Pittsburgh Comicon Posters

A tribute to two of the all-time great cartoonists.

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Brief

This was a project for Mark Bender’s Digital Illustration II class at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

The assignment was to illustrate two related portraits using photo and style references.

I chose to illustrate two of my favorite cartoonists, Robert Crumb and Jack Kirby.

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The photos I chose as reference are shown above.

Below are style references from cartoonist Michael Cho.

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Once I had my references, I started sketching loose thumbnails in order to establish the composition I wanted.

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After deciding which composition I liked, I then developed more refined sketches from the thumbnails.

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Once the sketches were complete, I brought them into Adobe Illustrator and illustrated them digitally. I also added typography and other elements to the posters.

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Finally, I brought the illustrations into Adobe Photoshop where I applied them to an old paper texture to give them a vintage poster feel.

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My Robert Crumb illustration was included in the Society of Illustrators 2013 Annual Student Competition catalog, and featured in their annual show in New York City.

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In honor of Jack Kirby’s birthday, I added some flair to his portrait in Adobe Photoshop and created a social media post to celebrate.

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