The Life Aquatic at the Wes Andershow!

Last night was the gallery opening for "The Wes Andershow," and it was a huge success! So many people came through, and I was able to catch up (albeit briefly) with many old friends, and some new ones, too!

"The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" was the first Wes Anderson film saw growing up, and it has remained my favorite of his. When the opportunity arose to create a piece for a tribute show, I knew it had to be something with Stevezy and Team Zissou.

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I actually mulled over what I was going to do for a while, before finally settling on this design. I knew I wanted an odd frame size, and a long, portrait frame would compliment the idea of "being under water."

After some thumbnails, I worked out the layout in photoshop, accounting for the frames size, and eventual matte.

It also helped to plan out the color pallet, and see if it would all work out.

After printing out line-work at-size, I began cutting paper to match.

Layer by layer...

As I reached the end of the paper cutting, I shifted to the fine detail. Stevezy's face, as well as the "Team Zissou" logo, shading, and other details were painted on the paper in gauche.

Stevezy all put together.

Next step was to glue all the pieces down with Paper Cement, which doesn't soak-in a wrinkle the paper as rubber cement or glue would.

Many of the parts were suspend above the background with various sizes of back-supports, creating a depth to the piece.

Here he is! Stevezy in "Episode XXVI: Stevezy and the Precocious Jellyfish" - a reference to Steve Zissou's oceanic documentary show in the film.

Stevezy getting some love.