Punch & Judy Billboard for 2012 Olympics

This is my second painting for the 2012 Olympic ad campaign. This one was quite the challenge. Everything was rushed, sketches all the way up to a final product and as you can see with this piece, there was a whole lot to consider. This is for a billboard, so certain things that I may have normally done to a painting were left out for the sake of the committee's needs and wants. Besides the crowd of people, the puppet stand took the most time. I'm not very familiar with "Punch & Judy" so I had to do some research. They wanted Olympic characters in a "Punch & Judy" show and were specific to what they wanted. It was fun to paint but as you can see, there's quite a bit of detail just in the puppet stand.

The puppeteer is an actual puppeteer on Weymouth beach in the U.K. They wanted him to be popping out the side of the box as if he were controlling the puppet show, and in sunlight! I was given reference of the guy to work from but the reference was nothing like what they wanted in terms of expression, lighting and so on. Overcast/cloudy day . . . so that was another challenge, but I enjoyed it greatly!



An example of how one of the billboards will look. There will be a few different versions.



Here's a pic of a billboard, not the best pic, but it will due for now. I hope to get a few more pics.



Detail.


Detail.


Detail.


Detail.