Here is my poster for one of my favorite movies of all time, FIRST BLOOD, celebrating it’s 30th anniversary. Yep, this beast of a film was released back in ’82 when I was 5 years old. After doing the DRIVE poster late last year I knew for my next work I wanted to dive into the past a create something I loved as a kid. When Mystery Box asked me what film I wanted to create a poster for, this was my first pick. They worked their magic, and we’re just waiting on a bit of red tape.

I wasn’t allowed to see FIRST BLOOD when I was a little kid. My parents said it was too violent so they would never rent the VHS for me, but I always caught little snippets of it when I was over at friends’ places. This, of course, made the movie even cooler because it was outlawed in our house. Something dangerous. But toys weren’t out of the question. I remember my mom ordering me the Rambo toy knife kit out of a comic book, and I got the Rambo figure for Christmas in ’86. That rocket-launcher was awesome.

So to me (probably because of the rubber toy version), Rambo’s knife was one of the main characters of the film. He’s typically depicted with a big gun of some sort, but I knew for my poster I wanted that knife front and center. My favorite parts of FIRST BLOOD take place out in the woods as he’s beating up cops and the local makeshift army. Very natural scenery, with a Canadian tie as it was shot outside of Vancouver in a town called Hope. Other than sporadic outbursts, Sylvester Stallone’s character is relatively calm and determined during the movie. You never knew when he was about to cut loose. I wanted that reflected in my design rather than an action scene. Had to be about the character.

I did quite a few sketches, trying to dial in on the tone I wanted to hit and the elements I wanted to include. I then scoured the movie for some reference shots I could use before starting up the digital paints. Found the shot I wanted to work with and started some studies and final build. The original version had very different colours, but I switched to a palette that reflected those forest scenes I love so much. Here’s a few process shots.

And a close-up of the final to show a bit of the painterly detail.

This is my second movie poster completed to this extent. As some of you know I did my first poster drop a week and a half ago for DRIVE and it was turbulent at best. I hit snags at just about every step and lost quite a lot of sleep as I tried to smooth out the speed-bumps I encountered along the way. I took some knocks, but learned some valuable lessons and tips along with some very helpful information. I owe a huge thank-you to the kind people at Expresso Beans who reached out to me and lent a hand with kind words, encouragement and advice. You know who you are, and I really appreciate it.

So, what will be different? My representation Mystery Box has been hard at work to set up a system to get my (and other artists they represent) posters produced, sold and shipped. First and foremost, we will be working with the mighty D&L Screenprinting in Seattle, a reputable company who does tremendous screenprint work. The FIRST BLOOD poster was designed specifically with screenprinting in mind and I’m excited to move into this new territory. 24″ x 36″, thick paper with a vicious colour variant. Mystery Box has also set up it’s own storefront coupled with a fulfillment company. This will be the platform where my posters will be sold, along with other Mystery Box artists.

We will be moving into production next week, and once we are further along I will have the onsale information to post. As always with these things, it’s best to follow me on Twitter to get details quick.

“THEY drew first blood! NOT me!”

I’m busy putting the finishing touches on my next movie poster, which I’m going to post to the blog on Thursday. Like, tomorrow. This is a real exciting, and I’m still dazed that Ollie over at Mystery Box worked his magic. One of my favorite movies of all time. Shaking just thinking about it.

I’ll be writing some of the details, stories and motivations behind this one tomorrow. I’ve learned a lot about the alternative poster community over the past week and this poster will bring about a very different method of doing things around Signalnoise. The release will be handled differently, and I’ll outline some of those details tomorrow. This is the design launch, onsale info will be posted once we move more deeply into production.

So, 9am EST tomorrow morning we go live. Until then, I’ll continue to sweat bullets over here.

Today is the day DRIVE is released on Blu-Ray in North America, and to celebrate one of the most talked-about movies of 2011 Signalnoise and Mystery Box has put together a little package of goodies available to download.

Since a lot of people will be grabbing the Blu-Ray today, included in the download you will get a PDF version of my own DRIVE Blu-Ray sleeve design all ready for print. I designed everything up proper and cut out all the marketing boloney. For the fans. Here’s what you do:

1. Download the ZIP file over at the Mystery Box Shop.
2. Unzip that sucker and open signalnoise_drivebluray.pdf.
3. Print that thing, preferably on an 8.5″ x 14″ paper at 100%.
4. Cut along the crop marks, use a knife and ruler for maximum results.
5. Slip it into your DRIVE Blu-Ray case. Done.

Along with the Blu-Ray cover we have included a couple of iPhone and iPad wallpapers to sweeten the deal. Add some hot pink to your favorite mobile device.

ALSO, when you head over to the Mystery Box Shop to download the free package, your email will be entered to win a copy of my next official movie poster which debuts in just 2 days, Thursday at 9am EST. What movie is it for? It’s a real mystery, but that’s the way we like it. Go ahead and guess, I dare ya.

So get over there and get your name into the draw. Only one winner. Beat those odds. I have faith in you.

