Nostalgia/Fascination

These illustrations were for a recent group show I did at The Comic Book Hideout in Down Town Fullerton.  The show was themed around the works of Marvel, primarily those pertaining to the recent films, and the Inifinity Stones.
For these works I chose 'Guardians of the Galaxy' as my inspiration.  The film was great, and straddled a fine line between being futuristic but also reminiscent of the past.  Since the film itself was propelled not only by story, but also the music, I wanted to capture the spirit as much as possible.  The idea I had early on was pretty simple, and carried all the way through to the finished product (which for me is rare but I had a clear idea with this one).  I wanted to create 'posters' similar to the iTunes series with the silhouettes wearing headphone, and dancing with their iPods in hand.  For my composition though I utilized Star Lord's walkman instead of an iPod or iPhone, and wanted to include a few things that pertained to both characters in their pieces.
For Starlord ('Nostalgia'), originally I wanted to have him flipping the bird, but scrapped that and instead painstakingly recreated his elemental gun in his opposing hand.  In order to fill in the empty space to the right, I did some research to see if Star Lord had an insignia or symbol that I could include (much like the Apple Logo on their iTunes cards or products).  I found a few different symbols, and then referenced the movie for authenticity.   I decided that since Star Lord was from an earlier era (one that he arguably never grew out of), I wanted to distress his poster, and used the color scheme from the soundtrack that was released to tie it all together.
For Gamora ('Fascination'), I had a more difficult time including elements that would identify her character to an onlooker.  I decided that, being an alien (or non-human), and having really no home of her own, I would make her background celestial (which is retro-ish as well I suppose).  I had the walkman attached to her belt instead of holding it, and placed her signature sword in one hand, while the other presses the earphone towards her ear.  For the empty space on Gamora's poster, I couldn't find anything that really worked well to fill it, and being unfamiliar with her character outside of the film made the task even more difficult.  I ultimately decided on doing a graphic depiction of the Orb of Power that she was seeking in the film, and in order to link the pieces together, utilized the same bands from the Star Lord piece on Gamora's, and unified it's color scheme but using the same color as the Orb.  I originally intended on making Gamora's silhouette a gradient of green, but it just didn't look right.  I also was going to distress her poster, but it didn't seem to work as well on her piece as Star Lord's.  The other reason I discarded the idea was because, seeing as she's from space, it really didn't make sense to use that same strategy (as her personality is also different from that of Star Lord's).
Both works are entirely digital, done in Painter with some adjustments made in Photoshop and Illustrator.


UPDATE 3/26/18:
To purchase either image (or both), please visit my etsy store here:
Nostalgia
Fascination