As the assignment was called “Blast from the Past,” this poster really was one. I had to look through my archive of design work from my freshman year to recreate one of the artifacts I had made using a few more years of design experience.
A half hour of cringe later, I found the original poster I had made and cringed even harder. Don’t get me wrong, it was good at the time for my level of experience, but that doesn’t make me shudder less. It needed some work.
We did a few critiques as a class to gauge where all the problem areas were, and I got some good feedback about mine that I was able to implement later.
As I had figured out more what my design style was, I wanted to go in a more image making, concept art direction for this assignment. I love the original concept art that Mary Blair designed for the movie, so I wanted to pay tribute to those pieces in my own style. So, I got to work ideating and researching. I found some images of Italian cypress trees and mountainous regions, and I immediately knew I wanted to use some of those elements in my new design.
I designed a general layout and then got started. I added some paper mountains and painted rolling hills before moving on to the detail work in the castle and carriage. I painted some final trees and magic dust and then added some glitter for good measure. It wouldn’t be Cinderella without a bit of a sparkle now, would it? Once I got the final piece done, I scanned it and used illustrator to lay out the movie poster.
I love how the finished piece turned out. I think it has just the right amount of concept artishness while also being true to the storyline of the Disney retelling. And, I love it infinitely more than what I had originally made. I’m glad that I was able to discover my design style and put that spin on the piece. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with different mediums in the illustration work I do.
