Brief summary and initial notes.

For this brief I have to create a movie poster for the series 'King of the rocket men'. Not just any old poster however, oh no, this poster must be made entirely from 3D! 
The first ideas to pop into my head to do with the 3D aspect would be to use plasticine, cardboard and possibly felt. I am most excited though to play around with modelling as I haven't had the opportunity in a long while.

My first thoughts on this movie after watching it, was that its completely and entirely cheesy. Once you take into consideration the date it was made and the storyline however this is very easy to embrace! 

The storyline follows a Jeff King trying to figure out who is behind the killings of scientists and stolen experiments. This is the villain always hidden under shadows, Dr Vulcan.
Jeff, naturally, uses an experimental rocket suit to become rocket man and solve the crime himself !

Although his suit is simplistic and, again, cheesy, I think it will be fun to work with as the main subject of my poster. After all he is the hero.

Snapshots from the film.

Previous 'King of the rocket men' posters.

My 3D inspiration Pinterest board.

I created a Pinterest board to gather some inspiration on what materials I could use. My favourite ideas so far have definitely got to be the plasticine and textiles.

pinterest

Here I made some rough initial thumbnails to get an idea of how I could tackle this task. I first thought of using the most iconic rocket man pose from the films but looking back now i'm not too sure they are interesting, at least not alone. 

I think a big challenge for me at this stage is that rocket man has a very basic and plain mask and the villain is mostly shown as a shadow throughout the movie.. this is making it a tad challenging to think of ways to portray emotion. I think i'm going to have to make the background very energetic and busy to help make this poster come to life.

Plasticine tests.

​Here was my initial attempt at making a Plasticine rocket man and I think it turned out.. quirky.
I wasn't happy with the outcome whatsoever, even though it was a very rough very quick model, I knew the proportions where all out of wack and not in a charming way. plus I had to prop him on a stick and he was very heavy, this would be hard to incorporate into a large scene without making it seem messy.
I clearly had to rethink this process.

This was what I came up with to make my model not only lighter but in better proportion altogether as I can make a sketch to directly work from. I first sketched out the pose I wanted rocket man to be in then I added Plasticine to build up the form. After this I cut him out with the idea that I can place him in whatever scene I want to. 

cut out-

black and white-

card clouds backround-

For this test I made small rolls of Plasticine and lay them out on a piece of cardboard to create a textured background and shadow. I like how this turned out and considering it would be the background of the poster I think it could be interesting.
The only negative aspect this has is that its very time consuming.
I think if i want to include a lot of texture in this piece it will end up being highly time consuming anyways.
Another way I could possibly create texture with Plasticine is by using something with texture and rolling it on.

plastic doll test.

Next, I took this poor unsuspecting doll and made her into a rocket man! I had to make the doll much more manly before covering it with different materials to get the desired look.

I think with a little work this mock-up could be a really interesting idea for a possible final piece.

Salt dough test.

The internet actually suggested this one to me, salt dough. Almost everyone had played with salt dough as a child and yet I completely forgot it was a thing until now !

I started by trying to create a torso that stood upright but the rocket man was far too heavy to keep itself stood up, so I opted for a different approach.

and then we bake, and paint.

absolutely nightmare fuel, lovely. 

I got some really good reactions to this, and so, another was born.

For this salt dough rocket man I decided to have his arms lifted as if he was flying, unfortunately at this stage I wasn't feeling the love for salt dough as much as I had been prior. I decided for my final poster I'd need a larger subject. I also felt it was lacking in texture and depth. I really wasn't sure how to take this any further so I moved back on to plasticine. 

Final Rocket man figure.

I took a look back at what I had done so far and thought to myself.. why not mix the plasticine and doll I had previously made? I think this was the best idea I had yet as it is by far my favourite model from this project.

I made his body by covering the once barbie with plenty of plasticine, string, glue and a little bit of foam card for the buttons on his suit. He looks a similar kind of ugly to my salt dough tests but in a much better way, I made his eyes as 'real' as I could which makes this hero look all the more creepy. I was loving the mood this gave off already.

Here he is stood up fully in all his glory, I gave him his cool gun from the film and large feet so that he could stand on his own fully. He reminds me of something you would have seen in early adult swim animations and I loved that gritty quality about him.

Playing with shadows.

I still wanted to show the bad guy in the background as a shadow, I cut out the shape and added it here but unfortunately I didn't think this turned out as strong of an outcome as id have liked.

playing with filters.

Final poster.

As I wasn't very happy with how plain the background was in these photos, I decided to add more. I played with using skyscrapers in my thumbnails and so I decided to cut some out of foam.

Along with the background now being black, I liked this much more. I made the title out of hot glue and tinfoil and then the rocket out of more plasticine. I liked the busier background much more and decided to stick with this setup for my final poster.

I tried adding the evil Dr.Vulcan shadow in the background but I felt this made it look a little too cluttered in the end.

These where my three favourite final images.

Final poster.

I am very happy with how this turned out in the end, Id have liked for the camera to be a little more crisp but unfortunately this is the best a mobile phone can give you. The rough and creepy nature of the rocket man makes this poster all the more suspenseful and interesting. I am also very happy that I went with this rather than the salt dough. Rocket man, I hope I did you proud.