When I looked at the prompt for Gallery 1988’s ’25 Years Later: Movies of 1998’, I was a bit overwhelmed. There are dozens of nostalgic titles during that year, and I had a really hard time whittling it down to one. My other issue was, what would I even make? Sure I could pick ‘What Dreams May Come’, but I’ve already done at least one Robin Williams film (Mrs. Doubtfire). Or maybe I could do something for ‘Pleasentville’, ‘Practical Magic’, ‘Wild Things’, ‘Pecker’, ‘Fear and Loathing…’, or yes, even ‘Dark City’.
Yes…but what?
I mean these are all great films (and not a complete list of the ones I struggled picking), but what would I create?
That’s the pickle…
Eventually, I came across one last title that piqued my interest that I felt deserved some homage, ‘Blade’.
Now, many attribute the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Iron Man’, but alas, they’d be wrong (at least in my humblest of opinions). In reality, the first big screen Marvel comic adaptation was ‘Blade’ starring Wesley Snipes as the titular character in 1998. The production stars Snipes as ‘Blade’, a Dhampir who together with his mentor ‘Whistler’ (played by Kris Kristofferson), take on an army of vampires led by ‘Deacon Frost’ (Stephen Dorff). Snipes is also joined by a great supporting cast including N’Bushe Wright (as ‘Dr. Karen Jenson’) , Donal Logue (‘Quinn’), Arly Jover (‘Mercury’), Sanaa Lathan (‘Vanessa Brooks’), and Traci Lords (‘Racquel’), among many others.
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| Wesley Snipes as 'Blade'. |
To properly capture the essence of the film, I needed to rewatch it, as it had been many years since I have seen it. Thankfully the film is available on most streaming platforms, but I do own the DVD somewhere, exactly where I’m not sure.
I knew early on that I was going to create another comic book cover, similar in style to the Constantine piece I did. I created at least one or more initial sketches for the piece, but I’m pretty sure this concept took form rather quickly as I had a clear idea of my layout. I first started by collecting reference materials, and began sketching my ideas in Procreate on my iPad using the Peppermint Tool. I then layered the images according to how I wanted them to appear, changed their property to Multiply. I added an additional layer, and then began painting white (using the Round Brush), within the boundaries of each sketch. The bottom image with the DJ and famous opening scene however was a different story. I determined for the sake of balance that I would utilize black here and illustrate the scene as a silhouette considering how impactful it was. Upon completing this step, I exported them as individual PNG files (because we don’t make the same mistake twice kids), and rearranged then back into their appropriate positions on my desktop in Adobe Photoshop, rescaling them on my desktop without fear of losing any image quality.
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| N'Bushe Wright as Dr. Karen Jenson, and Kris Kristofferson as Abraham 'Whistler'. |
I determined at this point I wanted the entire image to be monochromatic with some solid black and white to balance out the variations of red I had chosen. I then applied a gradient and adjusted the layer blending options to pass through (or multiply) on all the sketched images (leaving the painted layers Normal). I then changed the gradient layer’s blending property to Multiply as well and moved it to the top as an Overlay. It had an interesting effect, and I was going to attempt to paint some slight dimensions on the figures using tonal variations (of Gray on the white painted layers) in Procreate. I then exported the layout back to my iPad, and began adding some volume to the image.
Several hours later of painting on my iPad, I brought the work back into Photoshop to finish editing before I moved onto the title or other additional accoutrements. To be honest, at this point, I wasn’t that thrilled with the piece at all, and It just wasn’t looking the way I imagined. I however was not one to be swayed, so I set to work on manipulating the image in Photoshop using different blending options in the layers panel. For starters, I determined the gradient wasn’t working the way I wanted, so It was time to experiment. I took the gradient and dropped it below the images (but above the background image of ‘Frost’), and changed the layer blending options to an Overlay which began picking up all the beautiful sketch lines I had laid down initially. I then took my background image of ‘Frost’ and began playing with the layer blending options there as well until I got to Difference.
BINGO.
This was it.
The sketch was showing through vibrantly picking up all the textured strokes, along with being light enough to see all the details.
Gorgeous.
Now for the other layers.
I ended up duplicating the gradient on the background and brought it up to the top of the layer order leaving it as an Overlay. This had a similar effect as the gradient did on the background image, and immediately brought some life and vibrancy to my piece. I only had to adjust the tint (or lightness), of the red I selected marginally and it was done.
With the images done, I just needed to add the title, and other comic book related elements. Thankfully during my research process I was determined to keep this image as authentic as possible, and came across several images of (Marvel), comics from the decade of the movie’s release. Using these resources, I went into Adobe Illustrator, and created a mock-up design for my image. Using the original title treatment, I also created a cleaner version for my image in the program as well. Upon finishing these tasks, I went back into Photoshop and pieced these last few elements together. I did alter the colors a bit on the add-ons once they were introduced, and eventually found a combination that worked brilliantly. Satisfied with the image, I sent it off to SGX for a proof.
No.
I went through two frames before I ended up simple caving in and using the third which was not in the greatest condition either but I was beaten.
So the first frame I ordered from Amazon, simple enough, right?
Yeah.
It shows up and the cover is scuffed. Like not presentable scuffed.
As in not going to work for a gallery.
Okay.
I then contact Amazon who refunds me the money, and then tells me to keep the frame.
Awesome, I’ll just store it in all the extra space I don’t have.
I then went to Michaels and begrudgingly bought the cheapest frame I could find.
I get home, and start the process of framing my work, and the glass gets caught by one of the backing pins.
Now this particular frame has at least three of these malleable metal pieces around its perimeter on every side, so lets say nine…maybe even twelve or more altogether. It’s bound to get caught on one of them if the glass gets pushed up beyond their threshold.
A truly bad design, and my worse nightmare.
It was over my bed.
It was glass.
I ordered the plastic for a reason.
I had to ship it.
I did NOT want glass.
I specifically wanted plastic.
The glass cracked and broke over my bed.
Jesus wept.
My patience was at an end with this situation.
I grab a trash bag and managed to get all the glass off my bed and into the bag without any of it getting anywhere else. There weren’t a lot of pieces (two to three, the third being the entire plate as it was corner that cracked), however there was some ‘glitter’ on the sheets afterwards.
I carefully took some large packing tape and dotted the area several times with several pieces to collect any fragments of tiny shards.
Operation complete.
I tossed this frame into the box with the other, and then reordered the first frame against my better judgement.
The third frame arrives and is not in the best condition as there are some very minor scratches on the plastic shield of this one as well. I decide it’s worth the gamble, and package up the work to send it out.
The 11” x 17” image (printed on 100lb Cover, thank you SGX), was made for Gallery1988’s ’25 Years Later: Movies from 1998’, a group show dedicated to the films of that glorious year. The show was originally scheduled to open online February 17th, 2023, through March 4th, 2023. At this time the prints are exclusively available via the gallery, so please check their website for all remaining works related to the show including mine.
For more information, or to see a catalog of my other work, please visit my online store here.
You can also find me on various social media platforms below doing a multitude of other artistic things that include hand lettering, and the occasional sculpting, crafting or painting.
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