The Castle of Uncle Robert

All Dinosaurs are playing this Friday, February 17th, 2012, at The Happy Dog with other local stalwarts Ultra Ultra and Vince Roy. There's a facebook event page for it HERE.

This show is actually also the World Premier of the All Dinosaurs video for "The Castle of Uncle Robert", by Turnstyle Films. The few stills they made available for this video was largely the inspiration for the art for this poster.



Having seen these, I drew up this rough, and laid it out pretty quickly. I actually had in mind the way I wanted this to look, and I knew I what I wanted to get across. The idea that this was not just a regular show, but the Premier of this video really got the visual narrative/comics part of my brains going into overdrive. I've been working those muscles a lot lately. I'm always pretty stoked to be able to incorporate graphic elements or techniques commonly attributed to the language of comics into other projects. It still kind of feels like I'm getting away with something, like it somehow subverts the established standard of expectations and/or what's acceptable. I'm sure that's all just in my head, though. Culturally, I think we're sinking deeper and deeper into the visual narrative comics pool.



At any rate, here's the rough I did, and sent to All Dinosaurs for feedback and approval. I mostly wanted to make sure is jibed with the content of the video. I also wanted it to be as awesome as it could possibly be. Back to the comics front, breaking up the page like that gave me the space to ad the extra information about the video and make it pretty clear without having to worry about it.

Along with the feedback, Dave from All Dinosaurs also sent me this:



So, I knew I wanted to change the idea of the tree stump with the bird to an alpaca. I knew they filmed the video on a farm, but didn't realize it was an alpaca farm. Pretty great. I immediately changed that and we were off to the races.



Here's the final inked lie art. I drew it mostly with a brush and ink, then went in for the details, cross hatching, and texture with a 01 Micron and a crusty old toothbrush.



Here's the final again, I was going to go through the coloring process, but I changed my mind. At any rate, I did that in Photoshop, pretty straight forward on this one.

We went the extra mile and did an extra print run of these posters over at Jak Prints, and they look incredible. The poster is 12" x 18" on this really nice heavy matte card stock. If you're interested in getting one, we'll have them at the show and they'll only be $5. I wish I had a better photo of it, but this should give you an idea of the size and what it looks like.



For those of you not in Cleveland, or able to get to the show on Friday, I added this one to the Shiner Comics Store, still only $5 but there is a $2 shipping charge. I usually don't list specific posters, but this time I wanted to make it available online too. I think I'm going to update the store soon and list a bunch of other original art, so if that's something you're into, stay tuned!

This show is going to be great. If you are in Cleveland on Friday, you should definitely get over to the Happy Dog! Witness "The Castle of Uncle Robert", see Vince Roy, Ultra Ultra, and ALL DINOSAURS.