LX-pansion
I have many loves in this world.
Two of them are freely apparent on this website in various ways. I expressed my love for graphic novel Watchmen, both in art and in writing. I’ve expressed my love for Ghostbusters… to anyone who’ll listen, essentially, and it’s appeared in my art.
And now the world is sharing in my love.
With the Watchmen film rounding the corner, and the Ghostbusters video game coming in 2009 (and a possibly Ghostbusters III being murmured about) a lot of the geek scene is a buzz with anticipation, excitement and happiness.
Me too.
This in a way, has inspired me to push forward and create companion parts to come of the art I’ve created over the last year, as I’ve long wanted to do since making the originals.
First, Ghostbusters II.
I had always wanted to do more in terms of quotes from these movies, which I really took to when I was younger. I was, and still am, quite frightened at the prospect of meta-physical, spiritual entities and whatnot… and yet, after watching these movies, I immediately wanted to be a Ghostbuster. And who didn’t? It was akin to my phobic-level fear of spiders, but I’d go swimming in a tank of tarantulas (shivered just typing that) if it meant I’d come out a Spider-Man.
I can’t make the sleek and swift animations that my peers can (although, maybe one day)… so rather than make kinetic typography excerpts, I’ve resigned to making posters with small doses of typography that embody some of my favorite quotes from this movie.
This one was actually more challenging to me than the original. With the “You Say Yes!” piece, the moment the words “quote from a movie” left Mrs. Horne’s mouth, I knew exactly what and how I intended to complete my project.
For the second, I wanted it to tie closely to it’s original concept, and make it evident that it was part of a series, but not entirely cookie cut the idea. Trying to find that balance, and trying to relate 3 voices instead of one booming one.
Composition, balance, scale, unity and color- I hope have afforded me that sense of cohesion.
I like it. But I’m biased. :p
And now, Watchmen—
I always wanted to do another one of these. It’s not fair to the Watchmen to just do Rorschach, much as I love him. The first thing that came to mind was preservation of the gradient and layout, and a color- blue. Obviously, had to be Dr. Manhattan.
Just as I had the first piece, I opened up my copy of Watchmen, found an applicable frame, and got to a-scannin’. I had originally planned to have Manhattan’s emblem be the main focus piece, but that didn’t seem expressive of the character enough. Rorschach’s mask (or his face, if you will) clearly defined his character visually, even if it was just the pattern— I wanted something that painted a portrait of the character of Dr. Manhattan as well.
With a lack of eyebrows, and a distant stoicism that is almost law, Dr. Manhattan’s eyes need to be expressive of what little emotion he does display. I wanted a flourish similar to the distorted masks in the Rorschach piece, but Manhattan’s own person doesn’t have a lot to work with… unless I wanted to incorporate his banana-hammock in some manner. I used the emblems in a layout that was a little more structured and less haywire, and instead of costume colors (as Dr. Manhattan doesn’t have one) I opted to use colors from a setting that is very integral to Dr. Manhattan’s story in Watchmen, and has the added benefit of being fairly complementary to the blue that pervades the layout.
Here are both new pieces, alongside their original companions.
They Be Slow!
Dr. Manhattan – Intelligent Accident
So, there’s that. Let me know what you think!!
As for what’s next… Still got the Film Festival I want to bring up to the site. Soon, I hope! Aside from that, I’m still frightened of the idea of putting my ideas out there without a piece to go witht he story, and someone jacking my concepts, so… maybe I’ll just actually make something instead. (As if I didn’t have enough to do as is.)
Time will tell.
~LX had an epiphany… the Watchmen film opens 03/06/09… Three, Six, Nine, TWELVE (Minutes To Midnight). Oh, I see what you did there! No wonder Fox wanted to keep the date so badly. CLEVER FOX! This round goes to you, but I’ve got my eye on you… >_>
