Contributed by Owen SchumacherQuick! What's your favorite '80s movie? There's a pretty good chance veteran illustrator, Drew Struzan, painted the poster for it. Besides being the go-to guy for all the legendary Star Wars posters—the imagery of which seemed to be seared onto our childhood minds with a hot iron... in a good way!—he also covered basically every other movie you liked, too. And aside from being a force in Hollywood's art department, he's done a ton of publishing and packaging graphics, as well. I oughta know: I played his version of Clue when I was younger. Hey, it's still in the closet! Some things are too dear to be sold on eBay.
Anyway, sit back, relax in your office chair and take a stroll—a figurative one: don't leave me now—through some of yours and my more youthful favorites.
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Drew Struzan is known for his more than 150 movie posters, which include all the films in the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Star Wars film series. He has also painted for a long line of musical artists, including Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, Black Sabbath, Glenn Miller, Iron Butterfly, Bach, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Liberace. Among these, Struzan illustrated the album cover artwork for Alice Cooper's, Welcome to My Nightmare, which Rolling Stone Magazine voted one of the "Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time".
Now for the first time Drew has produced a full featured DVD that shows him working, conceiving, drawing, and painting his original movie poster art for Hellboy. In it he reveals his entire process: concepts, drawing, painting, rendering - explaining everything in full detail.
Blog: Escape From Illustration Island (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Episode 20 of the Escape From Illustration Island Podcast features an audio interview with Drew Struzan, world-famous Illustrators of movie posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and many others. Together we discuss his methods and techniques, the deeper explorations of his personal work, and his new tutorial DVD, Conceiving and Creating the Hellboy Movie Poster Art. I also announce how you can enter to win a copy of this great video tutorial by participating in the Illustration Friday Challenge.
Here are links to some of the things mentioned on the show:
Drew Struzan’s Website
Conceiving and Creating the Hellboy Movie Poster Art
Illustration Friday Challenge
Illustration Friday
Sponsored by
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(In response to last week’s Tutorial of the Week, in which I highlighted Drew Struzan’s new tutorial DVD, Jonthan Woodward of the Zero 2 Illo blog brought my attention to Massive Black’s series of video tutorials, and he agreed to review them for EFII in the following guest post.)
If you’re anything like me, you’ll love watching other artists and illustrators work – seeing their artistic thought process is a fascinating way to learn new techniques and ways of thinking.
Well, you’re in luck as Massive Black have an ever growing range of demo dvds and downloads from some of the most successful illustrators and artists (both traditional and digital) in the industry.
The demos are very reasonably priced ranging from $15 – $50 for up to 5 hours of video/audio and most of them ready for immediate download too.
I’ve now purchased Massive Black demo’s from 5 artists ranging from traditional artists working in oils and pastels like Greg Manchess and Gary Kelley to digital masters like Andrew ‘Android’ Jones. The demo’s guide you through the artists process from conception to final artwork, with a bit of insight into the illustration business thrown in too.
The Dan Dos Santos demo is particularly good as it takes you through the full end to end process, right from receiving the initial brief to handing over the final artwork and at $50 for 5 hours worth of material, it’s exceptional value.
Production values are top quality and even if the demo’s don’t cover a medium you work in, you’re bound to learn a thing or two about work flow, conception, colour and composition.
I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
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Jonathan Woodward is a location independent freelance Graphic Designer and aspiring illustrator. He is also the author of the blog zero2illo, a blog for aspiring illustrators and along with his wife runs the popular network www.locationindependent.com
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Related Tutorials:
Conceiving and Creating the Hellboy Movie Poster Art by Drew Struzan

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Now be honest. What do you think of this art? Its for "The Little Red Hen", and was done in 1958.
Here's a link to more of the book where you will find out who the illustrator is.
I wonder how many of us look at it differently once we know who did it. Just curious.
They're going to be auctioned in December.
And what I find equally interesting is an old listing on ETSY, of all places, for the very same book, dated this past May. It doesn't show the selling price, but you wonder...
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I'm in the middle of doing some new art, trying to reinvent myself as an illustrator a bit, so am spending a lot of time looking at other illustrators' work. All sorts of illustrators, not just children's book people. And not to copy. Just to get inspired.
And boy howdy, if this guy doesn't inspire you, I don't know who will.
