Movie Poster - Prerequisite

This assignment was our final assignment for our first semester. A synopsis of a story is required to be shown to both our lecturers and approved before we could proceed into the sketching part. Being a fan of dark-themed stories, I have made a story about a human and a demon that had made a deal.


This is the synopsis of my story, called Prerequisite:
Tagline: A debt must always be paid.

This story revolves around a supernatural being and a human, whose lives changed drastically ever since they first met. Daphne was the wallflower in her school. Never been noticed nor talked to by 90% of the school population. She has always been self-conscious of herself due to her huge scar and a tattoo, which can never be removed that she had since she was an infant. Daphne was curious as to how she got the scar but no one would tell her the truth and would always reply saying how she was too young to remember. She was about to be 21 years old when she first met him and she was somehow attracted to him without her realizing it. More like her heart was drawn to him but her mind was telling her to back off due to his dangerously dark aura.

Sebastian, a demon Soul Keeper has made a deal with a mother of an infant who had a rare disease that would not allow her to live past the age of 5. The deal was made to last until the child was at least 21 years old due to her mother wanting her to experience life at least until her school years. He was an emotionless demon that does his job colleting his payment without hesitation. However, his encaged frozen heart has been brought to life when he met her. The girl he literally gave his heart to. Sebastian’s heart was given to her in order to save her life but in exchange for her life when her time is up.

A tattoo that binds them together till the debt has been collected. Will Daphne be just another job that he was supposed to finish or will Daphne stir some emotions in Sebastian? Is he able to keep up with his unsympathetic reputation as a Soul Keeper?

Prerequisite means'a thing that is required as a prior condition for something else to happen or exist.' I named my story Prerequisite because if it weren't for Daphne's mother whom made a deal with the Soul Keeper, then Daphne would have just died due to the disease instead of living life waiting till the day of her death and meeting Sebastian. None of this would have led to these complicated situations if only Daphne's mother had not made that deal. Unlike other stories where the male and female usually ends up together, I did not plan to have them be together in the end whereas I was planning for the male character to continue his job and took his payment, which was the female's heart. Therefore, the female would die in the end. It was not a 'happily ever after' story.

These are some inspirations that I have found while looking through photos to be used for sketches for my poster:

These were the inspirations that made me wanted to draw the tattoo on the male and female, as I have mentioned in the synopsis that the both of them had tattoos showing that they had an ongoing deal.

My idea was for the female, Daphne to have her hair tied in a bun in order to have her tattoo shown at her back. 

As Sebastian was a demon/soul keeper, I wanted him to have a creepy or glowing eyes. Therefore I chose to draw these eyes as Sebastian's eyes. This photo is of a character named Uta from the anime called Tokyo Ghoul.

This was used as a reference for when I drew Daphne's bare back.

I used the skin tone from two of these guys from the picture above as references for Sebastian's skin colour.

I used this male runway model's picture as my reference when I was drawing the bare chested Sebastian.

These are some of the sketches that I have made:

 At first, I wanted to have Sebastian on the top part of the poster and was in an opposite position from Daphne's. But after sketching the second one, I changed my mind and continued with the second one because it looks much better that way.

This is what it looked like when I have finished drawing the main characters. If you have not noticed, I purposely drew their tattoos in an exchange positive and negative way. To explain it more clearly, for the female's tattoo, the star was black in colour and it has a black coloured half-winged heart. Whereas for Sebastian, he had a white star with his skin's colour as the half-winged heart and had a little extra black coloured outline. It is a pair tattoo where both designs were almost the same except for the colours which were opposite of each other. Besides that, I drew Daphne's bare back instead of her front in case if anyone was sensitive towards seeing a nude female. Her hair was in a bun so that her tattoo could be seen clearly as I have mentioned above.

This is what it looked like after I have added some effect at the background. I have used the font called Mesquite STD due to the fact that it gives off a creepy, eerie and a sense of horror when you see the font, especially when the font is in red. The tagline could be seen just below the title of the movie. I left a gap at the bottom of the female's back as well as below the year 2016, below the words 'coming soon' because the last time when I printed my artwork, the sides would always be chopped off. Therefore, I made a little gap in case it gets chopped off again and I had to spend some time at the printing shop re-editing it again. However, when it was printed, the gap was still there and I was surprised but I did not have a choice. Sometimes, I don't really understand how printing works. It's always unexpected.