Congratulations and possible discussions

[hobojowino]

Hey Congrats to you winner types. I had almost for got I had even done anything for it. I have to admit I really just like the idea of Stickers. But there was some really cool art put out there.

[CpVb006]

Without further ado, jt's "reader guide".

[Ellimist]

...

R O F L.

[heartbreak]

*laughs* That's awesome jt.

[whatcolor_death]

Who else got a email to include their art as part of the collage in the paperback?

i think i missed the deadline since it was dated Friday and my internet was down all week end

[Navi]

I did...Was wondering the same thing myself but I decided to be too shy to post anything about it.

[whatcolor_death]

BAH! i wasn't able to check my email so i missed the deadline to grant permission for the book...that sucks...it would have been cool to have my picture published in the book.

[Bjoernsdotír]

Oo I find this thread today... the winner was great!
But my favourite was hello´s enter, is there a connection with old uncle Sam?
Anywayyys, I wonder if I will get any stickers, cause I am after all a bit of an outsider! haha

[hello?]

is there a connection with old uncle Sam?

Yep.

[FieryAden]

How better to depict the military-industrial creep than as an ominous distortion of a national icon? While we are on the subject of motifs, I think it would be interesting to hear what inspired Hello? and the other artists (and juxtapolemic with his reader's guide), whether it be a specific passage from the book or external stylistic influences.

[heartbreak]

My first thought when sitting down to start was of the signs at the beginning of paths found in national parks. You know the ones that say "You are here." and shows elevation of mountains, and trails and all that good useful stuff.

So from there I started figuring out how to place things, and what to put down, the "you were there" replaced the "you are here" and was done in purple because you were there in that point of time. Elevation is infinite because we never stop climbing the mountain and the path ends now because the present is forever expiring. When I first drew it the mountain sides weren't straight, but when I mirrored it it made me think of an hourglass, so thats when I decided to integrate the OR symbol. Drawing the mirrored mountains inside the ll part, making it look even more like an hourglass. Path 1 and Path 2 on either side represent Sam and Hailey, I purposely didn't mirror them to represent that although we are all going up the same mountain and following similar paths, they are never exactly the same, even for two people on the same path.

Originally, I had planned to draw the circle around it as well, but it would have been huge. The entire thing is 16 inches from top to bottom and directly scaled to the symbol on the book. Well as near as I could make it... making it 16 inches didn't translate well obviously, I was a bit bummed about that.

At this point I didn't have paper big enough to sketch on so when i was making a mock up actual size I had to do it in pieces for a reference point when measuring I had drawn a dotted line down the center, looking at that and the triangle representing the mountain to me it looked like a road going off into the distance. Originally the dates were going to be mile markers going up the side of the mountain or down the road, but it looked funky so I moved them over to where they are now. Those posed a pain as well, the list was supposed to have the dates corresponding with every 72 pages evenly disbursed, but I was tired when I did that part and fudged a few of them, so I decided to fix it as best I could and then see what I thought when I was done.

I had a little room at the bottom under the dates and the word History so I decided to put the circle in there but I didn't really want to put the ll in and have it be a bit redundant and I was a bit perplexed on how to incorporate animals and plants in it as well. So I went searching on Symbols.com and found a couple 17th century symbols. The one at the bottom represent the plant kingdom. The one at the top actually as posted would represent the mineral kingdom, but if you rotate the picture so that the top is right side up then it is the symbol for the animal kingdom.

When I was finished, I thought it looked terrible, well not terrible, but not really pleasing to the eye. It was sloppy. There were mistakes. Hell it looked like something I would have turned in for a school project when I was sixteen.

So I submitted it.

[hello?]

Hell it looked like something I would have turned in for a school project when I was sixteen.

So I submitted it.

Awesome.

My rendition of THE CREEP was actually inspired by a sleeping paralysis-induced hallucination I had several years ago (as a matter of fact, not too long after reading about other forum members' experiences with this very phenomenon...); while I was petrified in bed staring up at the ceiling, I saw this shadowy greenish figure looming over me with eyes exactly like the ones on THE CREEP (which I realized looked a bit like the "cigarette burns" in OR, as well as a certain entoptic effect I've noticed when staring at the sky; little bullseyes). Anyway, the image stuck with me.

I wanted to make THE CREEP taller, more human (Hailey does refer to him as "sexy," and my version's anything but), and show him after the party in New Orleans, towering over Sam and Hailey and wielding the Noose/Cord (which would have been made out of an umbilical cord) while beckoning (rather than pointing) with his right hand. But I had already painted the pointing Uncle Sam finger a long time ago for a completely unrelated project, so it was easier to just copy and paste it and then add some texture and transparent skin & bones.

Oh, and at one point I considered utilizing a sort of cross-hatch effect like you see in most paper money, only made out of the natural lines and curves of fingerprints; sort of intertwining economy and identity, which sorta happens throughout OR. I tried it on his head, but I couldn't get it to look quite right.

Also, it's kinda hard to see, but I wove some of that spider-webby design you see in the background of US currency into the smoke rising up in front of him. It seemed to make sense at the time.

Well, that was certainly self-indulgent.

[Navi]

My entry was probably the laziest thing I could have come up with.

I read about the contest and then saw some of the first entries - and promptly decided there was no way I could compete. But of course, along came the stickers and I figured it was worth the effort just to get my hands on some of those.

So since I'm a photographer by nature I thought about what I already had in my files. Graveyards, no. Old buildings, no. Then I had my "aha" moment when I found that silly little dandelion. Immediately the golden colour of the flower (and the fact that it's a flower) put me in mind of Hailey, which is rather special and personal to me in the way I relate to her. Then I decided the two lesser dandelions made me think of the dynamic between Sam and the Creep (not to mention the green grass).

Very simple and very lazy but hey, it got me some stickers.