For the past week it seems everywhere I turn I see Alien references. Between film blogs, Prometheus previews and Valentine’s Day those acid filled monsters are everywhere. It makes a lot of sense that I should post my Alien travel poster, dubbed “LV 426”, here today.
In case you are either in the dark, Alien was a movie made by Ridley Scott in 1979. Alien was initially pitched as “Jaws in space” and was largely ignored until Star Wars brought Science Fiction to the mainstream in 1977. The movie, like Jaws, stands the test of time for many unique characteristics. It has top of the line practical effects, an iconic claustrophobic environment, a strong female lead, beautifully dark sets and monsters from the mind of H.R. Giger, and one of the most memorable scenes in movie history. If you don’t believe me just take a look at the original trailer, it’s still better than most stuff that is put out today:
Back to my poster. I decided the best way for this to fit with the other pieces in the set so far was to go off the panning shot of the derelict alien ship the crew finds on planet LV 426. I wanted it to be ominous but not obviously horrible, after all this is a travel poster and if you know anything about Aliens they were definitely trying to get people to go there. This definitely has a different tone then the previous 4 but the setting is equally different. It’s also the first time I used a gradient in any of these pieces, which was something I was trying to avoid using but the part of the shot is the eerie light emanating from the ship and a radial gradient was a nice way to imitate that. As always, your comments are welcome and thank you for taking a look.
Blake Smisko 
Super ominous. Nailed it (and I haven’t even seen the movie…yes, I know I should).