Drew Struzan (the movie poster god)
I really enjoyed looking at the "Comprehensives" link. Mind you, these are just the preliminary drawings and paintings he does to get approval to go to the final piece. Amazing, the amount of work that goes into just those. Then there's the final art (which he sometimes does more than one version of to help the client decide).
And you'll see on his home page that he now has a DVD available that demonstrates his technique. I watched the trailer, which was a treat in itself. He uses colored pencils! ha ha Well, I knew that. But its how he uses them plus all the other stuff he does before them that's magic.
I have a copy of the "Big Trouble in Little China" poster, and I think maybe one other one, that used to be pinned to my wall in my art school days. Maybe I should get them out and have them framed.
Blog: Escape From Illustration Island (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Drew Struzan has just released the mother of all tutorial DVDs.
You can now get a look inside the studio of this world-famous artist and creator of well-known movie posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, and countless others.
Up until now, I have only featured free online tutorials for EFII’s Tutorial of the Week series, but when Drew sent me a message announcing the release of his new DVD, I knew that every Illustrator on the planet needed to know about it.
It’s called Conceiving and Creating the Hellboy Movie Poster Art, and here’s a quick description in Drew’s own words:
“The DVD is a full feature, 100 minute long video of my process in the production of a movie poster. This is no pretend session of painting. It is the actual process from concept design to finished painting and all the steps, techniques and thoughts in between as I produce the original Hellboy movie poster art.”
Not convinced yet?
You can watch the trailer here.
Anyone who has been amazed by Drew’s work will benefit greatly by watching this inside look into the process of bringing great concepts to life and taking them to the next level.
Forget Tutorial of the Week.
Something tells me this is the Tutorial of the Year.
Related Tutorials:
Wookie Rage Part 1 by Chris Oatley
Digital Painting of a Creature by Bobby Chiu
How to Paint a Concept Environmental Scene by Xia Taptara
Did you find value in this tutorial? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Also feel free to recommend a tutorial for a future Tutorial of the Week.
I’m really humbled by listening to this interview. What a wonderful and generous guy. I think everyone who aspires to be an illustrator needs to look at his work and listen to this interview.
Inspiring, insightful, simply awesome. Thank you Drew and Thomas!
Thanks Melanie. I feel much the same way about this episode. Drew was a great guest and speaks in a very special way about art and life. I’m glad you enjoyed it too.
Thomas, Thanks so much for arranging this interview. Drew is inspiring. I appreciate his experience, patience, drive and gentle spirit (an interesting paradox).
Thanks, too, for asking insightful questions and stepping back to let Drew do the talking. Kudos!
Hello Colleen. Thanks so much for the positive feedback. Drew is indeed a gentle spirit, and an inspiration on many levels. I’m glad you enjoyed the conversation, and that you benefitted from it in some way.
[...] tutorial. One of my favorite podcast’s, Escape from Illustration Island’s, latest podcast is an interview with Struzan himself. I listened to this interview a couple of times. They discuss techniques, philosophies, the [...]
I’ve been waiting for this one. Thank you Thomas. I am in complete agreement with Colleen. Most insightful and inspirational. I can’t imagine Drew Struzan home less or for want at any period in his life. Looking at his phenomenal body of work you assume he’s been successful from the womb on, but it would seem quite the opposite is true. What mr Struzan shared, especially in his closing statements has had a great impact on me. I can’t thank him enough, and I can’t thank you enough Thomas for sharing this interview. Through our sufferings, we will find success, and the challenge of be fully human will be met. Encourage each other along the way, that’s what it’s all about.
Thanks again.
Hey Samuel. Yeah, Drew really brought it home with his closing statements. It was such a nice conclusion to a great conversation. So much food for thought. I’m glad it lived up to your expectations.
What a wonderful and sharing individual. In your opening comment you state that many may not know the artist, but everyone knows the work. You were right in my case. Who would of thought that one artist would be the visual enticement to ALL of those movies, books, etc. Wow!! If I win the DVD, cool, if not, I’m going to use my recent art dollars to buy it. I want to listen to more of what Drew has to say about his choices and processes. Thanks Thomas, for bringing this interview to EFII.
Donna
wow .. what a great interview!
Thanks Nate! A truly insightful guest like Drew makes my job much easier, not to mention inspiring.
Thanks to interviewer and interviewee for some interesting and thought- provoking listening.