hill valley, 2015

"shark still looks fake..."

hill valley, 2015: my back to the future piece for the autumn society's 3B show at gallery 1988 ! sticking with the 3-dimensional painting theme, with marty and the shark painted on glass 1/4" above the town background.  i added a bit more of the 3D touch to the flat background by raising the cafe and jaws signs. here are the individual layers to give a better idea of the piece's look:

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when i found out one of the movies for the 3B show was back to the future, i wouldn't say i was disappointed, but i would have liked to illustrate a new movie, considering i had just done two BTTF commissions. the two commissions i did were from the first and third of the series, so naturally, i took this as an opportunity (and challenge) to complete the set by illustrating a scene from back to the future part 2. my BTTF buff of a boyfriend suggested the 3D jaws scene, so i took it and ran with it.  i watched this specific part dozens of times for reference, and when marty says the "shark still looks fake," i laughed like an idiot every time. fantastic. i wanted to do a little more than just a painting of a cartoony shark, so i pieced together some different elements from that specific scene.  i had no choice but to include cafe 80's since there is nothing i love more than the 80's.

i also added in the antique shop that marty takes a peek in.  it is a teeny tiny piece of the painting, so it was hard to get too detailed, but i made sure to (attempted..) to include the infamous sports almanac. i also noticed a roger rabbit stuffed animal in the window, when i realized robert zemeckis, director of BTTF, also directed roger rabbit, one of my all time favorite movies, so i had to include roger in my piece as well.

i'm pretty excited about marty's color changing cap. while painting his pretty, shimmery, metallicy multi-colored hat from the movie, i realized i had some iridescent paints lying around and they were perfect for a little extra detail. i was a little overexcited about it, but in the end, you could only see the iridescence in the right light, from the right angles.  but it's there!

also, i have posted some photos below to (hopefully) give a better idea of how the 3-dimensional part comes in. you may notice (probably based on the shadows casted) that both the cafe and jaws signs are raised a bit above the painting. just trying to give some more dimension in addition to the paintings on glass.

next up, beetlejuice!