Mashup Poster Part I : Final Design & Evaluation.

Mashup Poster Design

In todays lesson we had to pick 2 (or more) films or TV shows in which we would merge together to create one poster. I decided to pick The Walking Dead and Pretty Little Liars, both with similar 'scary' themes, just one more than the other. My main part of my poster is based on a Pretty Little Liars poster as I thought it would be more interesting to photoshop the characters from the walking dead (mainly the males) onto female bodies. I also used the font from Pretty Little Liars, however I could not get the exact font so I decided to use the closest one I could find which was 'Bickham Script' and I altered the title to include 'The Walking'. In addition to the font choice, I did try to use other fonts in which are in the 'script' family and section, altering between bold and regular. To insert the text I looked at fonts online and got the similar one that is used in Pretty little liars, I then used the magic wand tool in order to delete the white that was in the background.

      I thought by basing the poster off Pretty Little Liars was interesting because the in my opinion,  The Walking Dead and Pretty Little Liars are almost opposites, on the contrary to this they also have similarities such as The walking dead can be gruesome and leave things a mystery, much like in Pretty Little Liars.

    From the beginning of the task I knew I wanted to have the title at the top of of the poster with the production details / times / reviews situated at the bottom. This being because I wanted the the main focus to be on the characters, so I ensured they took up the majority of the space. After researching the conventions of posters I knew the layout I wanted to have and that I wanted to include production details. When discussing layout I would also next time like to include actors names and featuring people in my next poster as I think this would add more interest to the poster.

         In regards to the specific ways in which this was created I used multiple layers, starting with a background of a deep blue sky found on google images, then adding the 4 girls to the foreground in which I later added to the layers with the individual characters faces from the walking dead.

   Once I had added the individual faces to crop onto the bodies I needed to adjust the colour balance in order that the faces matched the body skin tones, this included removing more blue-tones for certain faces, and adding the burn effect to cast shadow. Once I had matched the correct skin tones I went in with the blur tool as well as the eraser with the opacity turned down in order to effectively blend the hair and face together. After I had blended the images together I went in with extra details such as positioning the title, adding production details to the poster ( release dates ) and an added stars/ reviews at the bottom.

Above is an example of how I blended Glenn's face into the character Emily. I think this is the best example of blending using tools and altering the colour balance, however if I were to create something like this again I could like to duplicate certain bits of hair and layer them on top of the face in order to make it look more realistic.

Here you are able to see the progress I made whilst creating the image, at this point I had not incorporated the title, or the two other characters' faces. The challenge with fitting the faces to the bodies was not particularly the skin tones, but the highlights on the face and the position / angle of the faces. When importing the faces I needed to flip the image to have them facing the correct way.

From the beginning of the task I knew I wanted to have the title at the top of of the poster with the production details / times / reviews situated at the bottom. This being because I wanted the the main focus to be on the characters, so I ensured they took up the majority of the space.


After I had created my final poster I went back in and switched up the title and entire layout ( apart from the girls because I wanted them to be the main focus and in the foreground). In this alternative version I put the return date at the top and changed the line from the top in black font, to the bottom in white font.

  By creating alternate versions to the one I initially created gives you an idea of layout and what works best with certain fonts, colours and images. This can also shift your attention more so to the return date as opposed to the slogan, which in the long term means the audience will view this poster and will be more inclined to remember the return date and time.
   

This is my final poster mashup design, it includes the release date, slogan as well as images layered upon each other to create the final piece in which i'm happy with. To improve on my photoshop skills I would like and try to fit the hair nicer together than how it currently is, this is something for me to work on in my next piece of photoshop work. In addition to this and upon review of my two previous posters I feel as thought I have improved in regards to skills and using the application Photoshop, for a more personal review and peer assessment, see here.