I am finally getting around to dedicating a post to the idea that started it all. "RELOAD!" One simple word, with one simple meaning, yet (I feel) very iconic! Seems crazy that I've been referring to this design since the start (and I've had it done since!) but I am just now getting around to this.
I don't know exactly what it was that was going through my head at the moment, while I was sitting in Survey of Media & Design and listening to the lecture, but I was just doodling in a sketch pad, just spitting out ideas (I was actually trying to come up with the Brand) when some pistols started making it onto the page. Now I really wish I could go back in time and get in my head, because I really have no idea what brought about the next thing. As I was sitting there doodling some more, it seems like the word "RELOAD!" did something for me, and soon after I wrote it down that first time I had what is the sketch for the original concept; a 1911 pistol that's run out of ammo, with its slide locked to the rear.
Now that I got that out of the way, let's get down into the execution! This was a bit of an exercise, though I'll probably make is sound super simple. What I did first was to find a suitable reference image. The pistol I wanted for this is the legendary 1911. Genuinely American, like yours truly! Also, I grew up on Metal Gear Solid, so when I saw Big Boss drooling all over a 1911 (starting at 03:44, but check this one out too!), it definitely caught my attention and I went off and researched it. You could say I've been a fan since!
While I referred to it as a Colt (the original manufacturers of the pistol, back when John Browning designed it) in that sketch, I ended up finding one that, while being a Springfield Armory 1911 instead of a Colt, fit my vision almost perfectly, so I went with it in the end (a little too much blue for my taste, but I took care of it soon enough!). What I did next was to take the image into illustrator and used the pen tool set to stroke with no fill, with a stroke size of about 4 points, and gave a heavy outline to all of the outer edges. Then I went in with a smaller stroke size and lined out the rest of the details.
I'll provide this image to use as reference, should any of you not understand what part of the pistol I am describing.
This is what the basic "outline" looked like. I had some people watching as I created this and they seemed pretty wowed. I was thinking "Pfft! Dude, I'm haven't even started..."
I always felt like it looked a little off, like the barrel was too long and the rear of the slide was too short, but if you compare it to the reference image, you'll see it's the same. I guess my artist brain doesn't want to be OK with something being fine as it is. Silly brain!
My next step was to select all and copy the outlines, open up a new photoshop file, paste them in there, rasterize them, bring in the source image on a separate layer, and prepare to add some color to the whole thing.
I'll go ahead and make the 1911 design available now, as a living, breathing, visual aid to my ramblings.
So, with the photo in the background for reference (and color picking) I made a new layer under the outline and started on the barrel. I used the color picker (also known as the eye dropper tool) to choose what was just about the barrel's main hue and just applied it to all of the outline's barrel. Next I isolated sections (with the selection tools, mainly the lasso, actually) mimicking the shape of the highlights, midlights, and lowlights on the actual 1911 barrel and went over them with either the dodge (to lighten) or burn (to darken) tools. These ended up looking pretty sharp, squarish, and posterized looking. To remedy this, I selected all of the paint for the barrel and blurred it until I attained the look that it has now.
Next I used the color picker again to find a median shade of gray to use for the frame, slide, and the rest of the parkerized parts of the 1911 pistol. You could totally miss it if you don't have an eye for details (or if your monitor sucks), but the parkerized parts are done in gradients, going from dark to light (and vice versa) from front to back, back to front, down to up, up to down and side to side. I had fun with this, and it was probably the most time consuming part of the whole thing. Next I did the same thing with the wood grips, the went a little crazy with some hatching and cross hatching lines. To wrap that all up I picked the layer with the outlines, went into the adjustments and turned them black.
After I was pleased with those results, I applied the text, colored it in with a gradient of a light to dark red, flattened all of the layers together, then made a copy of that combined layer, placed it underneath the original, filled it in with white and set it to sit slightly to the bottom and off to the right, flattened those layers together, and called it a night!
The length of this post is just about proportional to the length of work that I put into this design. I'm sure I spent over 8 hours working on this, and that's not including the sketches, pondering, and the search for the reference image. All in all, I am very pleased with the outcome, and even though it took me very long to finalize this, I am looking forward to the next one. The full title for this piece is "GI 1911 RELOAD! 2.0". The "GI" denotes the model type (it's supposed to be a WWII replica, a bare bones M1911A1). The "2.0", however, warrants a longer explanation...
From the beginning, I planned on making this a "twin" design. One replicating the real thing closely, and one in a more "iconic" style, such as the style used on my Backstabber design (I explain what I mean by "iconic" in the 3rd paragraph of that post). Since I consider the iconic one to be the "retro" design of the two, I am giving this design the 2.0 designation, and the iconic the 1.0. Stand by and I will be getting around to hashing out a post for the said "iconic" RELOAD! design. Until then, y'all carry on!
J, out!
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