Project Brief

Design an illustration to be used for clothing apparel for the upcoming horror film, Terrifier 3, using both the movie’s logo and the main character, Art the Clown. The illustration should convey the film’s sense of gore while including Christmas elements to capture the theme of the movie.

Deadline: 5 Days

I begin researching promotional images for the film to get a sense of direction and vision for this project. I focused my search specifically on the current logo of the film as well as the main character being Art the Clown.

Problem solving time!

One of the challenges I faced was finding an image of Art the Clown’s hand posed in a way where he is holding something. Referencing my final sketch, I planned for him to be holding a long chord of Christmas lights over the logo, however with no luck in finding a suitable image of his hand holding a thin chord (or any hand holding one for that matter) I thought the next best action was to use my own hand! I posed my hand exactly how I wanted it, took a picture of it and opened that image up in Illustrator. I then proceeded to trace over that image and add in the necessary details such as the rugged glove and blood staining to make it Art’s own.

I use the same technique of tracing for the logo, but I choose a different approach for the color palette of the logo itself. I kept in mind, how can I best achieve the task that is asked of me? It only made sense to apply the theme of Christmas to the logo, so red and green it is! Gradient for visual interest and dimension.

To achieve accuracy of the facial proportions, I create a layer over the image and use the curvature tool to trace over the silhouette. I flesh out the details of the face through the use of different shades of whites and grays to convey light and shadow. I focus heavily on small (almost unnoticeable) details, yet I don’t stress over matching every single curve of shading or spot of blood. When necessary I simply allow myself to add my own original details. I find this saves me a lot of time in the long run and produces a much quicker turnaround time.

Applied some final touches and boom! Overall very pleased with the turnout.