LOPSY

Make an Americana Wright Brothers Movie Poster in Lopsy

Turn the 1903 first-flight photo into a 1950s Americana movie poster in Lopsy, with a screen-print sun, dunes, a traced Wright Flyer and skewed slab-serif type.

  • Advanced
  • 150 min
  • 29 steps

Published

The finished Kill Devil Wind movie poster. A sky runs from deep navy at the top through dusty blue to apricot at the horizon, with flat two-tone clouds and cream wind lines. The Wright Flyer, cream wings with navy struts and engine, climbs from left to right. Below it a sun of four flat orange and cream bands sets behind rose, rust and dark umber dunes, framed by faint halo rings. Wilbur Wright stands as a navy silhouette on the right-hand dune, watching. Over the dunes the title KILL DEVIL WIND is set in heavy cream slab capitals with a navy outline and a hard red drop shadow, leaning forward and tilted upward. Across the top are the names HAROLD BECKETT · JAMES CALLOWAY and the script tagline Twelve seconds that lifted the world. At the bottom a red ribbon reads KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA · DECEMBER 17, 1903 between two stars, above a three-line billing block, all inside a cream border with a navy keyline

Mid-century travel posters and Hollywood one-sheets sold the American landscape in a handful of flat inks: a sky that fades from navy to apricot, a sun drawn as stacked discs, a hero shape in silhouette and a slab-serif title with a hard offset shadow. This tutorial uses those tricks for a made-up film, Kill Devil Wind, about the Wright brothers' first powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, on 17 December 1903.

It's a 1200 × 1800 px one-sheet (the 2:3 movie poster shape). The sky, sun and dunes are drawn by hand. The Flyer and Wilbur come from the famous photograph of that first flight: you'll trace the wings, pull the rigging out with a Threshold, and turn Wilbur into a silhouette.

The photo is Wright First Flight 1903Dec17 (full restore 115).jpg) on Wikimedia Commons. It was taken by John T. Daniels and is in the public domain. Download the 3840 px version and crop it to a wide strip around the Flyer and Wilbur, about 2360 × 820 px, with a little sky above the top wing and some sand below the skids. Any editor will do, or open it in Lopsy and use the Crop tool.

The cast and crew names on the poster are invented.

Along the way you'll use:

  • the Gradient tool, Halftone, Elliptical Marquee exact sizes and Select → Shrink
  • the Lasso and Edit → Fill for clouds, dunes and the Flyer's wings, and the Pen tool for wind lines
  • the Brush with Taper, inside a layer's own selection, for rim light, ripples and beach grass
  • Copy and Paste in place, Threshold, the Magic Wand, the Pencil and the Eraser on the photo
  • layer effects (Stroke, Color Overlay, Drop Shadow), Group Layers, and moving, scaling, flipping and rotating with the Move tool, with undo and redo
  • live Text in Ultra, Oswald, Yellowtail and League Gothic, skewed and rotated without rasterizing
  • ruler guides with Snap to Guides, Add Noise and a border made from marquees

The palette:

  • Sky
  • Sun
  • core
  • High clouds
  • cloud rim
  • Low clouds
  • cloud rim
  • Dunes rose
  • rust
  • umber
  • Rim light
  • ripples
  • Beach grass
  • Ink navy
  • cream
  • flag red
  • billing tan

Positions are given in document pixels. Watch X and Y in the status bar at the bottom of the window as you move the pointer. Hand-drawn shapes like the clouds, dunes and grass only need to be close.

  1. Set up the poster and paint the sky

    1. Choose File → New, set Width 1200 and Height 1800, and click Create.
    2. Choose View → Show Rulers if the rulers aren't showing.
    3. Double-click Layer 1 in the Layers panel and rename it Sky.
    4. Pick the Gradient tool and set Type to Linear. Click Advanced…, set the left stop to and the right stop to with the Hex color field. Click the bar about halfway along to add a stop and make it , then click at about 80% for a fourth stop, . Click Done.
    5. Drag straight down from the top edge of the canvas to y 1180. Everything below that stays pale gold. The dunes will cover it.
    A new 1200 by 1800 document with a vertical gradient from deep navy at the top through dusty blue and apricot to pale gold

  2. Add a halftone print texture

    Old posters were printed, so the sky gets a faint dot screen.

