Elizabeth McKinney | ZMCKDESIGN - Illustrative Posters

Ghoulish Gaming

March 21st, 2023.
Zombie Gamer Girl Fantasy Portrait Magazine Concept Design.

This is from a zombie character DTiYS (Draw This In Your Style) challenge hosted on Instagram.

Macbeth - Happy Wife. Happy Life?

Project Metaphor: I was assigned to create a Shakespeare movie poster with a phrase that represented the story. I chose Macbeth and looked up references of Greek sculptures to draw Macbeth as a marble sculpture, representing his strength. I had my sister model, pulling at her face and drew her hands pulling at Macbeth’s face and added a ring to represent his wife’s hands pulling him into doom. Her hands are covered in blood as she did the first horrible deed and the sculpture looks as if he is in pain that he is being dragged under by these sin-stained hands. The quote I used was “Happy Wife. Happy Life?” as irony that in this marriage, his wife’s happiness led to his ruin. I used dark monochromatic colors in everything but the blood and ring to bring attention to his wife’s hands as well as the “M” of Macbeth that tied together with the blood.

Completed: November 19th, 2019

Work in Progress - Short 15 second video.

Bewitched - Vintage Poster

Project Redo - Lady Elvira Corvus: I recreated my original character into a vintage-like poster design. See the original here: https://zmckdesign.myportfolio.com/dungeons-and-dragons-first-commissions

Completed: November 27th, 2022

"Bewitched, Simple."

December 1st, 2022.
Final Poster Edit without busy background.

"Deer Maria, It's The End"

December 1st, 2022.
Emo Buck/Deer Album Cover Art Commission for @dustymdouglas

This is for Mr. Dusty's parody single of All Time Low's "Dear Maria." He'll have his cool track out soon!

Deer/Buck Speed Paint Process Full Video.

Giraffe Attack

Project Band Advertisement: I created my original band name for this project: Giraffe Attack. The goal was to create Black and White, 3-sized advertisements that held the same important information: venue, date/time, ticket price. I added in song titles to give it a legitimate feel as if it's an actual real band: Stand Tall, Prey's Fate, Within Reach, Horizon Haze.

Since I love intense rock metal bands so much, I used my "dark illustrative style" and studied from anime-manga art to design sinister imagery to attract the audience.

Completed: August 30th, 2020

Small & Long Ads

Work in Progress - Sketches - August 24th, 2020

Work in Progress - Sketches - August 25th, 2020

Green Poster
Reduce Plastic Pollution in the ocean.
Learn more ways to help by visiting oceanicsociety.org [ https://www.oceanicsociety.org/ ]

October 25th, 2020

Create a poster about green design. If you are not familiar with green design, research, and discover it. Once researched, take some sort of stance about being more green as a subject of design for your poster. The poster can be about any method of being green, perhaps something that might mean more to you.

My idea for the Staying Green poster was to make a graphic illustration about how pollution in the ocean is harming and killing marine life. I have seen images on the internet of poor creatures dying because of pollution in the ocean. Sea turtles get their flippers and heads caught in six pack rings, and as they move the plastic tears into them because they’re unable to get out. Sea turtles also swallow straws and can even get them caught up their nose which causes more bleeding and pain. Plastic bags can look like jellyfish in the ocean, and many sea creatures that eat jellyfish will eat the bags instead that are impossible for them to digest and they die because the bags just sit in their stomachs. Ocean pollution is absolutely horrible and the video evidence is heartbreaking.

In my illustration, I wanted to put a mythical spin on it to reach all kinds of audiences. Mermaids are also seen as beautiful creatures and protectors of the oceans. My original ideas were changed as I asked my family members to give me their opinion, which were all different. I struggled with text placement as I did not want to distract too much from my poster art. There wasn’t much advice I got from my peers in preliminary critique, but it seemed to me that they were still trying to formulate their projects. I feel like I could’ve worked more on text placement and fonts, but I did not want to overcomplicate and make the work too busy to look at. I did stay up nights on end illustrating everything by hand and do, I guess, feel confident with how it looked in the end. I hope this poster stands out more as a disturbing scene of what is happening in the oceans and bring awareness to stop using plastic.

