VIVA VHS

I recently finished this poster for Scarecrow Video's upcoming VIVA VHS show at the Northwest Film Forum.

With around 100 different scans of over-sized VHS box art I made a collage of some of best or most interesting bits off of them. Then framed it all up with a classic grid and put together a pseudo-airbrushed logo for the event.

Here's a list of the covers I used. I wish I could have designed this for a mural, there are so many great covers that I wanted to use.
Also, these are all available to rent at Scarecrow Video

America 3000
Assisi Underground
ATOR the Fighting Eagle
Avenged
Avenger X
Black Six
Blind Rage
Blood Voyage
Brain 17
Cannibal Island
Chimpo's Wild Animal Safari
Clue According to Sherlock Holmes
Conqueror of the World
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon
Duel of Champions
Equalizer 2000
Executioner of Venice
Executioner's Song
Exterminators of the Year 3000
Fabulous Fleischer Folio
Falcon
Fangs
Fast Money
Fear
Fearmaker
Feast for the Devil
Filmgore
Flying From the Hawk
Frank & Tony
Frankenstein '80
Freedom Road
Galyon the Indestructible Man
Gang War
Ghost Dance
Gold Wing
Guerrilla Girl
Headless Eyes
Heroes in Hell
Hollywood Clowns
Hot Touch
Human Duplicators
Kingfish
Metallica
Metiche Y Encajoso
Ms. Stiletto
One Shoe Makes It Murder
Riding High
Safari 3000
Thirteen Chairs
Succubare
Zombiethon

VHS cover redesign 02 - Wild Party (1929)

For my second cover redesign for Scarecrow Video, I went with Dorothy Arzner's 1929 The Wild Party. I had watched this film early last year and when I concidered doing this cover project, I knew I wanted to do one for this film. The VHS copy we have isn't that great of a copy. I'd love to see a quality transfer of it on DVD, but until then...

This is what I came up with after testing a few different inking styles (below). I really wanted to show off the awesome showgirl like costume that ends up getting Clara Bow into trouble in the movie. Instead of rendering it exactly like it was in the movie I used the lightning bolts to heighten the design and work well with the simple drawing.

I really had no idea what I was going to do at first, so when I got the right style of drawing the rest was easy.

This is the original sketch that I did based off of a found photo.

My first ink was super tight and detailed. I don't mind this one but I was really unconfident about whether or not it resembled Clara Bow. She's beautiful and people would be able to recognize her if it was done well. If not done well, then it's just a drawing of some girl.

So with my second inking, I tried to loosen things up. A bit too much I think.

This third and final ink was WAY looser and more fun. I liked the minimal lines and I was able to get the curves that I wanted. For the final design I took out all the crappy lightning bolts and digitally colored it in Photoshop. I just went with my gut on the colors for the cover. It's a black and white film, but I wanted the cover to be nice and appealing. Blue is calm and helps keep the design looking clean and fresh. From what I've seen in posters, Clara Bow had shocking red hair. So this was a nice becon of contrast for the center of the design. The likeness isn't what I'd like it to be, but I think the drawing gives the impression that she's cute and the "Wild Party" isn't a sleazy deal. Here's the original art on day glow pink paper. It's not horrible, but I liked this movie so I was happy to make up something new for this film.

Video by Clear Days Always

So this is a video and piece of music that Clear Days Always did. I don't know why exactly, but it's sort of flattering? It features a bunch of photos that I took. Some I didn't.

There's also a remix of this song at the myspace for a band called Ling Ling.