Can't we all get along?

Bill Adcock is a many of many talents, some known, somewhat hidden, and those entirely secreted away.I'm convinced he's part Highlander. He's the brains behind Radiation-Scarred Reviews as well as a contributor to the Blood Sprayer, and B Through Z Web-Zine. He had reached out wanting to commission me for a piece of artwork, to which I replied I would do it for a trade. His request was simple enough, left to the discretion of my imagination and delivery. The only stipulations were that it was painted and contain his specifically chosen subject matter: El Santo VS Yeti.

I definitely had my work cut out for me.

 

Now for this piece I had to come up with a couple different ideas to figure out the best way to represent the two iconic characters. Would they be locked in battle? Who would be the victor? I tried a few sketches, but they turned out crap. That's all part of the process.

I decided to remix it like a DJ, especially being inspired by these Star Wars posters I stumbled upon one sleepless night on the Net.

Once I had an idea for the format I decided to work on how I would depict the characters. Here's some Quick Google images of El Santo and a Yeti that I went for, kinda of like a bartender just grabbing bottles.

I worked on a flat canvas board that I actually broke down and bought. It's a matte treated canvas, but it's board thin, making it easier to transport and frame due to less weight. 

It was a step by step process in trying to create these figures.

I started to outline some of the main parts in Black Sharpie.

You can see how this makes it pop more, or at least for me. I'm a sucker for sharp black lines.

Working on the lettering was one part I simply dreaded.

To break up the piece and sell it as a "fight poster" I went with some curly-q razor wire, which is a lot harder to create than you'd realize.

I decided to lighten up the blue background to add more of a pop to the piece and began finishing off the lettering and other elements with black Sharpie.

Here's the final product. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, especially El Santo and the balance of the piece as a whole. The eye follows from top to bottom, left to right and it succeeds in looking less like art and more like something else.

I definitely need to work on my lettering. The Sharpie makes it pop and look like a real advert. I wish it had more of a letter press look to it rather than the hand-written style, but I could probably do that more so with stencils or maybe with a computer. I guess I always take the long way home.

Now it's time to jam out El Santo style...