Crimes of ink and paint!

I'm just gonna go in episode order for ease of writing.

AvA 1:

So, for this, I figured, while I'm not generally a fan of minimalism, it fit the simper beginnings of the series. Compared to later episodes, it's confined completely to one window, which makes it feel relatively small.

The minimalist design also puts more focus on the conflict between Victim and the cursor, partially influenced by the episode itself, and partially by Victim's own focus on it in The Box, which was the most recent episode as of creating the poster.

The placement of Victim and the cursor was also meant to invoke the power dynamic between them, with the cursor looming over Victim.

The font choice was also picked because of it's handwritten, more cartoony feel. It was meant to help invoke the animation style of the first episode.

This was a variant of the design that was made, which was quickly vetoed. The only difference is the line between the body of the cursor and the stem, with the idea of making the cursor feel made of simple shapes to add to the minimalism aesthetic. It just doesn't feel right, and reads clearer without it though.

Another variant idea that I don't think got a sketch, or at least not one that was kept, was an idea for the cursor to be rising from the bottom and for Victim to be impaled on it actually. That got tossed out for the power dynamic imagery, and also for readability's sake. I didn't think the overlapping lines would be as clear/distinct.

AvA 2:

This one feels like the least thought out one to me, but I think that's because it was so easy to make and there wasn't really any other design beyond trying to pick the right size for the cursor. Most of my thought process was really "hey, what if Chosen is outside of a window? That'd be cool."

It was mostly designed the way it was to show how Chosen was able to fight back, and show off his fire, which is probably his most well known power.

I don't really remember the reason behind the font choice on this one. I do know that around the time it was designed, the numbering change for the series was still a pretty recent thing. I'd been debating whether to do the number or the numeral, but when writing out the numeral in this font made it look like a pause button, I just had to keep it. While not relevant to that episode, the subtle nod to future episodes felt too good not to.

This is the smaller cursor variant of the poster, and honestly? That cursor fought me. It did not want to be made. This was made for a closer to accurate size cursor, even if it was facing the wrong way, and also just to make the fact that it was a cursor clearer. Wasn't really sure which felt better, so I showed it to some friends, and we ended up agreeing that the larger cursor peaking into the frame better helped make it feel more threatening.

While I don't remember if I intended it while initially creating the poster, I do think the larger design really does help sell the cursor as a bigger threat/enemy, like how it is in the first episode's poster.

AvA 3:

Funnily enough, this was actually the first poster I designed. It, and the whole idea of making posters for episodes, was inspired by talking with a friend about Chosen and Dark, and thinking it would be cool if they were in a superhero movie poster. I could remember seeing posters where there were two characters facing off against each other (a la Batman v Superman, or Captain America: Civil War), and thought that would fit the pair of them perfectly.

Other than the background, there's not really a lot of symbolism really put into this. The two were put on each other's colours both to make them pop more, and to help symbolize their attachment with one another, but making it a gradient would make them blend. Luckily, my favourite detail saved the day.

In the center of the poster, the line breaking the background colours, the shape of the fire, and the posing of Chosen and Dark all create a cursor. It was decided pretty early on that I wanted the pair of them to create a cursor shape when facing each other. It's presence being implied rather than outright drawn like in the first two posters was meant to create a sense of it haunting the narrative, and it being created between the two of them was meant to show how it was the reason they were fighting.

The font decision for this was from me looking for one that felt angular to represent their conflict even further.

So, the only difference in this poster is the title present on it. Pretty obviously emblazoned in the middle we've got The Flashback instead of AvA 3. See, the original poster design idea was created without an exact episode in mind, and was meant more to be a representation of the conflict between Chosen and Dark. I really wanted to tie it to an episode though, and at the time, The Flashback was the one that kept appearing in my mind, because it really tied into this idea of division between the two, and how even when not there, Alan's actions were still haunting them.

The fire was initially added to the poster due to the choice for The Flashback, representing the destruction they spread. When the episode was changed, I saw no reason to remove it. Both because of it helped with establishing the cursor silhouette, and the fact that they both use plenty of fire in every episode they've appeared in. Now that AvA 11 is out though, that fire being tied to their destruction would've really hit different, I think.

AvA 4:

Funnily enough, the idea for this poster was the second one out of this group, but it was the last to be created. There's no alternate version of this one beyond some thumbnail sketches I'll reference as I go through this. One thing that I did want to put in the final poster, but that didn't make in, was a nice bloom or overexposed effect on ROYGB. Unfortunately, doing so would've covered up the number behind them due to how things were layered, and readability was the more important deciding factor on whether to get rid of it.

The design vision for this one was pretty strong from the beginning. I wanted the crew to be holding hands and in a white background with that bloom/overexposed effect I couldn't end up adding to help invoke posters for things that were slice of life, and more happy and hopeful. It was also intended to help give it a bit of a dreamlike feel.

Orange having a shadow to represent Chosen was also pretty cemented in that initial idea because of the flash of him we see when they got angry in the episode and also due to their name. None of the others have shadows, and in the current version, that's both due to a spotlight effect helping create the visual of a cursor - I wanted it in there somewhere given it's importance to the series, and to the crew - and as a representation of Orange's differences to their friends.

The shadow also has another fun bonus in how it fades. That fade wasn't in the original plans, but after seeing people point out the parallels one can draw between Orange and Victim, I felt some hint of homage had to be made. Thus, the shadow fades from Chosen's black, to Victim's grey. More of the shadow is black due to that being the direct comparison drawn by the series itself. Funnily enough, I remember thinking while working to get the fade to look right, that the grey mostly being on the head really fits how Victim has this vibe of being the one who uses their head more than Chosen.

To try and get that Chosen/Victim idea across, an unused idea actually had the concept for Dark and Mitsi's hands to be visible reaching out of the edges of the spotlight to hold the center stick's hands in a mirror of how Orange is with their friends. That would've had the crew shuffled so Red could hold one hand and Green could hold the other, with Dark mirroring Red. The fade on the shadow being angled while not due to the idea, did end up influencing the final angle, to try and have there be a "Chosen hand" and a "Victim hand." The angle was actually to make it distinctly different from the white-light grey fade happening in the bottom corners to try and subtly hint this one wasn't just something done for lighting.

Oh yeah, the order the crew are holding hands in wasn't entirely arbitrary. I knew I wanted Green to be one of the ones holding Orange's hand, given the fact that they're meant to be closer friends than Orange is to any of the rest of the crew. That left the others. While colour order as best I could with Orange out of place was an option, I thought it'd be more fun to put a little nod to the Yellue ship since it's the most common ship I've seen of ships that include just members of the crew.

The font chosen for this poster was going to be another handwritten font, but when I went to go get a reference image from the episode itself at one point, I realized it had the title written in the episode itself. The IV for the episode number had to be done with a pixel brush myself though, because my program had a limit on how big it would make the font. Funnily enough, the numeral was written with Vic's grey, but I ended up lowering the opacity to tone down the colour a bit due to it not sitting against Yellow super nicely. (I don't remember exactly, but I believe I also made the "Alan Becker Presents" text Vic's grey too.