February retro prints

A new month, a new set of TOS retro prints from Juan Ortiz. StarTrek.com have done their usual interview with Ortiz to introduce the new designs. Here are this month's four:

This was the first TOS poster that I worked on, so I really didn't know where I was going to go with them yet. In general, I like the distressed paper look, not because I wanted them to look old, but because it added another visual layer for me to play with.

On the red element:

It was planned, but I didn't plan on how well it turned out. With the red coming out of the face, it looks as if he's contemplating his destiny in the stars.

On the text at the bottom

When I was done with the art, I felt the bottom of the page needed something to ground the dragon with. While I was designing the poster, I imagined it as an advertisement in the old TV Guide magazine. I was going to write down the time and channel info, but I went instead with something that T'Pau, the Vulcan elder, had said in the episode.

I never know where the ideas are going to come from. This one was inspired by crate labels for oranges. A lot of the stylizing was done so that the phaser would be highlighted, almost framed within the illustration. Kirk's collar, the phaser fire and the hand all draw attention towards it.

This one was loosely inspired by Saul Bass' Spartacus (1960) movie poster. My original idea had the glowing red entity hovering above the Enterprise, but I felt that a Klingon element needed to be added.

This one was inspired by Saul Bass' Birdman of Alcatraz movie poster. Originally, I was going to have the visor on Spock, but I felt that it was covering up too much of his face. I was hoping for a feeling of solitude. Spock always seemed like a lonely figure to me, always in thought.

The image started out as a photo of Spock from an episode. I pumped up the contrast in photoshop to where it's mostly just shapes. Then I transferred the image to illustrator where I deleted parts of it and added texture and color. I knew the poster would work well from a distance, but the texture and color was done so that it would at least seem interesting up close.

The usual retailers don't seem to have listing for this poster set up yet, but Entertainment Earth does already have a listing up for the shot glasses featuring this month's designs: