The brief is to illustrate a poster for a music event.  It can be An Early Music concert, a jazz evening, or a pop group.  The finished poster will be reproduced at A3 size, but you can work at any size in proportion.  You need to provide your working drawings.

Spider diagram

First, I have started brainstorming by drawing a spider diagram.  I have considered concerts I experienced in real life and the style of the artists that attracts me the most.  

It was easy to decide on Katy Perry for a couple of reasons.  I have attended one of her concerts in 2018 and was blown away by her style and music.  The concert set design is playful, and it feels as if you are in the whimsical land of pop with cartoon-inspired outfits and pop-culture homages.  Even when she dresses up in a serious gown, she brings in her mirth through pastel hair or fun accessories.  (Silverstein, 2019)

I have jotted down her popular songs for the California Dream Tour and listened to them for inspiration.  I then wrote down words that came to mind and put together mood boards.

Moodboards

I researched Katy Perry’s concert posters, website, outfits, album covers, facial features, and hair.  I also looked at other music event posters and posters by different illustrators.  Illustrator Butcher Billy based his illustrations on the contemporary pop art movement and captured my attention for poster design.

Butcher Billy (born Billy Mariano da Luz, in Curitiba, March 1978) is a Brazilian artist and graphic designer.  His work has a strong vintage comic book and street art influence while also using pop culture references in music, cinema, art, literature, games, history, and politics.  His work started going viral on the internet in 2012 via social media.  (Wikipedia, 2021)

Butcher Billy has a soft spot for dual-identity superheroes.  He was influenced by Saturday morning TV cartoons and music on his radio.  Billy admires the work of Salvador Dali, Tim Burton, David Bowie and Andy Warhol. (Bromwich, 2015)

Butcher Billy uses basic colours and strong graphical forms for images that really pop.  After sketching his ideas, he gets on his Mac to create a clean, clear image.  Billy creates his work digitally and is absorbed by the typography, imagery, and creative concepts of the 70s, 80s and 90s.  He loves the little imperfections of the pre-web era.  Butcher Billy’s clients include Netflix, NME, ESPN and more. (Illustration X, 2021)

Although there is not much published on Butcher Billy’s creative approach, I found photos where he used his black and white line drawing and covered it with tissue paper.  When looking at his digital work closely, I notice a soft texture to the art piece, almost like the paper of old comic books.  He manipulated the folds of the tissue paper to suit the illustration, so the paper is not just downloaded from stock images.  With all of this in the back of my mind, I have started with thumbnail sketches.

Thumbnail sketches

Using a big A3 sketchbook with lots of space to move the frame around if I want to try different compositions, I have started with two very simple sketches to get the ideas flowing. I then started thinking about different viewpoints and bringing the image closer to the frame.  My drawings looked more interesting.  I referred to my moodboards and collected bits and pieces of visual material to draw my thumbnails.  For instance, how to sketch Katy Perry’s face, the position of her body, arms, and hands and so on.  I also started to draw some typography.

Line drawing and experimenting with overlays

My chosen thumbnail sketch changed as I worked on the composition and details.  (See numbers one to five in figure 6).  Once I had the finished line sketch down, I tried a tissue overlay to get the soft newspaper texture.  I then tried to wet the tissue paper with water to see more of the black coming through and get a ‘thinner’ paper look that should look like a poster glued to a wall.  I also tried transparency to get that glossy paper look, and I now have three texture options.

I sourced and photographed wrapping paper to use as a paper cutting for the bodice in the illustration. (Figure 7) 

Working digitally in Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator

The process went much smoother than before, but I did find myself doing things over again because I merged layers and did not keep a copy.  I have also learned that you cannot scan different photos of the same image into one file due to different registrations, almost like a print.  I did a rough digital painting for the transparency layer, one for the tissue layer and one for the wet tissue layer.  The transparency layer looked as if the texture was behind glass, so I did not use this method. (Figure 8) I might use it in the future.  I used both the wet- and dry tissue paper photos and combined both layers over each other.

Colour

I already decided on the colours during the line drawing stage.  I decided on pure and bright colours to reflect a comic book and playful mood.  I have changed the colours slightly as I continued working on the piece. (Figure 9, from left to right)

Typography

In the finished piece, I used three fonts.  Strenuous, an Adobe font for the display text, “California Dream” in Baskerville and the rest of the text is in Arial Black.  The name “Katy Perry” is part of the illustration.

Constructing the finished piece

Referring to figure 9, I have decided that the middle piece works the best for the mood I want to achieve.  I have made a few more tweaks, added the finishing touches and removed the red to simplify the colour palette.  Using the technique of removing unnecessary details right from the start has made my workflow much more pleasant, and I had less editing to do at the end.

Reflecting on Part 3, ‘Working it out’, I feel more confident with illustrating in general.  Generating ideas come easier to me, and I know now where to start when responding to a brief.  My workflow is much smoother and less chaotic.  

References

Silverstein, H. H. a. N., 2019. Glamour. [Online] 
Available at: https://www.glamour.com/story/katy-perry-best-stage-outfits-costumes
[Accessed 24 November 2021].

Illustration X, 2021. Illustration X. [Online] 
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/apr/04/superheroes-of-rocknroll-in-pictures
[Accessed 24 November 2021].

Wikipedia, 2021. Wikipedia. [Online] 
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_Billy
[Accessed 24 November 2021].

Bromwich, K., 2015. The Guardian. [Online] 
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/apr/04/superheroes-of-rocknroll-in-pictures
[Accessed 24 November 2021].