Back before Max Steel settled on the show that debuted last year, I was tasked to develop a series of inspirational poster thumbnails showing Max Steel in a much more epic, more contemporary light. We depicted him as if he would be the next toy franchise to make the jump to the big screen and covered as many genre categories as possible.
After developing several thumbnails, I painted several of them to the next level of finish.
Definitely influenced by the Dark Knight poster.
I learned an interesting thing about superhero brands when working on this project. At one point, the above motorcycle poster was vetoed because "Max Steel never runs away." It may depict the thrill of the chase, but if the hero is running away, it either makes him look incapable of facing the odds, or it makes him look guilty, whether wrongly accused or not.
I also found that whenever you put a map of the world in there, it always gives it a globetrotting feel. If you make it look computer generated, suddenly you enter into spy/global intrigue territory.
If you don't know much about the character or the story, don't add anything else and work with composition, showing less and creating intrigue.
I had to abandon my tribute to Akira thumbnail but there's a little bit of that and Tron Legacy in here. Little did I know that when the show would come out, Max's Turbo cycle would "turbofy" and emit an energy trail from the wheel.
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