Obsession De Palma

Also this week the artwork for Obsession got released so im posting that up as well! this was done way before the Fantastic Factory and Hobo but took a while to get published.

Obsession by Brian De Palma its a Classic you have never seen, originally penned as a Homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo, the guys at arrow requested something fitting that had a Saul Bass Flavour, now this was done before the FF collection so up to now all arrow stuff was painted and i did a couple of concepts which combined that pained style with a Saul Bass touch but this one was more out there style wise so wasn't sure they would go with it but they did!

I wanted it to have that Saul Bass Vibe so people would get that visual recognition of the Hitchcock connection but i needed to put my own stamp on it and i didn't want to just do a total pastiche of a Saul bass poster. Also i felt due to the nature of the film being a bit of an 'unkown classic' it needed more of a visual narrative to draw you in. (that's part of the problem with the whole minimal poster trend, it does tend to rely on you knowing something about the film/story line for you to get 'it' and have that visual recognition or your left thinking WTF!? a bit). So instead i looked more towards Saul Bass's technique of woodcut printing to get the vibe across, researching into woodcut illustration i found the work of Mark Rowden Really lnspiring.
So that was the technique sorted then for the layout!

The basic story of the film is 'its a man haunted by guilt following the death of his wife', so to get this across to the viewer I divided the poster up in two halves the bright past and the dark present circa 1979. So you have Cliff Robertson expression of pure desperation set in this black square looking down on him and his wife (Geneviève Bujold) dancing from the opening scene surrounded by this bright yellow, this is then all tied together with the classic spiral to represent the Hitchcock connection!

See its not just a case of slapping things about on a page to make it look nice. You really do need allot of thought and consideration behind a piece or people will see through it, that's why it always comes back to research! You need a good grounding for a design/ illustration to give it that substance and allow you to explain what you have done and why, it also helps you sell in the designs to the client.

Brian Yuzna, Fantastic Factory Collection: Arcahnid, Faust Beyond Re-Animator and Romansanta

Here is the Fantastic Factory Collection,

I got given a collection of four dvds from arrow: Arachnid, Faust the love of the damned, Beyond Reanimator and Romansantana the waerewolf hunt and a short brief to 'unify the titles' and the connection was that they’re all Brian Yuzna (Director of Re Animator and Return of the living Dead 3) productions. I did a bit of research and found they fell under his production company set up in the 90s called the Fantastic Factory so hence the Fantastic Factory presents... (it was going to be the Brian Yazuna Collection at one point but it was considered a bit confusing as he directed some produced others and was a creative producer on one so not the strongest link).

So For these cover i looked at ways of making the series totally different from everything else that i have done for arrow so far. Give them a strong identity which would be able to link four VERY different titles together and would still be an adaptable style to suit each title, Most importantly though i needed to make them visually very collectable especially with the posters inside.

I did my visual research (one of THE most important parts to design!) and looked towards doing them in a limited edition screen print style. An alternative pop bubble gum twist on the classic B movie poster. Particularly with such titles like ARACHNID and FAUST they sounded like modern drive in movie titles.

So i my main aim became to create something fun and vibrant which would stand out from other dvd styles on the shelves.

Hobo With a Shotgun Poster

Well Its the big one and it's been all over the web now on!!:

IGN • Entertainment weekly • IMP • Worst Preview • Bloody Disgusting • Beyond Hollywood • Twitch • Shock till you drop • Screen Junkies • Greek Tyrant • Horror Society • Shock till you drop • Fangoria • Chud • Mubi

I'm proud to present the new poster for Jason Eisener's Hobo with a Shotgun, which I've been excited about since I saw the trailer in the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse film(s). Now it's a full-length feature and staring The Hauer no less - it's a proper hark back to the vigilante films of the 70's/80's and the whole future gang/ punk films of the 80's.

So it was an opportunity not to miss!!! I posted a message on the Hobo site saying "I do posters etc, love to knock something together for you guys..." and the next thing i know Jason Eisener emails me back saying:

"I'm extremely impressed by your work. We seem to share the same artistic inspirations... Would love to see what you could do with Hobo With a Shotgun.... P.s Your Jaguar Lives is inspiring. Also did you make that vigilante video logo? Its amazing. "

Well I was stoked to say the least and worked my ass off to turn something around quickly before they forgot i ever emailed them!

There was no holding back on this baby - I went for the full balls out 70s/80s exploitation vibe, throwing everything into the pot and looking back over every exploitation poster I did for inspiration!

