TOM - Here is a cover I illustrated for this week's Philadelphia City Paper. It's their Urban Agricultural issue so they wanted do a spin on the famous 'American Gothic' painting, but instead of an old couple on a farm, we substituted a young, urban Philly, hipster couple with the Philly skyline behind them.
I spent a lot of time staring at this painting, trying to capture the posture of the two figures.
I drew the couple separate from the background, so I could give each layer the attention it deserved and then play with the placement afterwards. Here is the couple without the background...
...and here is the background. I drew the skyline freehand at first, but really wanted to push myself to make it as precise as possible, so I wound up tracing my original drawing in Photoshop to give it a real solid structure. This took a long time, but I kinda got into it and really had fun doing it. As you can see, alot of it got covered up when the figures came in, so I figured I'd show off all my hard work here...
I spent a lot of time staring at this painting, trying to capture the posture of the two figures.I drew the couple separate from the background, so I could give each layer the attention it deserved and then play with the placement afterwards. Here is the couple without the background...
...and here is the background. I drew the skyline freehand at first, but really wanted to push myself to make it as precise as possible, so I wound up tracing my original drawing in Photoshop to give it a real solid structure. This took a long time, but I kinda got into it and really had fun doing it. As you can see, alot of it got covered up when the figures came in, so I figured I'd show off all my hard work here...Shout out to Reseca and Allie at Philly City Paper, I always have a great time doing work for them! Anyway, if you're in Philly, the issue comes out today, so pick up a copy and check it out!
5 comments:
I'm really liking the thinner lines on this. It fits the mood of the drawing really well. Also, the extra time on the background really paid off!
Thanks, Alex. Yeah, I really tried something slightly different with the line weights this time, thanks for noticing.
I like how you handled the background, the overall piece came out really nice. At first, I was thinking that you could've done something different with the pitchfork, but then I realized that it probably would've lost the connection to the original painting it was based on. Plus, it nails down the theme of agriculture. Really nice piece - did this come out yet? It'd be cool to see it with the masthead.
This is great man - I like how you've used more digital elements than you usually do. It looks awesome. The posture/gestures are so dead on.
I agree with Jon, take a pic of the printed cover and tweet it or something, I'd love to see how it looks.
Thanks, guys!
Jon- it's funny you should mention the pitchfork, I actuallly originally drew it in Photoshop, but the editor wanted me to hand draw it to keep it consistent with the way the people were drawn.
Flames-I'm still waiting to see the actual printed cover, but when it comes in, I'll totally tweet it.
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