    1. With Sky selected, click Duplicate Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel and rename the copy Sky Dots.
    2. Choose Filter → Halftone…, set Dot Size to 12, leave Angle at 45, and click Apply.
    3. Open the layer's effects drawer with the effects button on its row, set the blend mode to Multiply, and close the drawer.
    4. Click the opacity on the Sky Dots row and set it to 18%. The dots should be barely there.
    The sky with a fine diagonal halftone dot pattern over it, set to Multiply at low opacity

  3. Draw the halo rings

    Two thin rings around the sun hint at the sun's glare and, later, at the Flyer breaking through it.

    1. Click Add Layer and name it Halo. Set the foreground colour to .
    2. Pick the Elliptical Marquee and click the canvas once without dragging. In the dialog, set From to 190, 650 and To to 1010, 1470, and press Enter. That's a circle of radius 410 around x 600, y 1060.
    3. Choose Edit → Fill, then Select → Shrink… with Amount 5, and press Delete. You're left with a 5 px ring.
    4. Do the same for a radius-330 circle: From 270, 730, To 930, 1390. Fill, shrink by 5 and delete.
    5. Press Cmd+D and set the layer's opacity to 28%.
    A cream-filled circle selected with marching ants, about to be shrunk into a thin ring

  4. Build a screen-printed sun

    A soft gradient sun looks airbrushed. Four flat discs look printed.

    1. Click Add Layer and name it Sun.
    2. Make four circles centred on x 600, y 1060 with the Elliptical Marquee dialog, filling each with Edit → Fill before you make the next one:
    • radius 250 (from 350, 810 to 850, 1310):
    • radius 205 (from 395, 855 to 805, 1265):
    • radius 160 (from 440, 900 to 760, 1220):
    • radius 112 (from 488, 948 to 712, 1172):
    1. Press Cmd+D.
    Four stacked discs of orange, amber, pale gold and cream forming a banded sun, with the third disc's selection showing

  5. Draw flat cloud bands

    Americana clouds are flat-bottomed rows of bumps in two tones.

    1. Click Add Layer and name it Clouds.
    2. Set the colour to the rim tone . With the Lasso (L), draw the big cloud at the left, between about y 240 and y 310 and from x 60 to x 470: start at the bottom-left, drag a row of five or six round bumps along the top, then come straight back along a flat bottom to where you started. Choose Edit → Fill.
    3. Draw two more the same way: a small one in the middle around y 230–270 (x 530–750), and one at the right around y 240–290 (x 930–1160). Leave clear sky above them for the tagline.
    4. Set the colour to . Lasso each cloud again, about 8 px lower and starting a few pixels to the right, and fill it. The paler rim peeks out along the tops of the bumps.
    5. Repeat with the warm tones for two low clouds either side of the sun: rims in , bodies in , with their flat bottoms at about y 880 on the left (x 90–380) and y 860 on the right (x 850–1130).
    6. Press Cmd+D.
    Three blue cloud bands with pale rims across the upper sky and two peach clouds either side of the sun

  6. Draw the wind lines with the Pen

    1. Click Add Layer and name it Gusts. Set the colour to .
    2. Pick the Pen tool (P) and set Stroke to 5.
    3. Draw a long, gently waving line across the sky below the clouds, from the left edge at about y 370 to about x 860, y 310. Drag at each point to pull out smooth handles. Finish with three short points that curl back on themselves, like a breath of wind. Press Enter to stroke it.
    4. In the Paths panel, click Delete Path so the overlay goes away. The stroke stays.
    5. Draw a short line on the right of the sun at about y 950, from x 880 to the right edge, and a short line with a curl at the left, from the left edge at y 1000 to about x 330, curling back near x 260, y 1020. Press Enter and delete each path.
    6. Set the layer's opacity to 80%.
    Three thin cream wind lines across the sky, two ending in small curls

