Promotional Posters

My writer, Tony, came up with the idea of drawing a bit of campus attention to our weekly strip as it's understandably quite easy to miss a 4x10" space in the middle section of a whole paper. What better way to do that than by plastering our material all over the walls of McMaster herself?

Tony originally imagined the first one featuring Captain Marauder on his own, but I thought it'd be nice to showcase the whole team (as they appear in these strips -- there are still 2 other members that don't). What's more, students get to see them depicted alongside their very own (stylized) campus landmarks. But perhaps best of all, at least for me, is to see our heroes in glorious colour. I have very minimal experience with colouring in Photoshop, and having taken a good chunk of time making the colouring just so, I realize there's no way I would have enough time to colour each strip to my liking. So I certainly appreciate the black and white format of the weeklies... but my, how cathartic it is to finally take the time to give these characters the full-colour treatment they've been yearning for. I wanted to go for an epic, almost 1920s-style vibe. Did I pull it off? Well it is epic -- the swooping perspective, towering buildings and larger-than-life figures ensure that. I also quite like the slogan at the bottom, recycled from our very first teaser advertisement in the paper. I suppose that's a fitting way to start off the next round of ads...

The second poster was fun to do; drawing big baddies is always a joy. And who doesn't love to vilify Engineers? I was toying with the idea of having him bursting forth from the first poster. While that would have been rather cheeky, it ended up just looking busy and confusing. I found putting faded past strips as the poster background would give people an idea of what the strips themselves look like, and also represent the excitement of characters tearing out of the page and confronting the reader... I dunno, kind of a lively and appropriate symbol there. He who has ears, let him hear. I struggled making MechEng look as clean and distinguishable as the heroes. I guess it's due in part to my choice of posture (with an ambiguous silhouette), but in the end I think that works for the character. He's gritty and mechanical and bulky. Lest they be confused, I drew subtle attention to the machine itself as it appears in the comic in the upper left, just so the viewer has another point of reference for what he looks like. And there you have it folks... a display for one and all of both heroism and dynamics. He who has eyes, let him see.