Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Reflections of Lincoln


For this project, we were assigned to create an illustration to be submitted into the"Reflections of Lincoln" contest. I came up with several good concepts; unfortunately, none of them were picked. For some reason, my classmates thought Lincoln fighting communism was a hilarious concept, and they all voted that I do that one. Outvoted by the majority, I was stuck with it.

However, as I put the project together, I found that it was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. I had the most trouble with getting Lincoln himself to fit the style of a Soviet propaganda poster, but after building him in Illustrator and messing with colors and shapes, I got him to blend fairly well. It was very difficult to create a superhero-esque body, since Lincoln was rather slender and the body, even now, looks a little cartoon-ish. However, I think I convey the point enough that I can get away with the not-quite-perfect body. He was also supposed to be ripping apart a communist symbol, but it kept reading as a symbol on the shirt he was wearing, and he was ripping the shirt apart, Superman-style. I didn't want that, so I just made him stand still, looking regal.

But the design and manipulation of the poster itself was a lot of fun. I think that it is overall successful, and definitely has that propaganda poster feel. I'm not sure what this says about Lincoln, but I am satisfied with the final product, even if I had to struggle with the concept.

Illustration time: 4 hours
Photoshop and Illustrator
10" x 14"

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