South Park: Good Times With Weapons

[Obelisk666]

Attachment 76822

SOUTH PARK: GOOD TIMES WITH WEAPONS
South Park/SDCC "Year of the Fan" Contest Entry

dimensions: 24" x 36" (300dpi)

This piece came about thanks to my wife wondering when the 2011 season of South Park was going to start up. Not knowing I headed on over to South Park Studios to get the answer, and on their front page they were advertising a contest for their 15th Anniversary called SOUTH PARK 15: YEAR OF THE FAN. Looking into the rules and stuff I saw that I would have plenty of time to do something, which for me is never the case as I always find out about contests with either no time or already gone. All I had to do was do a little bit of "fan art" and enter. Only 15 would be selected with the winners getting their piece displayed at the San Diego Comic Con 2011 (as well as a couple of other prizes thrown in) and I thought to myself, why the hell not? What's the worse that can happen, I don't get picked?

So many episodes over those past 15 years, what should I mine from? A generalized South Park piece? Episode-centric? An idea pulled out of my ass? I could have gone any route but for some reason I focussed on that one episode back in the 8th season. The one where the boys got these weapons and imagined themselves as anime-esque warriors, yeah, that was the one I would go with. But how? Falling back on my limited anime experience I pulled out all the manga art books I had and got my inspiration and poses, namely from the Korean style, Manhwa. My regular style came through a bit more, but at least I had a decent base to work with because what I wanted to do was make a movie poster out of the episode.

I started off doing the piece as one great big whole with the full intention of going in afterwards and coloring it in PhotoShop. I've done it before, draw something simple and let the mouse add the details. However since I hadn't drawn anything in a long time at the time I did this, my old detail-sadist side came roaring back and began to ink the picture in a way that would make it damn near impossible for me to colorize.

Still with plenty of time to spare I scrapped what had been done and started drawing each character individually. As I finished each one I scanned them and worked on them individually in PhotoShop. Using layers for like the first time EVER I was able to shuffle characters back and forth, resize them when needed, change some skin tones here and there and, before long, I had my finished project ready to submit.

Of course I didn't win, didn't even place much less get an honorable mention. Stuff like this makes me bitter, especially given what WAS selected, even in the honorable mentions.

[Firefly]

I like the piece. Good work!