Iteratively teaching myself some art "skills"

I'm trying to start a residual income stream at redbubble. I have fun creating the art, but I'm not very skilled at it. I figured it's time to up my game. I like parodies on vintage posters, so I thought I'd start learning to do those. Also, since we're allowed to advertise here at permies, I should start designing art that's relevant to the people here. So far I've got one poster. I'll post it here for opinions or constructive criticism. As of this posting, this design is not available at redbubble. It's just a learning project. Maybe when I decide it's ready. (Pending a green light from Paul Wheaton, since he's in it.)

The vintage posters I'm using as inspiration look to be WW2 era, possibly for recruiting.





I used those as a template for the poster below. (I posted the previous iteration on another thread yesterday. I redid the nametag, because I didn't think it was a good match. I don't think that thread was intended to become my personal gallery, so I'm bringing that mess here.)

I really love art and creating as well, I've never head of redbubble (I need to research more haha). I saw your "let's swap seeds" decal/sticker, I thought that was pretty funny.

Anyway, I will give you my personal opinion, I think if you want to make it look like a war poster, you should make his photo take up more of the white/empty space on the poster. You see how the other posters have that "classic look"? It's because the viewer's eye is either drawn right or left, and then to the words and the photo is supposed to set the tone of the words. You should position his photo in a way that the words and his image get the same amount of attention from the eye and compliment eachother.
I find the best way to get a good result is to position it, leave it, and then look at it 20 minutes later. Keep working and tweaking it until you get the dynamic result you want; something you would want to look at. It takes awhile, but it's worth it.

Len Whittaker wrote:Anyway, I will give you my personal opinion, I think if you want to make it look like a war poster, you should make his photo take up more of the white/empty space on the poster. You see how the other posters have that "classic look"? It's because the viewer's eye is either drawn right or left, and then to the words and the photo is supposed to set the tone of the words. You should position his photo in a way that the words and his image get the same amount of attention from the eye and compliment eachother.
I find the best way to get a good result is to position it, leave it, and then look at it 20 minutes later. Keep working and tweaking it until you get the dynamic result you want; something you would want to look at. It takes awhile, but it's worth it.

I think I get part of what you're saying, but probably not all of it. Regarding the white space, I think I positioned him so his whole body fit the width of the space, similarly to the others, but his arms are out to the sides. That made his body take up the space, but left his face taking less horizontal space than theirs. Looking at the "rule of thirds", their heads (including hat brim) take about ⅓ of the horizontal space. I would say I have Paul at a little over half of that. Therefore, I could zoom in on him accordingly. Am I on the track of what you're telling me? What else am I missing?

Can you find a different picture to use?  IN the WW2 soldier pictures, the men are in a relaxed pose just smiling, like a friendly greeting so it fits with the "This man is your friend" tagline.  But the picture of Paul he looks like he is speaking (lecturing?) to the viewer, and he seems to be positioned above the viewer.  It is a "leader" picture, like you would see in many "great leader" propaganda posters, not a "friend" picture.

Mk Neal wrote:Can you find a different picture to use?  IN the WW2 soldier pictures, the men are in a relaxed pose just smiling, like a friendly greeting so it fits with the "This man is your friend" tagline.  But the picture of Paul he looks like he is speaking (lecturing?) to the viewer, and he seems to be positioned above the viewer.  It is a "leader" picture, like you would see in many "great leader" propaganda posters, not a "friend" picture.

I'll have a look with that in mind. Although, a shot of Paul above everyone, maybe sneering, one of those starbursty backgrounds like there's a super powerful lightsource backlighting him, a stylized eagle somewhere, with a Kaiser Bill... Maybe I could market that to his detractors? Probably shouldn't name names, but I can think of someone who might approve.

Took some advice and used a different pic, hopefully sized better. Also cropped the image to not stick out past the footer. Seems edge bleed wasn't a thing back in the day...

T Melville wrote: I think I get part of what you're saying, but probably not all of it. Regarding the white space, I think I positioned him so his whole body fit the width of the space, similarly to the others, but his arms are out to the sides. That made his body take up the space, but left his face taking less horizontal space than theirs. Looking at the "rule of thirds", their heads (including hat brim) take about ⅓ of the horizontal space. I would say I have Paul at a little over half of that. Therefore, I could zoom in on him accordingly. Am I on the track of what you're telling me? What else am I missing?

I guess what I was trying to say is you seem to want his entire photo in the poster, which does line up with the "rule of thirds", and you positioned it quite well when thinking of those rules. But- sometimes rules need to be thrown out for a position that looks more natural. Even the original posters didn't care about part of the person being cut off, and it looked good.  Just gotta experiment.   I did like the new poster you posted a little more than the first. Personally, I liked the first photo you chose more, but I like what you did with the second poster better.
Anyway, I'm so glad you're willing to share your work, I know that's hard sometimes.

I put a few Christmas designs on my redbubble last night and this morning. Religious, so I won't post pictures here.

I'm still coming up dry on anything permaculture related. Everything I think of is boring, stupid, or somebody else's work / image / quote. Off to spin my wheels some more.

I finally made a sale! Same design as the previous post, but on a sticker.

I guess I have a moral question now. I made that design, but it's very much based on graphics Paul Wheaton used here. What is the right thing for me to do here? I guess my options are: 1) Change nothing. 2) Take down the image. 3) Share the money with Paul. (So far, I've made $0.33. I doubt this would be too enticing, but may be appropriate later. 4) Acknowledge Paul and link to his article from my page at redbubble. (I never thought of this one before. I think I can do this one in at least a limited way. I'll go find out right after I post this.) Anyone who has an opinion, feel free to chime in, I'd welcome the feedback. (Particularly Paul.)

*Edit: The description of that design on redbubble now reads:

Hugelculture image with Nasa style font. *Inspired by graphics found in Paul Wheaton's article "hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds" at https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/ .

T Melville wrote:
I guess I have a moral question now. I made that design, but it's very much based on graphics Paul Wheaton used here. What is the right thing for me to do here?

I think it is different enough to not be considered a derivative work under US copyright law unless you somehow used more than 33% of the reference image in it. I have some experience with copyright law but am not a lawyer. You could always just ask Paul to be sure he wont sue you over $0.33 lol. The big thing I would worry about would be using the term Hugelkultur is it a trademarked or coined term that requires any royalties or permission to use. I have heard that since Permaculture is a coined term you must complete a PDC before using it for business purposes but idk if that is really policed or true.

T Simpson wrote:The big thing I would worry about would be using the term Hugelkultur is it a trademarked or coined term that requires any royalties or permission to use.

My understanding is that it's german for hill culture. I've never heard of it being copyrighted.