Feedback Please - Original Trilogy "Poster"

I need some Feedback from you Guys…

At the Moment I am working on my own Box Set for the Original Trilogy.

For that I wanted a nice Cover that does not only represent one Movie, or shows a generic Darth Vader Helmet/Lightsaber, but has Elements of all three Movies while still reminding of the old Movieposters and not the modern Photoshop DVD Covers.
To be honest I have not found one I liked… so I had to make one myself, I would realy like comments and Feedback if possible 😃

Thanks in advanced!

Overview:

some Details

First look and i would say it is very good. But i agree with NeverarGreat’s critique of Leia being front and center. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason was due to available character poses, but still.

Also, having the banners bleed through behind Leia reminds me of this guy

Where’s Lando, Obi-wan, the droids, and Yoda? I like it, but you’re missing key characters, if you’re going to call it the Original Trilogy.

Thanks for all your Feedback - it helps a lot to get different opinions 😃

So I made a new Version based on your feedback where I fixed some of the Stuff you mentioned.
-I cleaned the Fade from Leia to the Ceremony Room
-I modified the Colors and Contrasts

So now why Leia is Front and Center… or better Why Luke Isn’t:
For me one of the Main-focuses is the Story of the Skywalkers.
So the three most important Characters are Luke, Leia and Darth Vader - with a even stronger emphasis on Luke and Vader.

For those two I had the plan of a Ying and Yang Concept…

• The left Side: Blue Background with Orange Main Character at the Top
• The right Side: Orange Background with Blue Main Character at the Top

and for Leia…

• In the Middle: The Character that Kicked off everything through sending the Droids to Kenobi… with a Blue/Orange/Purple Background

I would add Yoda, just behind Vader’s right shoulder and add a green glow around him. I would throw in a faded Obi-wan just over Han Solo’s right shoulder, because if it wasn’t for him, Luke would be dead.

Thx for your Feedback!

You are totaly right, both are important Characters and totaly Deserve to be on the Cover… I would also loved to add Lando.
I also tried to add them in the early States (together with some other characters like Tarkin, Jabba or Boba Fett)
At the End of the Day I decided against it… for two Reasons:

• I wanted the Cover a littebit more Streamlined - there are a lot of crowded Trilogy Posters with hundreds of Characters… my own should be bit more focused

• Both Yoda and Obi Wan are as much Prequel Characters as they are Original Trilogy Characters (ok the same argument could be made for Darth vader… but for me there is still a different between Darth and Anakin) and I want a clear cut between thoose two… If I do a Poster like this for the Prequels (if!!) it will feature Yoda and Obi Wan very prominently

using that theory, are you going to add Jango Fett to the prequel trilogy. Boba Fett should be on this one I think. Where’s the Emperor? Or are you going to add Senator Palpatine to the Prequel trilogy as well? It will get real crowded. I think you should consider swapping out one of those stormtroopers with Fett or the Emperor.

again thanks for your Input.
I was planing to use the same YingYang Concept with Yoda and Palpatin for the Prequels, together with Amidala, Obi Wan, Anakin, Battle Droids, General Grievous and Count Dooku or Jango Fett (or something like that… I am still in Concept Phase and want to Focus on the Original Trilogy for now.)

on this one I wanted a special Trooper for every Movie… a Sandtrooper for ANH, a Snowtrooper for ESB and a Scouttrooper for ROTJ, to show the Faceless Threat and shear power of the Empire!

Really great work with this poster!

I’m not 100% sold on Leia being in the middle but I see why you did it this way and I like the reasoning. But I would prefer another shot of Leia. I don’t really know why, her face looks a little weird to me but I can’t really describe what it is that bothers me.

Also I miss the Emperor on the poster but I wouldn’t know where to put him. He’d fit right below Vader instead of the Sandtrooper but then he’d seem less important / powerful than Vader which wouldn’t be the right thing to imply I think. But having him centered in the top would make him appear to be more important than he actually is, so I guess leaving him out is the right choice. But I still miss him and Ben.
As a sidenote: Having him in the top middle would be perfect for a prequel poster in this style I think.

And finally a question: How did you achieve this style? I assume you used Photoshop or something similar to make actual photos look painted. I’m asking because I tried this before but failed horribly while it looks amazing on your poster 😃

Hm its a lot of Photoshop Magic… but also a lot of handwork…
Let me try to explain my Process:

I started to build the Comp from Photos in Photoshop. after thatb i printed the Image and Traced everything with a pen on another Page, here I illustrated everything else (you might have noticed that some Characters are not in commonly availeble Poses… like Luke for example)

• you can see this Pen scribble if you look at the Details shoot in the first page.

After the Illustration was Scribbled on Paper I scanned the Pic an loaded it to Photoshop… the Coloring was then an mix from Photos and Handcoloring…
For the Photos I used a mix from this:
http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-create-a-realistic-painted-effect-in-photoshop

and this:
http://petapixel.com/2015/05/15/how-to-turn-a-photo-into-a-painting-with-photoshop/
to blend them with the handcolored stuff…
also I overlayed my sketch to give it a even more hand illustrated style

Also I changed the Lights and Shadows of the Photos and my handcolored stuff to fit togehter… one of three layers for that you can see here:

hope that helps… if I would want to do all the work just in Photoshop, I think I would still experiment with does Tutorials above. 😃

Thanks for the quick rundown of how you made this 😃
Sadly it’s just as much work as I feared it would be^^

So update time… while I was pretty happy with the Image in the last Version… somehow it was missing this “star wars feeling”, at least for me…
after I reviewed the official Posters of the last 30 Years (or at least the ones I liked 😉 ) i found a main differents in everyone of them… all of them have a boxed Layout.
Even TFA worked with that… so I tried that… and I think it realy helped the Image… opinions?

ray_afraid said:

I really like it!
My only critique would be that Vader’s head seems to be a different style than the rest. The stormtroopers look like they’ve been realistically painted, while Vader’s helmet looks like it’s from a comic book.

Yeahr You are totaly right… I am working on that… in my first Version he was completly Black and looked realistic… but had a different feeling than on the classic Covers… now he fits the old style, but looks like an comic Illustration… I am still working on an Solution

sooo I think this is the Final update…
I was not happy with the look of Chewie so I redpainted him from scratch - to fit the style of the others better. I repainted the Sandtrooper, Hans Hair and changed some Vader Details to make him fit better.

here is a Comparison… the left image is the original - here I painted just some details and used Photos for the rest because I was lazy 😉 on the right you will see the new 100% painted one.

I am pretty happy how the Image turned out - thanks for all your support and feedback!
Hope you like it too 😃 and of course still appreciate any Feedback you got!

It looks pretty damn good.

I think this is one of the best fan-made posters ever to come through here. Really fits the Star Wars feel.

thx a lot guys! 😃
glad you like it!

so much for “Final update”…
I just updated the explosion on the right side - I like it more than the Firesparks of the older Versions, but this time it is really finished 😉

now I have to print a new Poster 😉