Friday, May 10, 2013

Death Trap- Preliminary Drawing


Once again, I am doing a couple of posters for our regional playhouse Pioneer Theater. Last year I did work for A Christmas Carol: the Musical and this year I have agreed to do two new posters. The first is for a murder mystery called Death Trap, the 1978 thriller by Ira Levin who also penned the creepers Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives. The plot revolves around washed up playwright Sydney Bruhl who is approached by a former student Clifford Anderson to read a new play he has written. The play turns out to be fantastic and Bruhl hatches a plan to kill Clifford and steal the script for his own. Many plot twists ensue and the ending is quite a surprise. The weapons in the drawing represent the collection of stage props that decorate one wall of Sydney's house and are also used to knock off the main characters. I wanted something that was ambiguous enough to not give away anything but mysterious enough to draw in the viewer. As soon as I get sketch approval I will move to finish on this one.

3 comments:

Bill said...

I like the pencil behind the ear. At first glance I thought it was another weapon.

Anonymous said...

I love the contrasts of the subtle pencil lines on the figure in contrast with the strong lines on the metal weapons. Your composition is also very intriguing.

Unknown said...

Thanks guys! I will now be painting this in Photoshop. Depending on how it goes, there will be a lot of the pencil texture still visible in the final version.