Without a doubt, working on the Minimate control art is a great deal of fun, it’s very much like a roller coaster ride, where you have your exciting high points, your pulse-pounding dips and the pleasant straight-a-ways. If there were a moment that I could describe as icing on the cake, it would be when I get to draw a Minimate poster.

Most recently I had the great fortune of working on several posters almost consecutively, and for a moment there I daydreamed that being a Minimate poster artist was all I needed to do in life. Would I attain the notoriety of Drew Struzan or Alphonse Mucha? Unlikely, but I was happy thinking that I was channeling them and receiving some creative inspiration, and needless to say, all the satisfaction.

Well, I was really excited to work on these, and even though I wasn’t creating an image from scratch, translating the existing posters into their minimate counterparts presented their own unique challenges.

The first one was the Dark Reign poster, the challenge here was to make Iron Patriot sit and cross his leg over his knee and hold his hands in front of his chest in the same way the real poster did, but it had to retain minimate proportions and it had to look ‘natural’ for a minimate. Then, Captain America had to be drawn where he would look in scale with Iron Patriot, in perspective, and not like some giant minimate kneeling.

After that, came the Secret Wars poster; a bigger order to fill. This poster had a lot more characters in it, and again, translating the human proportions into minimate configuration was the key for keeping it looking right. It also helped that I paid attention is art school when the lesson on negative space was being taught. ‘Negative space’, no relation to ‘Negative Zone’, lol!

I must admit that I get a secret kick out of drawing the super hero posters, makes me feel like a kid again.

The last one of that batch was the Beverly Hills Cop poster. It was a good thing that I had just finished doing some control art for that project and had a chance to study Eddy Murphy’s features. There I was deciding how many lines to put on his forehead, lol!

My favorite part is the wonderful treatment of the background by artist Barry Bradfield, who did the coloring on all the posters. I remember being very astonished at the result and thinking “Wow! So THIS is what a minimate world would look like, hahhaa!”

My sincere hope is for anyone who sees these posters to get a sense of the fun that went into making them.

Ciao for now,

Uriel