Indiana Jones Painting Tutorial.
(Download the image for full 1103pix X 2500pix resolution)

Early this year I was charged with a commission to design and produce a limited edition release poster for Indiana Jones 4. I commenced work well before the details of the movie had been released and like almost all the people working within the LucasFilm/Indy machine, I was not privy to all the plot details – especially the characters and their relationships. Even the name of the movie at that stage was unknown and more importantly, the existence of the crystal skull was considered top secret.

I decided to keep my layout simple – devoid of most characters -because I knew that the brilliant Drew Struzan, would be working them all into his two poster interpretations. At that stage the relationship between Indy and Mutt was also unconfirmed, but I was strongly of the opinion that they would turn out to be father and son, so I concentrated on their “mentor and student” relationship for the composition. In confidence, I DID know of the existence of the skull but knowing that it was especially secret, I opted to include it in a way that was more abstract rather than literal.

I wanted to create an uncluttered piece that paid homage to the simplicity of Richard Amsel’s original ‘Raider’s’ poster. The challenge was to source a good reference image of Harrison from LucasFilm where he didn’t look TOO haggard – the result was a hi-res but slightly ‘soft’ shot of him that captured the heroic expression I was looking for…..

Top three images:
After working through a number of rough concepts, I put down the final layout on sheet of acid free paper, working in pencil. I felt the composition would benefit from the inclusion of a Mayan style motif and the circular carvings worked well for the intimacy of my composition.

I prefer to work on MDF board because, not only is it a firm base, but I really like its inherent color – especially when varnished. Using a piece roughly 340 x 250 inches in size I transferred the layout to the board using traditional pencil. The next step was to lay down a wash of general color that would assist me in determining the deeper tones and the underpainted variations.

I chose to use a very limited pallet of colors for this piece (see the list at the foot of this tutorial) and I use Acrylic’s by choice.

Second line images:
I dislike a ‘clean’ surface to paint on and in an attempt to drop in a little texture, I liberally splashed the surface of the entire board with drops of watered down paint. NB. I tend to do this only AFTER I have laid out the underpaint because if you do it earlier it’s almost impossible to see the pencil line work through the spots.

Using a combination of colors from my limited pallet, I started working on Harrison’s face, his chest and his shirt – laying down the initial paint application as a wash. Working with progressively thicker paint, I also worked on his hat so that I could pull Harrison’s face out of the composition.

Third line images:
I continued to lay down the paint in progressively thicker layers and I also started to work colored pencil lines into the painting - to enhance some areas of color and to define edges of some shapes. I use a combination of Prisma Color, Faber Castell and Derwent pencils for this. I briefly considered including highlights on his eyeballs (left hand image), but ultimately decided against doing so because in my mind it looked wrong. I felt that Ford's likeness was "off" so I reworked his face again and in order to balance the layout, I worked on the skull and the light areas around Mutt’s face. I also added flames around the side of Indy’s head.

Fourth line images:
I was really struggling with Ford’s likeness at this stage so I slightly altered his right hand cheek to get the light to fall properly. His nose, I made a little more lopsided and I reworked his eyes extensively. I changed the flames because the first attempt looked like I had stolen them from the side of a Pontiac Firebird. Shia le Bouff’s face was coming together but I kept it smoother and less cluttered than the rugged treatment of Ford’s.

Finally, I enhanced the red and yellow at the bottom of the composition to lift the Soviet symbol and to bring weight to the bottom of the painting – all the while, I continued to work over the entire surface with colored pencils to create the looseness and energy I prefer to employ on my work.

Bottom Line:
The finished painting was finally varnished and scanned and Photoshop was used to clean up the edges and to lay in the Logo and text.

Go here for a high resolution version of the final poster [link]

Paint colors used:
Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White, Carbon Black, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Napthol Crimson, Cadmium Scarlet

Pencil colors used:

Ultramarine, Kingfisher Blue, Light Blue, Indigo, Dark Flesh, Deco Peach, Venetian Red, Poppy Red, Terracotta, Golden Brown, Burnt Umber, Black, White