate on it and we'll be happy. So I knew I was going to be drawing a lot of rollerskates. As I was doing research I saw a referee in the background of a photo. I thought to myself, "The poor refs, they get overlooked so often." Thus inspired I knew just what I wanted to draw.

Here is how it looks with the text and logos.

I did put the logos on their own layers and they might get moved, re-sized or deleted altogether before it goes to press. Anyway, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

The Return of Stickman #1121

I sold more books than I did posters at the comicon. But I'm happy that I did bring along the posters as their income took care of parking and meals. Actually, my friend Joe Manfredini took care of meals and was kind enough board me while I was in Seattle. Huh, I know he got a book and a shirt for his wonderful wife Liz, but did he get a poster too?

Ukulele Phil and the Hula Kids

About a year ago I created a logo for Ukulele Phil and the Hula Kids. The logo consisted of three elements, each a figure. I created the figures so the elements could be used together or separated and moved around. The tiki head, ukulele and such. Phil has been taking advantage of this as he puts together swag and posters. He send me this, his most recent poster.

Christmas Poster Art

Here is a poster I just finished for the SPGA/Seattle Chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild. I drew all the people separately, then layered them together in Photoshop. My plan is to reuse this art. Next time, I’ll remove some of the larger text, shift the people around, get rid of the Guild logo, and bingo! I’ll have Christmas card art ready to go.