Inspired by the 1986 film ‘Three Amigos!’ (directed by John Landis), Gallery1988 decided to do a tribute show to the classic comedy. The film stars three legendary actors and comedians: Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Martin Short, alongside Alfonso Arau, Tony Plana, and Patrice Martinez. The remaining cast is filled in by an assortment of familiar faces (as are most movies starring SNL alumni), along with a large cast of characters that fill the small fictitious village in Mexico, where most of the film takes place. It is here in the village of Santa Poco, where the story takes place involving a classic villain, and a village in need of heroes!
 |
| Loose concept for Amigos! Amigos! Amigos! alongside some notes. |
I recall seeing this movie at least once, but the details were rather hazy, so I went into research mode. This typically involves me watching said film which happened to be available on MAX to stream at the time. I reviewed the film, and after familiarizing myself with the story, I set about brainstorming howI could properly capture the nature of this film.
I’m not sure at what stage it was, but relatively early on, I had the idea of creating a ‘Where’s Waldo’-style page with the Amigos. Now if you haven’t seen the film, this concept will be entirely lost on you. If you have, you’re probably thinking…Ohhhhhhhhh!
Right?
Well, I immediately set to work getting shots from the film to adapt into a cartoon looking version of the village, along with other various elements from the movie I was going to depict.
I also really needed some reference material for the ‘Waldo’ page. I know I could do it, but it would be much easier if I had a visual example so I could determine how best to layout my piece.
Luckily, I had a friend who happened to have a ‘Waldo’ book they let me borrow (thank you Sandra).
 |
| Preliminary sketches with completed telegram. |
I began working on first designing the ‘postcard’ that each ‘Waldo’ page has upon opening it to a new section.
In this case, I suppose I could have used a postcard, but thankfully the film starts out with a very important and misleading telegram from a concerned resident of Santa Poco addressed to the Amigos. I opted instead to recreate an authentic looking telegram from the time-period of the film (1916). I had to rewatch the film to get the verbiage correct on the message sent, and then needed to find images online of actual telegrams from that era.
I then took my sketches into Adobe Illustrator, and vectored out the design, while also utilizing several fonts for the telegram itself (Courier New, American Typewriter Semibold/Condensed, and Mom’s Typewriter).
 |
| Final digital inking of Santa Poco. |
I then exported the final product back into Procreate as a PNG, digitally painted it to looked aged, and added a shadow as well (like the ‘Waldo’ books).
Next, I set about sketching out the background and village.
This took some time as I’m not that skilled of an artist with perspective, and the ‘Waldo’ books have a very specific one. I did my best to capture the spirit, and then proceeded to cleaning up the drawings for color.
After inking the linework, I then quickly applied color as my deadline was rapidly approaching.
I stuck to a very limited color palette as I noticed this was one of the key details that they use in the book which causes confusion for the eye. It’s difficult to ‘eliminate’ details when looking for something if it falls within a similar pattern as the elements surrounding it, go figure.
With the background, and buildings all finished I went to work at adding my ‘Amigos’ into the mix.
This also proved to be REALLY, tedious after a while. I did enjoy some of the process and had fun with it, but soon ran out of ideas for what the ‘Amigos’ could be doing.
I also started to include various Easter Eggs to reference other parts of the film, some more obvious than others. If I had the time I would have included more, but I was on a deadline, and even at that, I had asked for an extension of a few days to finish. The overlap of this show and my last one, made it almost impossible to finish this one on time.
I intentionally chose to do something simple for both shows, and while this piece was the more complicated of the two, I thought I could get it done in time. I was under A LOT of stress.
 |
| Final color. |
Thankfully with this piece’s color palette, I really wasn’t concerned about proofing, and it did turn out great on the first run. I’m not sure if I’d ever do another image like this, but it was a learning experience and gives me much more appreciation to the artist(s) who work on the ‘Waldo’ books. I discovered that it usually takes about six (6) to eight (8) weeks for an illustrator to finish one page for the ‘Waldo’ books which seems like a lot, but trust me, it’s not. I on the other hand started this one sheet (the books are usually a double spread), on August 1st, 2024, and finished it on August 18th, 2024 (originally due on the 16th). I spent two (2) hours in Adobe Illustrator, fifty-five (55) hours, and fifteen (15) minutes in Procreate, and around forty-five (45) minutes editing in Adobe Photoshop, totaling in around fifty-eight (58) hours.
.jpg) |
| Final 11" X 14" image on 100lb Cover. |
The 11” x 14” image (printed on 100lb
Cover, thank you SGX), was made for Gallery1988’s ‘Three Amigos!’, a group show paying homage to this charming comedy which opened August
30th, 2024. 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.
*UPDATE 9/29/24
The piece is currently sold out at the gallery.
Website: www.michaelstiles.com
Etsy: Stiles of Art
Threadless: mistiles
LinkedIN: Michael Stiles
IG: stiles1978
TikTok: stiles1978
Pinterest: Michael Stiles
Tumblr: stiles1978
Twitter: stiles_of_art
