Behind the Scenes: Adventure Illustration

I just love diving into new aesthetics and learning about them. When I was younger, there were some things that captivated me but I didn't have the means to name them, or effectively search for them.

You probably know the feeling. You knew that you want to watch something with cyborgs and implants, rainy dark environments full of neon lights, but there probably was a time when you wouldn't be yet able to call it a cyberpunk.

Later, with the exposure to social media, we started to use these names for common genres more often, so it became much easier to search for cyberpunk games, dieselpunk movies, etc.

But I often still find myself struggling with this, especially when it comes to more niche genres.

Visit the full Pinboard here

So, how do you call adventure movie, often set in a jungle environments, connected to search for lost treasures, with a hint of occultism? The one with heroes wearing leather jackets, scarfs or sometimes hats? (Whips allowed too)

After a longer time, than I'm proud to admit, I came across the term "adventure pulp" and to my surprise, it was exactly the term that's reserved for exactly this kind of literature or other media.

Originated in adventure paperbacks and comics (pulps), it often has a common story arch and what's more interesting to me, certain aesthetic elements. 

Last year (or so), there was a new game called Lamplighters League, and to my absolute delight, it's based on the adventure pulp aesthetics, including the comic book stylized look, adventurous environments and event typography. (The typography and fonts are important part of this and can really help to deliver the mood)

I immediately used this new discovery as an inspiration for my next piece. As I started exploring the aesthetic elements, I realized, that there are many movies or shows, that can fall into this category. Remember Duck Tales? The large guy in pilot's gear, flying the old red biplane and taking the Scrooge on adventure and treasure hunts? Yeah.

I took the game inspiration and Duck Tales, and combined those in the sketch. Taking environment inspiration from the game and some movies (pyramid, lamp with barrel and crates, exotic foliage) and adding the biplane inspired by Duck Tales. 

I really wanted to bring those elements together in a very stylized way, so I chose the floating island poster composition, that I sometimes use and jumped right into Blender to bring it to life.

You can watch the full process video on Youtube