New York Poster – DONE!

Done and done. Yes, the New York poster is complete. I’m going to let it sit over night and look at it again tomorrow…sometimes, I get last minute ideas or want to make last minute changes. I’m not expecting it, but it is late and I’m not ready to do all of my “promotion” yet. For now, check out the manhole cover I decided to use as my signature…the final touch.

New York Poster – Foreground

Since I just finished the basketball court last week, I decided to stay in the foreground. Actually, I added Eddie Murphy from Coming to America getting his wallet stolen, but I decided to focus on just this one section. Even though I have a house party, I wanted to pay homage to the parties they would have in parks by hooking up turntables to street lights. You’ll notice the wires coming out of the pole in the back. The rappers on the left are loosely based on The Fantastic Five. While they do share some resemblance, I also wanted to make mention of the five boroughs of New York City. The DJ credited with inventing the scratch, Grandwizard Theodore, is working the turntables. I hope people don’t think it is a guy named Scratch. And the man on the mic…Nick the Lounge Singer…a character made popular by Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live. I had been light on SNL characters recently.

The taxi a little further back was interesting. While I had initially drawn the taxi very boxy, I did not want to add the normal  highlights I use for other objects because I felt it would look too boxy. So, I made use of some gradients around the edges to make it a little softer. Even though the illustration is not heavy on gradients, I think I made the right choice. I know now that I will have to employ the same technique on the other cars I will be putting on this illustration. And to add further to the New York City in the 70′s theme, I have Robert Deniro from Taxi Driver having an argument with Louie De Palma from Taxi. Obvious? Probably, but it adds a lot…

New York Poster – Basketball Court

Progress continues to be made! I just completed the basketball court portion of the poster. Since one of my themes for this poster is summer in the city, I knew I needed to add some outdoor sports and basketball is truly an urban sport. I decided to dirty up the court a little by putting cracks in the pavement and backboard. I feel like every city basketball court is never perfect. When I originally drew the sketch for the court, I had more players. Then, I drew a more detailed sketch, but made a mistake…the players were way too big in comparison with the rest of the illustration. So, I shrunk them down, and for now, I’m sticking with this configuration. I still feel like there is some empty space I can play with on the left or behind the fence, but I want to see how everything else turns out.

In terms of the details of this illustration, I’m trying to work smarter. I wanted to make sure I used high socks with stripes, but they take some time to look just right. When I completed the first pair, I just copied and pasted them on to the next player and made adjustments accordingly. I’d probably still be working on it if I didn’t figure that out. I’m pretty proud of the player I created in the red, white, and blue at the top. I decided to give him some extra chest and armpit hair. At first, I randomly assigned numbers to the players, but I decided to change it to 2, 1, and 2 to reference the Manhattan area code. (I did that after posting this picture.) Finally, the guy sitting down is my reference to Ghostbusters. I was wary of adding Slimer or Bill Muray in full Ghostbusters gear, so I settled on what you see above. That was the smart move.