From DamonCarltonandAPolarBear.com :
In celebration of LOST's final season and as a project of fan appreciation, 16 top designers and artists, who are also fans of the show, were commissioned to create artwork celebrating one of the series' most memorable, and unforgettable, "water cooler" moments. This ultimate "fan art" was then turned into labor intensive, hand-pulled screen prints, limited to an edition of just 300, with less than 200 available to the public through our websites. Each beautiful poster tells its own different story, allowing the fan to relive memorable and influential moments in an artistic manner, as the show's storied run comes to a close. Once this limited edition print has sold out, they will never be printed again. Celebrate the fandom, community and family created by one of televisions' greatest shows by hanging a little part of it's history, inspiration and influence on your wall.
Now that all 16 of the prints have been released, Lost Blog has set out to interview each of the respective artists. All these talented artists have different influences, different backgrounds, and accordingly...different takes on our favorite show. Over the next few weeks we will post our interviews with these incredible talents. Enjoy.
Our third interview is with Timothy Doyle. His piece is entitled "The Numbers."
[caption id="attachment_2641" align="aligncenter" width="236" caption="Timothy Doyle's "The Numbers""]
[/caption]Lost Blog: How did you become a fan of LOST?
Timothy Doyle: Honestly, I had never seen an episode before being contacted about the project. Lost was a show that was on my 'watch when it's done' list, as I really feel like that's the best way to watch TV- or any serialized fiction for that matter. I read Harry Potter that way- waited until the 6th book was out, and then got caught up right before the 7th hit. It's delayed gratification, to be sure, but you really get to feel the whole arc of a story that way. Lost was something that I knew I'd be into, but wanted to wait to bite off the whole series at once. I read something like 20 different new comic books a week, so my ability to juggle storylines in my head is a little maxed out. So my TV gets pushed to DVD only.
Of course, once I got the call to participate in this, and was assigned 'Hurley Winning the Lottery' I had to get caught up, QUICK. Jensen at Gallery 1988 had ABC send me the episode w/ Hurley' lotto win, and I had to base my whole concept on that one episode. After seeing that episode, I said to my wife- "Dammit! Now we need to watch Lost." We backtracked on HULU and ABC.com and worked our way up through season 2, got tired of watching it on our laptop, and borrowed 3-4 on DVD, and bought all 5 seasons on DVD when Amazon ran that killer deal back when season 5 came out. Suffice to say, I'm TOTALLY hooked. I do feel bad for all the people who had to wait these 5 years to see what I knocked out in a few months. But man, it's a great ride.
Lost Blog: Describe the details about how you were contacted to do the poster?
Timothy Doyle: Jensen Karp at Gallery 1988 contacted me back in April, I think, and he had said he was putting the series together. No 'assignments' were nailed down yet. I actually called Rob Jones and said 'Hey, there's this LOST thing, and I got no idea what to do...what do you suggest?' He said I should ask for the Polar Bear or the Hatch, as they'd be pretty important. (Remember, I had no idea what was what about the show yet.) I had done a similar thing for a few years co-art directing the Alamo Drafthouse's poster series w/ Rob, and 10 of the 16 artists were people that I had assigned prints to before for that series. So I knew Jensen was going after the same type of crowd with the gigposters, and it spilled right into the Lost fan base with a vengeance.
Lost Blog: What instructions or parameters were you given for the poster?
Timothy Doyle: I was told that each artist would be given a 'moment' to depict, not a particular character. Jensen came back to me with 'Hurley winning the lottery', and forwarded on that particular episode. It all was pretty much left up to me at that point. The only change that was requested was that I not put Hurley's face on there twice. My original composition had Hurley's face REAL BIG at the bottom in front of the TV. ABC said there was some stipulation actors' faces on the same poster twice. I'm sure it was some strange holdover from SAG rule regarding print advertisements or something. Either way, the request required me to watch more episodes to gather more references, and that wasn't a bad thing. I was told that the reason I got Hurley was because my print "Punch-Out at the Last Supper" depicted the equally large King Hippo. After I turned in my finished piece, I got a very nice email from Carlton's assistant saying they totally dug it around the office, which made me very happy.
Lost Blog: What was your process for developing the poster?
Timothy Doyle: Well, since I didn't have a real solid handle on the show yet, I just thought I'd throw in as many references as possible- and since Hurley himself is such a big dude, it made sense to put all the 'action' contained inside of his silhouette. (side note, I too, am a big dude). I thought showing all the consequences of Hurley winning the lotto would be fun to throw in there, from his mother breaking her ankle, to the wrecked jet engine in the center of the piece. After that, it was just a case of coming up w/ the proper composition.
Lost Blog: How did this project compare to your other creations?
Timothy Doyle: It was actually pretty hard, as I felt like I was feeling around in the dark. Now that I've seen every episode, I'm not quite sure what I would do different, but I would definitely had been more confident in the choices. And, I would have known that Jin in a Mr. Cluck outfit was 10 times more hilarious than I originally thought.
Lost Blog: Besides your own, what is your favorite print from the series?
Timothy Doyle: That's a tough one- each artist really did things in their own style, and I'm a fan of each one of them. From Ken Taylor's killer rendering of Mr. Echo, to Olly Moss's inventive design (holy crap, will someone send me a shirt?). Having not seen any of the prints in person other than mine, I know I'm not getting all the detail that's sure to be seen in one like Kevin Tong's "The Hatch"... But just based on the pictures, I'd have to go with Methane's Dahrma Van. One- I love VW buses. Two- Hurley saving the day in that van by running over those dudes at the beach is a highlight of the show for me. Three- That is a damn fine drawing.
Lost Blog: Who is your favorite LOST character and why?
Timothy Doyle: John Locke. He's his own man, and not a team player. While our team and the Others are fighting it out, he's a free agent. Sure, he's got trust and emotional issues, but watching his journey from angry, self-doubting victim, to supreme island bad-ass/ saviour is so liberating. He's also a man searching for meaning in the world- which unfortunately leads him to put his trust where it doesn't always belong. He's a dynamic character, as opposed to Jack, who doesn't seem to learn ANYTHING EVER. And man, he's got a sweet-ass scar.
Lost Blog: Kate or Juliet?
Timothy Doyle: While I am partial to brunettes, Juliet is a stone cold killer, who makes rational decisions. Kate is a bit of an emotional wreck. And she likes Jack, which is a huge character flaw. But I must say, the freckles and slight buck teeth are very charming.