My main thought process/direction for the poster was to give it a strong narrative. I mean, that's what was so great and captivating about the old posters, they really drew you in visually, telling you what the film was about. It was easy with this film - all i had to do was say "Look at this cool thing here... and also over here... and check out Hauer, he's in it and he has a MASSIVE shotgun and he looks PISSED!!!"

I did take liberties with the shotgun, making it look more over-the-top/futuristic, which is all part of the style! It's just the done thing - check out the covers of Savage streets and the executioner part 2. Another must is that you always need a helicopter. Whether there is one in the film or not there's a definite correlation between the decline in the number of painted helicopters and the quality of movie posters these days! A helicopter tells you it's exciting, and there's a budget!!!
(Well, a helicopter in a poster used to tell you that but I'm getting old these days. Maybe kids today just aren't impressed by such a thing. When I was growing up we based an entire tv series JUST on a helicopter!!!)

As far as the colouring goes, everything I saw already for Hobo had a strong yellow and black colouring but I didn't want people to think of Kill Bill, as a friend pointed out, so I needed to bring in some colouring which would give the poster its own feel. So after looking at the trailer again and again and again...I wanted to reflect that vibrant, neon, almost-80's style, so i brought in a strong use of magenta/purple in the sky and on the lighting for Hauer.

The massive Hauer title at the top is, again, harking back to the glory days of the old Charles Bronson films, where the lead actor's name was usually bigger than the film title. I've got a great video of The Evil That Men Do on which most of the cover is taken up with 'BRONSON' printed across it three times! I didn't want to go that far but i felt RUTGER HAUER, quite bold, gave it some attitude and come on... it's RUTGER HAUER! This is the dude that kicked Gene Simmons's ass!!! And Harrison Ford's (that one's for making Indy 4!)!!! Then I played around with 'is'/ 'in' to link the actor and the movie title, but none of them seemed to fit. So i thought it would be funny to say RUTGER HAUER is a... Hobo With a Shotgun! And it stuck.

This really was a dream project, although it was also a whole lot of work! I'll fondly remember losing the will to live, sat in a seedy internet shop for 2 hrs while the slow-ass connection tried to send a 500mb file on New Year's Eve! ...but all for a good cause, great to work on from start to finish and the guys Jason Eisener (Director) and Rob Cotterill (Producer) were amazing and incredibly receptive to everything! Plus most of all it's going to be an AWESOME movie, the guys just get it! From the story, to the visual style, to the music!

SO GO CHECK IT OUT!!!

Trailer • Hobo Web site

Vamp Arrow Video DVD cover illustration

Here is the new illustration for the 80s classic Vamp!

When i was given the job the first thing they requested was that i incorporated a 'special' colour into the illustration. So colour became the big theme for this cover, it's also a representation of the films style too. when i watched it again i really picked up on the strong use of 'comic book' style lighting and neon colours used throughout.

It also really needed it to shout '80s' to people and i drew the title in a classic brush script (cornering the V and P into fangs, although this did get lost a bit lost behind the characters in the end), i then toyed with the idea of dropping in a green neon grid for the background but felt it didn't say anything about the film and instead i opted for some neon esque pyramid styling (a nod to the Vamps origins!) with stars and a full moon to set that 80's retro mood.

Finally i wanted to visually represent a more comical side of Vamp to let people know sort of film there getting themselves into. I felt going down a dark gory horror route wouldn't be appropriate for this title and would just alienate a load of potential viewers (its a extremely tame horror film by todays standards) so i was trying to sell it more on its strength of 80s teen horror nostalgia, appealing to any retro hipsters out there! or people just looking for a good ol' classic light harted horror romp! ... just like you remember them (before torture porn destroyed all that!).

For the layout i used Grace Jones for the main character to represent the horror aspect by having her literally lunging out of the cover to grab you! then i framed her with the other characters to show the more non serious elements with funny/repulsed expressions.

Twitch Film article on Arrow Video illustrations

I just wanted to post this awesome article on the Twitch Film site by J Hurtado.

It say's some really cool things things about the cover artwork and mentions the dude!

So i was quite chuffed (to say the least) when i saw it, its my first review on the work ive been doing here. Some of the game covers i work on have been on forums but this type of work is more personal and done out of passion rather than financial gain. On the whole the receptions been good and as this stuff grows its excellent to see some people are enjoying it and feel the same love of trash, grindhouse, pulp pop video art, that i do... Im not alone on this one!

Well anyway heres J Hurtado. article (and the guys at arrow assure me they didnt pay him!)

Video Home Invasion: Arrow Video Artwork and Cult Labs

hopefully some of my trash art will continue to works its voodoo!

.... and thanks to everyone!