Recognize the Model?

For my final poster, "Walter Cronkite is Dead," I had to approach it a little differently. From the beginning this poster has been golden for me. The original sketch was good and pleasing to all and I really liked it; I had a really cool vision of this from the beginning. And, maybe, since the idea was a keeper from the start, I haven't felt a lot of pressure concerning it's creation. I wasn't worried about what the design would look like since I'd already had a good sketch, unlike the other two.

The trick to this one was to find pictures of women standing in the poses I needed them to be in, easier said than done. I looked--a lot--on the internet, but nothing was quite right. In an effort to solve the problem, I took a bunch of pictures from the internet and cut the body parts and taped them the way I wanted, it wasn't quite like "Frankenstein's Monster," but it wasn't a far stretch. Unfortunately, "Angie's Monster" still wasn't right and, as a perfectionist, it needed to be, well, perfect. So, I went home, grabbed my suitcase and a duffel bag and had my roommate take my picture in at least 10 different poses. Since I knew how I wanted it to look, I felt it easier to just be my own model than trying to pose people how I wanted them to stand. I did feel really self-conscious though as she took my picture over and over again.

Once I finished my photo shoot, I printed out the pictures as large as I could and started to choose the ones that I liked best. I did have to go a little Frankenstein because I liked my legs in one and my arm for that pose in another, thank goodness for scissors and tape! After choosing, and creating my pictures, I traced them again (did I mention how much more I appreciate/need tracing paper now?), copied them, and scanned them into the computer.

Then, using the pen tool (new BFF), I started to outline myself, and with Stephen's help, we tweaked the lines to make them cleaner and more like an illustration more than just a tracing. But it was funny whenever he would mention something about the women, I would look at him and think, "You realize that's me, right?" I guess you had to be there. Okay, so using the pen tool and doing some clean-up, here's what we've got: I should mention that the width of this piece is pretty narrow and I wanted the legs stretched out, so this is how it will look, spatially, on the poster. So, what are your thoughts? Good, bad, indifferent?

Now, we need to visit the typography. Have you ever seen the opening title to the classic show "My Three Sons"? Well, for those who haven't, it shows three sets of legs with a specialty font that was created just for the show. Since my image was only from the legs down, Stephen reminded me that it had a "My Three Sons" feel to it, so I looked up an image of the opening title and drew from it for inspiration. And, as I mentioned that font was specifically created for the show. As Stephen and I discussed it, he thought it was be good to custom-make my font using, you guessed it, the pen tool. Thus, I'm more or less creating the font. I found a font that was similar to the one from "My Three Sons," but is more feminine (it's called "Funny Bone"). I traced it a couple of times, then started to manipulate it a little, extending some curves, changing the spacing between the letters, etc. to make it my own. (Note: the top font is completely different, it was in the running for ones to use, but I liked the second one more.)

Then, I scanned it in and started tracing it with the pen tool. You'll see what the tracing looks like clean on the top and how it looks as I'm going over the letters on the bottom.

And there you have it, the latest step in this process. After I make the letters, I'll play around with how to place them on the page. This is my favorite poster of the three, I don't really know why, but it is, maybe because I liked the idea from the beginning. I like the other ones, too, but this one is my baby. I hope it turns out as good on paper as it looks in my head.