Sons of Sardaar
Bollywood calls
This is a poster illustration commissioned by the producers of the upcoming movie Sons of Sardaar.
The movie tells the story of the Battle of Saragarhi, in which 21 Sikhs of the British Indian Army fought to the death to defend their outpost against an attacking army of 10,000 Afghan Orakzai tribesmen.
The brief was, naturally, to highlight the heroism of the Sikh contingent. Here is the initial sketch.
The poses were expertly modelled by my son, Calloway, who does a pretty mean horde when the occasion demands it.
This is the initial version of the poster.
The client's feedback was that he was concerned that the Afghans were too prominent. He wanted more Sikhs, and initially requested the removal of the central Afghan figure. I pointed out that this would leave the main Sikh soldier taking aim at his own foot. I suggested a compromise where I would move the Afghan lower in the composition, remove some of his comrades, make their robes less Persil-white, and add more Sikh warriors to the middle ground. This necessitated a return to the camera for more poses....
Here's a detail from each version of the poster...
....and the final painting.