2018. Edition of 1719
23" x 33.5” (58.5 x 85cm)
Giclee on 310 g/m² 100% cotton-rag paper
Silkscreen enhancements
Embossed chop
Signed and numbered in pencil
"Mr. del Toro brought in Mr. Jean to create an illustration for the teaser poster. The director was a fan of the covers Mr. Jean had designed for the DC Comics series “Fables.” As Mr. del Toro explained in a phone interview, “His drawings have a delicate nature to them and beautiful line work that is at the same time realistic and sort of elevated into a style of his own.”
Using charcoal on paper, Mr. Jean got to work on the poster, pictured above in progress. He used screen grabs and photos of the creature costume from various angles as reference points to create an accurate duplication of the merman’s look. And he was inspired by Gustav Klimt’s painting “The Kiss” when thinking about how to intertwine the characters.
Mr. Jean’s process involved first making a pencil sketch of the image, then enlarging that image and transferring it onto printmaking paper. He put down a coating of charcoal to create the hazy background, “sort of like a gray mist,” he said in a phone interview. The woman’s face is clear in the drawing, but not the creature’s. “It just seemed natural for me to hide the face because the form and silhouette of his body are so striking to begin with,” he said. “I wanted the creature to stay more mysterious and have the viewer project their own idea of what he would look like.” The final teaser is bathed in aqua with glimmering sparkles. The blue was applied digitally, but Mr. Jean painted white textures and added the pinpoints of light for “a more magical effect.”" -- NY Times