  7. Lasso the three dunes

    1. Click New Group at the bottom of the Layers panel and name it Dunes. Layers you add now go inside it.
    2. Click Add Layer and name it Far Dune. With the Lasso, drag a gently rolling line from just off the left edge at about y 1135, dipping to about y 1150 in the middle so the sun sinks behind it, and rising to about y 1085 near x 1010. Carry on off the right edge, then go down below the canvas, across, and back up to the start. Set the colour to and choose Edit → Fill.
    3. Add a layer called Mid Dune and lasso a second line: a crest at about x 360, y 1212, a hollow at x 760, y 1300, and a rise to y 1240 near x 1100, closing it below the canvas the same way. Fill it with .
    4. Add Near Dune: from y 1430 at the left, a hump near x 200, y 1386, a low point at x 700, y 1500, and up to y 1420 at the right edge, again closing below the canvas. Fill it with . Press Cmd+D.
    Three layered dunes in dusty rose, rust and dark umber across the bottom of the poster, hiding the bottom of the sun

  8. Add rim light and wind ripples

    The sun is behind the dunes, so each crest catches a thin line of light. Painting inside each dune's own selection keeps the edges crisp.

    1. Cmd-click the Mid Dune thumbnail to load its outline as a selection, and click its row to make it active.
    2. Pick the Brush. Open the brush settings (the tip thumbnail at the left of the options bar) and set Size 12, Hardness 100, Taper 0. Set the colour to and paint along the dune's top edge. Only the lower half of the brush lands inside the selection, so you get a crisp rim.
    3. For the ripples, set the colour to and the brush Size to 5. In the brush settings, set Taper to 400. Taper is a distance: the stroke thins to nothing over that many pixels. Paint three lines that follow the crest's curve on the lee side, about 50, 80 and 115 px below it, starting at x 430, 480 and 540 and running to the right for about 350–400 px each.
    4. Press Cmd+D and set Taper back to 0. Do the rim on Far Dune with at size 10, and on Near Dune with at size 10, each inside its own Cmd-click selection. Leave those two without ripples.
    5. Press Cmd+D, click Mid Dune and run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 8 and Mono, for a little sand grain.
    The rust dune selected by its own outline, with a pale orange rim along its crest and three thin darker ripple lines

  9. Paint the beach grass

    1. Click Near Dune, click Add Layer and name it Beach Grass.
    2. Set the brush Size to 9, Hardness 100, and Taper to roughly the length of each blade (try 180). Each stroke starts full width at the root and thins to a point.
    3. Set the colour to and paint three blades in each clump: from the near dune's edge near x 70–150 on the left and x 1080–1150 on the right, each 110–190 px tall, mostly leaning right with the wind and one leaning back.
    4. Switch to and paint five or six more blades per clump in front, at different heights between 95 and 220 px. Keep the tips at least 40 px away from where the title will go (roughly x 210–990) and inside the frame (x 50–1150).
    Dark and burnt-orange tapered grass blades rising from the near dune at both edges of the poster

  10. Drop in the 1903 photo

    1. Click the collapse arrow on the Dunes group, then click the group's row so the photo lands above it.
    2. Drag your cropped photo onto the canvas. Lopsy puts it on a new layer and fits it to the poster's width, about 1200 × 419 px, centred vertically. The top of the photo is at about y 691.
    3. Rename the layer Photo.
    The cropped first-flight photo placed across the middle of the poster, fitted to its width, with transform handles