If you missed out on tuning into SNBC:65 last week, here is the recorded version. I haven’t done a broadcast in quite a while after working on a weekly schedule for over a year. Took a little break for a number of reasons, and this broadcast tells a lot of the stories why.

I also get into what has been going on since last September, how it all happened and what is going on now. I discuss the DRIVE poster, my fun and hilarious work with Kevin Smith, and signing on with the agency Mystery Box.

It’s been a strange but great few months. So have a watch. Hope you enjoy.

Fire! Wood! Water! Hasbro licensed these wicked dudes from Takara Japan to sell in the States and elsewhere in 1987. They were a Transformers spin-off in Japan, but Hasbro decided not to tie into that continuity with their own marketing. The mid 80′s was a time when many toys had some sort of gimmick to help sell them, in this case, each Battle Beast had a heat sensitive sticker on its chest that revealed either fire, wood, or water. A sort of paper, rock, scissors in toy form. Fire beat wood, wood beat water, and water beat fire…if you were a super lucky kid, there existed rare and mythical Sunburst figures; find one, and you could beat anyone. Bad ass.

Battle Beasts came packaged in pairs, which was strange at the time. I remember thinking how cool it was to get “two for the price of one”, although it’s a pretty commonplace tactic these days. I always considered the pairings to be like pro wrestling tag teams. My first pack consisted of the Rhino and the Fox; whenever there was a Beast Battle Royal in my back yard, those two always found a way to come out victorious. Still my favorites to this day.

My brother and I collected every one of these pint-sized animal warriors along with their many play sets; looking back, we had some really fun times with them. Unfortunately, somewhere along the road to adulthood my collection must have landed in the trash. The same old sad story. When I took a quick peek on eBay for some of these figures, I was astonished at how much they are going for. Like adding salt to the wound. While it doesn’t seem as if I’ll be scooping up any replacements anytime soon, at least I’ve got the memories.

Awesome figure photography by =Disney-Stock on DeviantArt.

Film on Paper presents … the movie poster for GREMLINS.

Director: Joe Dante
Genre(s) of Film: Fantasy | Horror
Origin of Poster: USA
Year of Poster: 1984
Designer: Intralink Film Graphic Design
Artist: John Alvin

Signalnoise in association with Film on Paper brings you Movie Poster Monday. We will be showcasing a movie poster to start every week, so be sure to check out future posts for some great art from cinema’s past.

Last night I saw the new DC Comics and DC Entertainment logos via Bleeding Cool, shown above. I spent the next hour or so scrutinizing this revised mark from top to bottom trying to formulate some kind of response, or just trying to make sense of it in my head. Instead, I just put out a tweet to see what my followers might have to say on the topic.

I was asked quite a bit last night what my thoughts were on this revision, so I decided to form it into a blog post because it seems the conversation is pretty heated, and ultimately 1-sided. The typical knee-jerk reaction to a big logo redesign is almost always negative, especially on the internet. Everyone thinks their opinion/idea is better than the one executed, so it quickly becomes a pissing match to see who can hate it the most using the most profanity. While at the same time, accomplishing nothing. I refer you to the Bleeding Cool comments.

My first reaction was confusion as I didn’t feel DC really needed to pursue an identity redesign considering they launched their previous logo only in 2005. It was met with mixed reviews, I dished out a few myself, but ultimately the logo did a great job of capturing youthful excitement (we ARE talking comic books here) and the animated version in their movie intro credits looked great. I was completely blindsided by yesterday’s launch, and woke up today with the same confused feeling. In short, why the redesign and the departure from their established legacy? Here’s the DC Comics logo history:

The new logo is quite nice. Combination of the D unveiling the C is pretty clever. The page-turn looks a little bit like a sticker being peeled away, but I can see what they were going for and an animated version for their movies might look pretty good. I would love to see a process piece written to show how they arrived at this conclusion, and what designs may have went unused.

I was recently having a cold one with my pal Dave Howlett who works at Strange Adventures, and he knows more about (and loves) comics more than anyone I know. He brought up that DC was looking to add more adult material to their comics because their audience had gotten older, ie. our generation of 30-somethings. But there are two problems here: 1) they would be completely disregarding the youth market who had supported them for decades, plus 2) they are turning off the longtime fans with all these sweeping changes to their beloved and familiar characters. This idea echoes in the new logo … the kids aren’t going to notice it, and the old-school fans might feel abandoned.

It’s a confusing move that has left me scratching my head. What do you think?

Addition: DC hasn’t made it clear exactly where this logo will be used. Of all my reading today, details have been a bit scarce. If anyone has any info, feel free to post.

• Getting ready to fire up the press.

• The Heidelberg tried to literally define "hot pink" with this small mishap.

Here is a little video I cut together after visiting Bounty Print this morning to sign-off on my DRIVE poster. They fired up the Heidelberg press when I was there so I shot a bit of footage. Amazing to see this beast of a press firing off my poster. The thing is bigger than my house.

The DRIVE poster launches on January 19, one week from today. Details here.

“Nightcall” by Kavinsky from the DRIVE soundtrack.