"The Glass Sword" takes place during 1986 in the fictional town of Beach City, Virginia. For this project I designed the branding and created mock ups for two of the main and most graphic filled places in the movie
The Story
We start with Joan "Jo" Ryder, a Junior in high school, who dreams of being a fantasy writer, but her dreams were put on hold when her mom died from cancer. Now she cares for her younger brother and works at Beach City Video, a video rental shop owned by her best friend, Zack's parents. Where he introduces her to a contest in the local science-fantasy magazine, that could help her with her money problems and maybe help get noticed as a fantasy writer. Cue to Jo getting out her Grandfather's old Royal Typewriter and writing the titular "Glass Sword" but she can't seem to write a satisfying ending. What she doesn't expect is to meet her character Liron, the prince who helps out the main character in the story. Thus starting our story of Jo, Zack, and Jo's little brother Chris helping Liron fight back monsters that have also hopped out of Jo's story and finding a way back to his home.
Beach City Video
This is Beach City Video logo
This is a mock up of the outside of the store
Two Idiots and a Goat VHS Mock up
How some of the posters would look in an 80's bedroom
Geometric Name Tag
Beach City Design Sheet
Video rental stores are pretty iconic for the 80's so I knew I wanted to have my characters to work at one. In "The Glass Sword" our lead Joan "Jo" Ryder works at Beach City Video along side with her best friend Zack, whose parents own the store.
I wanted the store to be really bright and colorful in contrast with the arcade which is more homey.
The Librarian
This was the first fake movie poster I made for this project. When I started out I wanted to create a Horror movie poster in a similar style to scary movies of the 80's, like Halloween, Children of the Corn, and An American Werewolf in London.
Analog Space
This poster is based off of the Sci-Fi movies of the 80's, I found a lot of inspiration (especially for the type) with a German Terminator poster, though the retro rectangle cut outs came from a Blues Brother Poster.
Two Idiots and a Goat
This was my last poster that I made and it was also the one that took the longest. I knew I wanted to make a poster somewhere in the middle between the Goonies and a classic Indiana Jones poster, especially since in the 80's a lot of posters were of the hand drawn variety. I imagine this movie would be a Mel Brooks style western comedy.
Science Fantasy Magazine
Science Fantasy Magazine is the magazine Zack (Jo's friend) shows to Jo that has the contest that jumpstarts the plot of the movie. Science Fantasy is a science fiction/ fantasy magazine based on the OMNI magazines that ran from 1978 to 1995.Though unlike OMNI I wanted to make Science Fantasy appealing to all ages.
Science Fantasy Cover
Science Fantasy Contest Spread
These are the contest winners from the last contest from Science Fantasy, I drew these using Procreate on an iPad.
The Unicorn/Lady Amalthea from The Last Unicorn
Chamberlain from The Dark Crystal
Slimer from Ghost Busters
Dragon's Den Arcade
Mock up
Mock up
Arcade Machine Mock up
Dragon's Den Arcade is the local arcade, which Jo's dad Rick owns, though popular with the town's youth the arcade struggles finically and over the course of the movie the arcade becomes a home base for Jo and her friends in their journey to return Liron back to his story.
Go! Go! Bubble!
Castle of the Night
Earth Defense
These are the three arcade cabinet mock ups I made
GO! GO! BUBBLE!
This was the first one I created, I wanted something fun and kid friendly. I imagine the gameplay would be a mixture of racing and a bubble popping game. The main character is based on Sonic the Hedgehog and Yoshi from the Super Mario Series.
Castle of the Night
Castle of the night is inspired by the metriodvania gaming genre and Legend of Zelda II. The games in this genre are typically on the darker side and can either be fantasy or sci-fi based. Castle of the Night draws strong inspiration from the fantasy ones.
Earth Defense
This cabinet was my favorite to design since I really like space, I think it would be an endless shooter type game like Galaga, but with more story.
Marketing
I made these mockups for the marketing of the actual movie. I knew I wanted to focus on the story aspect being the typewriter and Liron (the prince) playing an arcade machine.