  11. Lift Wilbur onto his own layer

    1. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag a snug box around Wilbur at the right edge of the photo, from just above his cap to just below his feet, keeping clear of the wing tip.
    2. Press Cmd+C, then Cmd+V. The copy pastes in place on a new layer. Rename it Wilbur.
    A rectangular marquee around the figure of Wilbur Wright standing at the right of the photo

  12. Turn Wilbur into a silhouette

    1. Choose Filter → Threshold…, set Level to 110, and click Apply. Wilbur goes black and the sand goes white.
    2. Pick the Magic Wand, set Tolerance to 30, untick Contiguous, and click the white sand. Press Delete, then Cmd+D.
    Wilbur reduced to a solid black figure with the sand around him removed

  13. Trace the wings

    A threshold of the wings leaves ragged edges, so trace them instead. The photo underneath is your guide.

    1. Click Photo, click Add Layer and name it Wings. Set the colour to .
    2. Zoom in so the Flyer fills the window. With the Lasso, drag along the top edge of the upper wing from its left tip to its right tip, then back along its bottom edge. Wings are thin, so stay just outside the photo's white. Choose Edit → Fill.
    3. Trace and fill the lower wing the same way, and the long pale elevator shape in the middle of the Flyer.
    4. Finish with the two white posts that stand up at the front of the Flyer, just left of centre, as two thin rectangles from the top wing down to the skids.
    5. Press Cmd+D.
    Clean cream wing shapes traced over the photo's wings, the centre elevator and the two front posts

  14. Pull the rigging out with a threshold

    1. Click Photo and rename it Rigging.
    2. Run Filter → Threshold… with Level 135. The struts, wires, engine and the pilot go black.
    3. With the Magic Wand (Contiguous still off), click the white sky and press Delete.
    4. With the Lasso, draw around the Flyer itself: above the top wing, down past the lower wing's ends, and under the skids in the middle. Leave out Wilbur's old spot and the sand. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete, then Cmd+D.
    The photo thresholded to black lines with a lasso around the Flyer inverted, ready to delete the sand and the figure

  15. Re-ink the struts

    The threshold breaks some of the thin struts into dashes. Ink them back in by hand.

    1. Pick the Pencil (N), set Size to 2 and the colour to black.
    2. For each upright strut, click where it meets the top wing and Shift-click where it meets the bottom wing. There are fourteen: two near each wing tip, and the rest spaced along both sides of the engine.
    3. Pick the Eraser (E) at Size 16 and wipe away the leftover sand speckle between the skids under the engine, and any dust just past the skids' right-hand ends.
    Every vertical strut drawn as a solid line between the wings, with the sand speckle between the skids erased

  16. Ink the Flyer and Wilbur

    1. Click Wings, open its effects drawer and turn on Stroke with Width 2 and the colour .
    2. Click Rigging and turn on Color Overlay in .
    3. Do the same Color Overlay on Wilbur. The whole poster now uses one navy ink.
    The Flyer with cream wings outlined in navy and navy rigging, and Wilbur in navy

  17. Group the Flyer

    1. Click Wings, then Shift-click Rigging so both are selected.
    2. Click Group Layers at the bottom of the Layers panel and rename the group Flyer. Wings stays above Rigging inside it.
    The Layers panel with Wings and Rigging inside a new group called Flyer

  18. Move and scale the Flyer as one piece

    With a group selected and no marquee, the Move tool's handles frame everything in the group.

    1. Press Cmd+D to make sure nothing is selected, and pick the Move tool (V).
    2. Drag the Flyer up until it's centred at about x 588, y 585, above the sun.
    3. Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle outward until the Flyer is about 10% bigger, roughly 1050 px wide. Cmd keeps the proportions.
    The Flyer group moved up into the sky with its transform box showing, enlarged by about ten percent

