Making The Thing for Yourself
A few hours and some elbow grease later.
It has been a long time since I created any type of 2d art for myself. I stay busy with lots of construction projects, my kitbash exercises and 3d printing. Yes, I lay out other people’s books or ad campaigns. Plus I do so much printing and design for the store. But creating something that’s only to be looked at and for no reason other than I wanted to do it? It’s been a loooong time.
Anya Driffill is one of our local comic creators. She’s also amazing at including the community in her projects. Her latest exercise is a zine called Sad Robot Girls which is currently open for submissions (closes June 15). Inspired, I went to the collage bin at the Clubhouse and grabbed an Epic magazine, Bronze-age Binky comic, a ‘00s X-Men title and the mag for motorcycle lovers Easyriders and went to work.
While the collage is digital, I took a completely analog approach to creating it. I used my tools (iPhone camera, Photoshop) just like I would if working with paper and X-Acto knife. The camera was the scanning bed. It went into PS and was rasterized and desaturated. Black and white set to the photocopy filter. No blending or opacity tricks, just dozens of laters chopped up with the angled lasso tool. I dragged them into position and then locked the layers. Boom - just like glue.
While I missed the snip of scissors and the smell of adhesive, it was nice to not be destructive in my act of creation. The source images are still there if I need them again - or if anyone else wants to use them. And the result is this beast:
Rocket-age pulp starships fly over an arena showing classic horror films. Our heroine (half ‘50s beach babe and half motorcycle parts) laments the loss of her ice cream. A Combos snack ad and lots of static blend out the scene. The official name is taken from the caption on the struts: STRESS ANALYZED By Independent Consultant Engineers.
This was SO much fun. Posting here to remind myself to make another soon.