Making My Poster in Illustrator

This is what my final poster looks like. I found using Illustrator really good and I found that I was at ease with using it considering it was the first time I had.

The screen shot above shows the first stage of making my poster. I placed the original poster in the centre of the page and using the pen tool, I drew around the hat, eyebrows, moustache, neck and sleeve, which you can see above.

I used traced around the eyes and beak of the bird on the right and the wing of the bird on the left. I struggled with finding a bird which was pointing, but this is the closet image that I found. The screen shot of the bird on the right is what I used to draw the head.


After getting the outline of the image, I then went on to colour in the image. I chose quite a light blur for the head and face, whilst using a slightly darker for the shading on the hand. I then decided to use the dark blue from my colour scheme for uniform and then incorporating the using of the red in the band of its hat. 

The screen shot above shows the three stages of doing the bird's face. 

From the colour schemes that I chose, I then picked these five for colouring in the hat and the birds face. I decided to pick the lighter of the blue colours for the birds face, this is because in the original Twitter bird the colour of it is pretty bright, however for my poster I wanted the colour to be slightly darker so that it fits in well with the period that I am basing my idea on. It was quite hard to decide what colours to use for the hat and moustache because the original poster that I was copying from wasn't in colour so I had to make the decisions that I felt looked right. I picked the dark blue for the hat, I thought it fitted in with the army look and would stand out. With most of the WWI posters that I looked like the majority of them have the colour red in them, I thought that it would look effective if the band of the hat was the colour red. From the screen shot above you can see that the result was successful and the whole thing stands out. 

After drawing and colouring in the face, I then moved on to draw the rest of the image. I used the image of the owl that I found on the internet and traced round that, I then moved it so that it was slightly over the birds face. From there I went on to use the 'Your Country Needs You' poster and traced around the sleeve of the man, I resized the image and then moved it so that it was in line with the pointing wing. I used the same blue as the face for the top part of the page and then a slightly dark shade for the bottom half to make it look as those the wing was pointing. I used the same blue for the sleeve that I used for the hat, and coloured in the detail and cuff with a yellowy colour, which you can see in the colour schemes above. I decided I didn't want it to be white because I thought it wouldn't really look as though it was from my intended period. The gap in the middle of the wing and sleeve, I coloured in grey which I think works well and looks better than if I had chosen to use black.

After making the bird, I then went on to make the text. I used the text tool and changd the font to Lucida Fax and typed in 'YOU'. Because I wanted the text to look pretty much exactly the same as the original and I couldn't find any font that was similar I decided to make it myself. Once I had typed in you, I switched the fill of the text so there wasn't any and instead was just an outline. I then went out to draw inside the letters that it was filled in the centre of each but still had the white outline. The screen shot above shows the results, which I am really pleased with and think that it looks close to the original.

This is what the text looks like next to the image. I am pleased with the outcome and I happy with the fact it is clear and easy for people to read when they come to look at the poster. I think the size is just right and doesn't really distract from the image.

The final thing that I went on to do was try and make the poster look quite old. The screen shot above shows three different ways in which I could have it. I decided to go with the third image, which is just a brown box in front of the image and just having the opacity turned down slightly so that you could the other images.

This screen shows my layers bar. I tried to keep this fairly organised so that if I needed to go back to a certain layer it would be easy to find. I labelled each layer which was a great help as I found myself going back to different layers once or twice. I also made separate layers for the fill of each shape which was another thing that I felt was useful.

This is what my poster looks like along side the original. I am really pleased with the out come and I think that it fits in well with the requirements of the brief. After making the text I placed a brown square on top of the image and changed the opacity down, I did this to try and create an old look for the poster so that it looks more like my chosen period.