  19. Tilt the Flyer into a climb

    1. Drag the round rotation handle at the top-right corner upward, about 6°, so the Flyer climbs toward the right.
    2. Press Escape to finish. Rotating and scaling shift it a little, so drag it back until it's centred at about x 588, y 585 again.
    3. Press Cmd+Z three times and watch that last move, the tilt and the scale come off, then Cmd+Shift+Z three times to bring them back exactly as they were.
    The Flyer rotated about six degrees so it climbs from lower left to upper right, with the rotation handles showing

  20. Flip and enlarge Wilbur

    1. Click Wilbur and Cmd-click its thumbnail to select him.
    2. With the Move tool, click Flip Horizontal in the options bar so he faces the Flyer.
    3. Hold Cmd and drag his top-left handle up and out until he's about 135% of his size, about 220 px tall. Press Cmd+D.
    Wilbur flipped to face left and enlarged to about 135%, with his transform handles showing

  21. Stand Wilbur on the dune

    Drag Wilbur down onto the right-hand crest of the rust dune, so he's centred at about x 1062 with his feet at y 1247, right on the rim light. Leave at least 40 px between him and the frame edge.

    Wilbur standing on the crest of the rust dune at the right, watching the Flyer

  22. Knock the halo out around the Flyer

    The halo rings shouldn't run into the wings.

    1. Click Halo, then Cmd-click the Wings thumbnail.
    2. Choose Select → Grow… with Amount 30 and press Delete. The rings now stop well short of the Flyer. Press Cmd+D.
    The Flyer's wing outline grown into a wide selection over the Halo layer, ready to delete

  23. Set the title

    Text options restyle whichever text layer is selected, so start each new line from a plain raster layer.

    1. Click Wilbur, click Add Layer and name it Type Anchor. Leave it empty.
    2. Pick the Text tool (T). Choose Ultra, Size 226, Align Center, and the colour . With Center set, the point you click becomes the middle of the line. Click at x 600, y 1380, type WIND and press Tab. Double-click the new layer's name and rename it Wind Title.
    3. Click Type Anchor again. Set Size to 114, click higher up in empty space at x 600, y 1190, type KILL DEVIL and press Tab. Rename the layer Kill Devil. (Clicking inside the WIND text box would edit WIND instead, which is why you start higher.)
    4. Switch to the Move tool and nudge Kill Devil down with the arrow keys (hold Shift for 10 px steps) until the letters run from about y 1312 to y 1394. Nudge Wind Title so its letter tops sit at about y 1412, about 18 px under KILL DEVIL.
    5. On each of the two layers, turn on Stroke with Width 6 in , and Drop Shadow with Offset X 8, Offset Y 8, Blur 0, Opacity 100 and the colour . A zero blur gives the hard offset shadow of a two-colour print.
    KILL DEVIL and WIND set in cream Ultra over the dunes, with a navy outline and a hard red drop shadow

  24. Skew the title forward

    Text stays live when you transform it, so you can lean it like italics without rasterizing.

    1. Click Wind Title, pick the Move tool and click Skew in the options bar.
    2. Drag the top-middle handle about 50 px to the right. The bottom stays put and the letters lean forward.
    3. Skewing shifts the letters right, so nudge Wind Title with the arrow keys until it's centred on x 600 again.
    4. Do the same on Kill Devil, dragging only about 26 px so both lines lean at the same angle, and re-centre it. Click Free to leave Skew mode.
    WIND leaning forward in Skew mode, with the top edge handle dragged to the right

  25. Group and tilt the title

    1. Click Kill Devil, Shift-click Wind Title, click Group Layers and rename the group Title.
    2. Press Cmd+D, then drag the top-right rotation handle up about 4° so the title climbs with the Flyer. Press Escape.
    3. With the group still selected, drag it up about 26 px. It moves as one piece and leaves room for the ribbon below.
    4. Press Cmd+Z and Cmd+Shift+Z a couple of times to check the tilt and the move come off and go back cleanly.
    The KILL DEVIL WIND title group rotated four degrees upward, with its rotation handles showing

