Working on My Masters

Greetings.  Here is an illustration I completed a little while ago of my friend/co-worker, Jeremy, an avid toy collector.  I had the idea about 5 or so months ago, but not the time to execute it properly...until recently.  For those who are not aware, this is a character, "He-Man," from the '80's cartoon television show, He Man and the Masters of the Universe.  I used to watch this when I was 4 years old.  It was a religion for me then.  And thus, I had a junk load of He-Man toys.

So, creating this illustration was a nostalgic trip.  Included are some of the linear designs I had come up with during the process.  The head chosen for this particular illustration works fine, but I'll probably revisit this face later for proper caricature purposes.

The battle axe was left out because it crowded up the balance of the design and obscured too much of the package illustration.  The package logo was an interesting challenge.  In the end, it was traced freehand for the lettering, and, where the telescoping lines of the text vanish toward the vanishing point, a ruler was used.  Adobe Illustrator is probably the ideal program for this task, but the version I have is a bit old, and I thought, "What the hell, let's go old-school."

Speaking of old-school, I did a bit of research on the logo and ended up finding a very dedicated fan base online where the actual creator of the original '80's package designs was signed in and answering questions/explaining how he did the original packaging illustrations with airbrush/ink/etc.  Like all things digital, I try and think of how to go about doing it traditionally as well.  It made me really appreciate Photoshop while I was coloring, not because it would be impossible, it just sounded like a pain in the ass, and I truly respect that!

Anyway, you can see the result of the finished, mimicked version of the packaging design.  I tried to do my best to stay true/copy the original version in a timely manner.  The rock effect was drawn completely in Photoshop.  After all was said and done, I put in some text and other effects in the correct layer order, and voila!

As a toy collector, I knew that Jeremy would want two versions: "Mint Condition" and "Out of the Box."  The last image is the one to play with.  Enjoy Jeremy!