ILD130 - Project #1 - War of the Worlds - WIP

We were tasked with creating a revised cover for The HG Wells Classic War of the Worlds. Since I am a pulp art fanatic, and desperately want to be able to create and paint in that style.

The first challenge was to come up with a layout and design. I want to have the Pulp Magazine elements while still giving my own spin to it. I chose to change the setting of the story to the 1700s to start with and focusing on a the Negro folk hero Hi John the Conqueror   as the main character. My concept behind the story is that the Martian's attacked during the American Revolutionary period for ever changing world history.



I came up with the working title  War of the Worlds RETOLD! It’s was a working title people.....



For this project the piece has to look dated. My initial sketches were too dynamic, too modern and not 50's enough. I had the logo splitting the Face of Martian and of Hi John, there is another one where We see Hi John facing off with a tripod, and then on with Hi John's silhouette over Mars. Thought these would make nice promotion pieces today, they didn’t fit what I was trying to communicate in this project.

So I reworked them. I came up with a nice mix. Having Hi John Standing victoriously over a Martian who  he just scalped, with his Sidekick Big Liz (yeah I know... she is a civil war hero but this MY story!). I gave the perspective of looking up at Hi John so that the viewer sees him as in power and control over the situation. The initial design element treatment (logo placement and design) again was TOO contemporary. (Reaching back on the tutelage of Tracy Hawkins' art history lectures, this).  But there is a twist, HiJohn is carrying a M4 assault rifle.



I did my initial sketches, set up visual reference and then took some reference photos

I chose to put the War of the World's logo with the subtitle below and a tag line on the bottom and teaser to the side. I settled on using the Aldin for the main logo font. It looked the most time accurate for a main title mast head, with Anderson Stingray as the secondary and subtitle text font. I chose, America Purpose as the accent font for the legal details (date, credits, price). The final tile was War of the Worlds. With the sub title "The Rise of Hi-John" and the teaser note of "H.G. Well's Literary classic retold in the American Revolution?"

 Now I was pleased with the layout and cover design.



 I am now starting the initial pencils

Stay tuned for more...