Brochure Trifold, Nonprofit Organization.
I chose Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

Completed: September 23, 2020

Create a brochure for a non-profit organization of your choice. Research your chosen organization and develop an appropriate amount of promotional/educational content for your brochure. Your non-profit can be fictional or real. The theme of your brochure is up to you. Create your own look and feel (do not use existing visual concepts). Textual content from the organization’s website may be used for this project. You may use the company’s logo. The brochure must have at least two folds. The brochure must use CMYK plus one Pantone Coated Spot color making it 5 colors on the front and 5 colors on the back (4 process inks and one spot ink). The brochure must contain statistical data in the form of a graph or chart. Make sure your font size is 10 – 12 pt. for body text. Remember to frame each panel of your book and that type does not go edge to edge on the folded brochure.

My idea for the nonprofit organization brochure was to make a cute design that suited best for Le Bonheur Children’s hospital. I drew a teddy bear in a doctor lab coat holding a child’s hand walking towards the hospital. The concept for the teddy bear with a child was to show safety, comfort, and friendship. At Le Bonheur, they have a shop full of toys, but mostly teddy bears since there is a “Teddy Bear Clinic” where patients were able to perform procedures like X-rays and IVs. The clinic lets the children see first-hand how the procedures are performed on their very own teddy bear. There was a lot to research done to understand how to place and structure the brochure as I struggled with text placement and headings the most. I wanted there to be enough space on the brochure for the viewers to not feel too overwhelmed. The pastel colors helped make it seem like there was more than enough space and a calmness along the pages. I used the Pantone 571 C (Light Teal Blue) in the front color of the hospital illustration windows; the color also represents lab coats doctors and nurses wear. The variety of pink colors clash well with the teal and gives it a playful and loving feel. Before Preliminary critique, I showcased bubbles floating across the pages and even with that, it did not look complete to me. After receiving a generous amount of feedback, I decided it was best to design more elements and rearrange texts and illustrations throughout. I looked back at Le Bonheur’s official website and scrolled all the way down to see that there is a wonderful pattern. I took screenshots of the pattern and edited it to fit with my overall design. I believe that I was able to convey a brochure that represents the heart of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

MidSouth LGBTQ+ Poster

Project Pride Parade - Written Evaluation: At first, I had the idea of people digging up a rainbow on a black background that's formed into a rainbow, but that changed when I researched Gilbert Baker who made the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag. He's looked at as a hero and so I drew him wearing a cape that is formed into a road for the cars to drive on. I also wanted the image or the whole idea to look like a chalk painting that you would see on a sidewalk. I downloaded some of AdobeStock images to attain the right background that displayed the correct texture to give it that semi-realistic feel of road gravel. The style of the sketching is cartoon, which also gives a fun vibe to the viewer. I wanted my artwork to be enticing and inviting while also giving enough information for the audience to read. I believe I did well when it came to choosing fonts, even if there are around 4 fonts, but I mainly used the 3 that look like fun chalk writing. I struggled with the placemat of text and I hope I had fixed it well after following instructions from preliminary critique critique. I played around with the space, hoping to draw the viewer's eye in and around, making it "playful." I came up with original ideas and also redesigned the social media icons to match with a gradient pink of Mid South Pride logo. I hope in the end that I have achieved the overall goal of a creating a blissful LGBTQ+ pride parade poster. I put in a lot of effort to draw everything by hand to give a personal touch and originality to this project.

Completed: September 21, 2020

Within Reach. 1950s Comic Portrait.

September 23rd, 2021.
Class: Design Practice Studio

I studied 1950s comic art style to make a cover that expresses an optimistic view: "Good times are coming! We're within reach."
The girl falling is trying to escape from 2020-2021 years and skip to a better future (possibly December 2023 where things may be safer and people can party without being terrified of the deadly Covid-19 plague??? Who knows?).

Final without red boarder

Beginning Sketching layout

Idea First Sketch

Assignment 3 | Postcards

Completed: October 11, 2020

“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.” – Bram Stoker, 1897

The purpose of this project is to create an awareness of the current design community by designing a series of 4 postcards inspired by 4 well-known designers (or design firms). You will also improve your skills by learning to replicate the artist or designer’s style.

Instructed to research 4 designers/firms we are most interested in from a list. Each postcard should capture the designer’s style and contain the name of each individual’s composition. I personally chose the theme of Dracula.