NyCaiA Tutorials!

How to: Poster Style Illustration!

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NyCaiA

Introduction

Hello! In this tutorial, we’ll be going through some tips on how to make a compelling poster illustration! I’m going to be going over audience, composition, colors, and text, all using CSP!

What is a poster?

First, let’s go over what a poster illustration is. Technically, anything can be made into a poster, but a really good poster has some key features – an easily recognizable message, a clear mood, and an intentional composition. These factors help the viewer see exactly what the illustrator is communicating to them visually.

Audience, Mood, and Theme

A good place to start is determining who your audience is and what mood and themes you want to portray to them. For example, a poster geared toward kids would probably need more simplistic characters, age-appropriate visuals, and an easy theme for children to follow.

Alternatively, posters meant for adults can be thematically darker, more complex, and more mature in the subject matter.

Mood is also very important when designing your poster. Decide what you want your audience to feel. Sad? Happy? Nostalgic? Scared? As we continue with the tutorial, you’ll see how important other elements are when making the mood of the poster.

I like to keep these preliminary thoughts in mind when making a poster. For my example poster, I want to create something for a more mature audience, and I want to feel excited and intrigued.

The character I’m featuring is more complex, seductive, and a little unnatural, so I’m going to focus on exaggerating those themes when thinking about the composition.

Composition

Thumbnails

I’m going to start by drawing quick sketches of the character–this part doesn’t have to be good, it’s just getting all the random ideas out. I’m thinking about what kind of pose the character would make, and using her unique features in some way.

S-curves, X's, and the Golden Ratio

One really good point in terms of composition is making interesting shapes. Curves, specifically s-shaped curves, and X shapes are generally very compelling to look at.

There’s also the golden ratio! Boiled down to its simplest form, it’s the idea that the viewer’s eye should flow circularly throughout the illustration. A lot of the best posters feature this method.

Framing

Another interesting thing to add is frames! This is a really good method for focusing the viewer on something specific. When I say frames, I don’t mean like a picture frame, but something that surrounds the subject or features to highlight it.

In this case, I want 2 frames– one that surrounds the entire character, and one that specifically frames her face. I’m using the hair and her arms to my advantage and dramatically posing them in such a way as to create interesting shapes around the features I want to accentuate.

Power of Color

Remember when we talked about mood? Color can be extremely powerful when communicating the mood of a piece. Colors and associations with that color vary from culture to culture, so that’s another thing to keep in mind when considering the color of the illustration.

Color Schemes

As I said before, this illustration is more mature and the character is seductive, playful, and unnatural, so I want to incorporate darker colors, maybe with one stand-out bright color in an unusual shade as a nod to her unusual features.

I also want to experiment with saturation and light effects to make the image more intriguing.

I also like adding correction layers on top to experiment more. Here, I used the Hue/ Saturation/Luminosity correction layer on top of the image to quickly change the hue and saturation without editing the original image.

You can access this by going to Layers > Correction Layers > Hue/Saturation Luminosity.