Here Comes the Sun
This is my contribution to The Illustrated Beatles, an exhibition organised by illustratorsireland.com to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first studio recording. Forty songs were selected by media luminaries and distributed at random to 40 leading Irish illustrators.
Below is a brief walk through the process of cooking up the image.
Below is a brief walk through the process of cooking up the image.
Here Comes the Sun is George Harrison's composition, so I made him the centrepiece. Since he wasn't available for a photo shoot I had to photograph myself for reference.
I had an idea that the background should be based somehow on a mandala, so I made a basic structure to work from.
I pictured the mandala being somehow constructed from sections of sky. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I also toyed with the idea of wrapping the zebra crossing from the Abbey Road cover around the mandala, and posting the four lads one on each side.
I also toyed with the idea of wrapping the zebra crossing from the Abbey Road cover around the mandala, and posting the four lads one on each side.
Sometimes an image has to get worse before it gets better.
The idea was to have the single emerging from the sleeve like the sun from the clouds in the song lyric.
The yellow vinyl looked too late 70s, the sky backgound pulled the focus away from the figure and the zebra crossing was just too distracting. Time to go back to basics...
The idea was to have the single emerging from the sleeve like the sun from the clouds in the song lyric.
The yellow vinyl looked too late 70s, the sky backgound pulled the focus away from the figure and the zebra crossing was just too distracting. Time to go back to basics...
Here I kept the mandala structure and greatly reduced the colour palette to wintry blues and sunny yellows. I hoped the rays would add perspective without putting too much depth behind the figure.
Clouds, snowflakes, suns and smiles all come from the song lyric, and drop shadows bring back a little depth to the mandala.
Heeeere's Georgie!
Fire and ice need no explanation, but I still wanted to reference the Abbey Road cover somehow by way of adding the rest of the group.
And indeed dealing with the problem of what to do with George's legs...
Fire and ice need no explanation, but I still wanted to reference the Abbey Road cover somehow by way of adding the rest of the group.
And indeed dealing with the problem of what to do with George's legs...
Here's that famous crossing with a twist - literally. This required redrawing all but John at new angles, thus Paul's cigarette is now hidden on the far side.
Paul's bare feet on the Abbey Road cover were cited by conspiracy theorists as one of the proofs that he was dead. I pushed that a little further by giving him skeleton feet. Not that you'd notice without a magnifying glass.
And here's one I prepared earlier. Some more drop shadows to separate out the elements a bit better, and added texture throughout to give it that extra something.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...