I’m a big planner - I tend to overdo it. This year, I’m trying to be a little more intentional about it and that means simplifying. A big part of simplifying for me is to stop and remind myself of what really matters to me this year, what I truly want to focus on. It's easy to get carried away with goals/ideas/dreams - sometimes I want to work on all the things at the same time, rather than just choosing one to really dedicate myself to. I think I'm afraid of getting bored or not doing 'enough', but really I’m finding that periods of narrowed focus are really essential to doing anything well (at least for me!).
One of my major goals this year is to get my portfolio done and subsequently, get theatre poster work. Lost Fern Goods has been a large focus on mine the past few years, so much so that it’s now a fairly automatic thing for me - I can keep it running in the background while I turn my focus to my portfolio. I need to use that as inspiration for the next time I think about incorporating other small goals - a personal series of work, narrative illustration, collaborations, etc., alongside my portfolio work. To be honest, I’m struggling to get in the groove with it. I don’t really have the established habits or regularity that I have with LFG. So, whenever I think about doing all these other things that have nothing to do with my portfolio, I try and remember that I need to create the habit of working on it before I start adding in those other things. I don’t need to wait until I finish it or become a fully fledged paid poster artist to start working on other goals, I just need to get the habits (working on it daily, submitting to theatres) down first. Otherwise, instead of getting on solid ground working towards one goal, I’m just floating around trying to do 5 different ones and hoping I can land all of them.
It was really exciting to land my first theatre poster gig last December. Early in 2021, I was working at my part-time restaurant job and waited on a group of people that had just finished performing ‘Into the Woods’ with Opera Modo. I used to perform and did props for that same show in college, so I bonded with them over that. Towards the end of their meal, I drummed up the courage to tell them I’m focusing on theatre poster illustration and as luck would have it, the director of Opera Modo was there and gave me her information. Cut to September when I reached out to her with a few portfolio pieces and she told me she’d love to have me design something! Both of us were quite busy, so we finally settled on details in December. I sketched up some thumbnail ideas and by the time we settled on something, I had about two weeks to finish (one of which was a holiday week!).
#Superflute is a spin on Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute’ - set in an 80s/90s Nintendo world. I’m not into anything video game related, bright colors, fandoms, etc., so I was excited for the challenge to incorporate some of those things while still creating a piece that could fit into my softer/moodier portfolio. Keeping that goal in mind helped me make most of my decisions throughout the process. I also had to be aware of copyright issues and couldn’t directly reference Nintendo (and specifically Mario Brothers and Link from Legend of Zelda).
The super simple pared down gist of the story is that Mario and Link are moving through different levels to ‘get the girl.’ It’s basically a romantic comedy, so I wanted to reflect that lightness in the poster. I love picking elements that can stand in for other things, so I read through the script and decided to incorporate mushrooms for Mario and turtles for Link - both of those things are also in my wheelhouse of what I would normally draw, so they would help in my goal of getting a portfolio piece out of the job. Hearts stand in for the romantic part of the opera - they also are often collected for points in gaming.
The three thumbnails above are what I submitted to the #Superflute team and they ended up choosing the first. It was initially my least favorite, but as I started working on it, I was really happy about their decision.
I did a quick sketch to get the shape down and did a color study over it. Again, to fit with the softer feel of my portfolio, I decided to go with retro Mario colors rather than the bright blues and greens that are often associated with the game. I was originally going to draw a modern metal flute, but the thought of drawing all of those keys in the one full week I had to get this done was not appealing. So, I started researching flutes in Mozart’s time and came up with a one key wooden flute. Double win - easy to draw and a little nod to the original opera. The mushrooms are stacked as if in levels or steps - leading up to the hearts at the top.
Final graphite drawing!
I tried coloring it traditionally - I didn’t love the results and was running out of time, so I decided to take the scan of my graphite drawing and color it digitally - color is a struggle for me and I’m slowly experimenting and figuring it out on the side, but I just didn’t have time to experiment much with this piece!
And finally, here are the ‘deliverables’ (the files I give to the clients)! Instagram cuts off images, so I like to place my full image on a white square - that way you can see the whole thing in a post. The FB banner has to be a specific size so I did a little rearranging of just the necessary elements. The Print-ready file is a little lighter than the rest of the images - Prints tend to be a little darker than what you see on screen, so by lightening it, I can ensure that it prints fairly close to how it’s meant to look.
As always, thanks for reading and drop any questions in the comments!
xo
Nicole