Terminator 2: Valentines Day

"T2: VALENTINES DAY"
by Tim Tomkinson
gouache, ink, pencil, & collaged paper
30" x 42"

I was stoked when I got this poster. Definitely one of my favorites when I was a kid!

I wanted to flip the mood of this poster around a bit.. to show the softer side of this badass, rough-and-tumble Terminator character. Who's to say he didn't celebrate Valentine's Day? Or Cinco de Mayo? ... or even Flag Day? I bet he loves them all.

This piece was definitely a challenge. I first took Katie's advice (via Lawrence Yang) to mount the poster onto Elmer's Foam Board, then I sealed the whole thing with a coating of matte medium.. both of which worked like a charm. I was originally going to try to paint directly onto the poster (or if that didn't work, the matte medium), but I use gouache so it didn't work too well. That left me with collaging in a background to work on, which was pretty tedious. Some of the flowers and leaves (and other random doodles) are drawn onto that first layer of collage, but a lot were drawn separately on different types of paper and then added in on top. For the title and tagline, however... I had to rely on photoshop and my ink-jet printer. Once I got the type, sizing, and color perfect, I printed them out, sealed them with matte medium, and glued them onto the poster. That actually worked better than I thought it would.. you can't even tell unless you get a couple inches away from the surface..

Well.. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the posters.. Wish I could make it out for the opening!

- Tim