The Netflix show, Stranger Things, has proven to be quite a smash for the streaming service. It has also spawned a popular poster for the series which brings back memories of the movie posters of the ’80s. As it turns out, that poster was originated on an iPad Pro.
The now iconic poster for the series, which effectively mimics the look of classic movie posters of the ’80s, was created on the iPad Pro by UK-based artist Kyle Lambert, who also used the Apple Pencil.
Lambert used Adobe Photoshop on the Mac, and Procreate on the iPad Pro to create the well-received poster.
“This was a very exciting project for me, as an artist that trained with oil paints, I really enjoyed the challenge of reproducing this traditional painting style using digital tools,” Lambert told Mashable. “I used the iPad Pro to do the preliminary composition ideas and the sketch that became the final Stranger Things poster. I chose to use the iPad Pro for the drawing stage of the poster because I find that I am able to sketch in a very natural way on the device using the Apple Pencil. The device in general is nice to hold for long periods of time, it is really portable and Procreate, the app that I used, has some really great Pencil brushes for drawing with.”
Lambert says he used the iPad Pro for the drawing stage of the poster, because he found that he was able to sketch in a very natural way on the device using the Apple Pencil. “After I completed the sketch I did some basic tonal blocking in Procreate,” says Lambert. “I then exported this artwork to Photoshop where I upscaled the image to a higher resolution. The main reason for this was because of the necessity to paint small elements at the best possible resolution should they need to be enlarged later.”
Lambert did the majority of the color work in Photoshop on his Mac, using an Intuos Wacom tablet. “I find that for color work I prefer to not have my hands obscure the artwork in any way and this type of tablet allows me to focus on as much of the image as I need to when working. Procreate is a powerful app, however a complex painting such as this with hundreds of layers still requires a desktop grade application such as Photoshop to pull it off,” says Lambert.
Lambert first came to the attention of many of us via his incredible video showing how he created a photorealistic illustration depicting Morgan Freeman on an iPad Air. His experience with the iPad led to even greater things on the iPad Pro.
“Once the overall [Stranger Things] image was coming together, I exported a flat version of the poster back to the iPad, and used Procreate again to add layers of detail to areas that I felt needed to have a more fluid sketch style,” says Lambert. “I did several layer adjustments like this between the two devices and applications to give the poster a finished look.”
For those on the fence about leaving the safe harbor of their Mac and it’s venerable drawing applications and graphics tablet for the uncharted waters of the iPad Pro can take comfort in the fact that Apple’s largest tablet appears to be more than up to the task of participating in the creation of even the most detailed graphical creations.