  26. Set the names and the tagline

    1. Click Type Anchor. With the Text tool, choose Oswald, Size 30 (Align is still Center), click at x 600, y 72 and type HAROLD BECKETT · JAMES CALLOWAY (three spaces either side of the dot). Press Tab and rename the layer Stars.
    2. Open the Text panel and set Letter spacing to 8. With the Move tool and arrow keys, fine-tune it so the letters are centred on x 600 at about y 92.
    3. Click Type Anchor again, choose Yellowtail at Size 58, click at x 600, y 130 and type Twelve seconds that lifted the world. Press Tab and rename it Tagline. New text keeps the last letter spacing, so set it back to 0 for the script. Nudge it so it's centred at about y 166.
    4. Give the tagline a soft Drop Shadow: offset 3 / 3, Blur 4, Opacity 60, in .
    HAROLD BECKETT · JAMES CALLOWAY in spaced cream capitals across the top, with the script tagline Twelve seconds that lifted the world. below

  27. Draw the date ribbon on guides

    1. Check that View → Snap to Guides is ticked. Click the left ruler at y 1606 and again at y 1650 to place two guides.
    2. Click Type Anchor, click Add Layer and name it Ribbon.
    3. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag from just off the left edge a little above the top guide to just off the right edge a little below the bottom guide. The top and bottom edges snap onto the guides.
    4. Fill it with and press Cmd+D.
    5. With the Pencil at Size 3 and the colour , click the left edge at y 1599 and Shift-click the right edge for a cream rule above the band. Do the same at y 1657 for one below it.
    A red band across the poster snapped exactly between two horizontal guides, with its selection still showing

  28. Add the date line and billing block

    1. Click Ribbon so the new text goes above it. With the Text tool, choose Oswald, Size 26, colour . The ribbon sits inside the WIND text's box, so click just below it at x 600, y 1690 and type ★ KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA · DECEMBER 17, 1903 ★. You can copy the stars from this page. Press Tab, rename the layer Date Line, and set Letter spacing to 6.
    2. With the Move tool, nudge it up with Shift+arrow until it's centred in the red band, about x 600, y 1630. It's all capitals with no descenders, so centre the letters themselves.
    3. Click Ribbon again, then with the Text tool choose League Gothic, Size 20 and the colour . Click at x 600, y 1682 and type the billing block as three lines (press Enter between them), then press Tab and rename the layer Billing:
    • WRIGHT CYCLE COMPANY PICTURES PRESENTS A DAYTON & KITTY HAWK PRODUCTION
    • HAROLD BECKETT JAMES CALLOWAY IN "KILL DEVIL WIND" WITH AMOS FENWICK MARGARET OAKES
    • MUSIC BY ELEANOR VOSS PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEVI MARSH WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY CORA HALLORAN
    1. Set Letter spacing to 1 and Line height to 1.25, then nudge the block so it's centred at about x 600, y 1707, with even space between the lower cream rule and the bottom of the poster.
    The ribbon reading KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA · DECEMBER 17, 1903 between two stars, and a three-line billing block below it

  29. Add grain and a poster border

    1. Untick View → Show Guides.
    2. Click the Title group's row (collapsed), click Add Layer and name it Grain. Choose Select → All, fill it with , and press Cmd+D.
    3. Run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 30 and Mono. Set the blend mode to Overlay and the opacity to 22%.
    4. Add a layer called Frame. Pick the Rectangular Marquee, click the canvas once without dragging, set From 26, 26 and To 1174, 1774, and press Enter. Choose Select → Inverse, set the colour to and choose Edit → Fill.
    5. In the same way, select from 38, 38 to 1162, 1762 and fill it with . Then select from 42, 42 to 1158, 1758 and press Delete, leaving a 4 px navy keyline. Press Cmd+D.
    6. Choose File → Save Project to keep the layers, and File → Quick Export PNG for the poster.
    The finished poster with a cream border and a thin navy keyline inside it, and fine grain over everything