“The Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” are both one of those movies graphic designer/illustrator Grzegorz Domaradzki always wanted to work on, so when Mike Gregory from Grey Matter Art approached him with these two awesome flicks, licensed by Studio Canal, it was pretty much like a dream come true. Grzegorz and Mike both wanted something with strong imagery, action packed, and with a glimpse of the future as seen in both movies. Both prints are 5 colour screen prints with limited runs, and they came in 3 versions: Regular, Variant and Foil Variant. All printed perfectly by the super talented guys from D&L Screen Printing, who always do an amazing job and they definitely did this print justice.

 

The concept is essential in my opinion and sometimes it takes days before I come up with an idea that I find suitable for the specific title. Since I rarely work on upcoming titles (Pacific Rim was one of the few exceptions) I usually know the movie that I am to tackle well enough, yet I always watch it again, to see if I can find something new that would inspire me. I also often listen to the movie’s soundtrack to get it the right mood.
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

I enjoy playing around with characters when designing my prints, but I also very much want the poster to look iconic and bold from the distance, while its complexity is to be discovered upon a closer inspection. Such was the case with both Terminator posters, where at first we see T-800 or T-1000 cyborgs coming out of the flames, while from up close, the viewer sees some of the leads (Arnold’s likeness wasn’t included in the license) along with a huge futuristic battle between humans and the machines.
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

 

First and foremost both Terminator movies of course, but the general concept was inspired by an interview with James Cameron I read a while back, in which he stated that he had a dream about a cyborg/robot coming out of the flames, and as we all know the rest is pretty much a cinema history. I also knew I wanted a diptych when working on those so I had to come up with something that would work on both prints, yet keep in mind that not everyone will purchase both, so they had to work individually as well, which is always a bit more tricky than when doing a single poster.
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

The style I’m using on my screen printed posters currently is purely digital, ( but that may change since I'm planning to start using more pencil based artworks in future). After I have the concept and the sketch ready, I draw entire thing with simplified lines in one colour, which I later bring to Adobe Illustrator where I Live Trace the drawing into vectors. The main reason why I do that is because I want the lines to be sharp and crisp. Once I have the vectors I bring them back to Photoshop where I polish all the curves and edges, apply shading, add colours and work on the likenesses.
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

It’s a time consuming process and it takes weeks before the final art is completed. In most cases I add the typography last, which if possible (sometimes the license doesn’t allow that) is customised or even designed from scratch. I’m inspired by many things, from movies, internet and music, to literature, games, comics and of course other artists. I look up to many poster designers, among which my personal favourites are: Laurent Durieux, Vania Zouravliov, Tomer Hanuka and Killian Eng to name just the few.
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

In short: work hard, experiment, share your works with the world and stay inspired:)
-Grzegorz Domaradzki

About Grzegorz Domaradzki

Grzegorz Domaradzki graduted in 2003 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań / Poland with a Master's degree in Graphic Arts and Drawing. After graduation, he worked as an illustrator and later as a graphic designer for various advertising agencies. In 2005, he went freelance and hasn't looked back since. Grzegorz major in graphic design and enjoy playing with custom-made typography. He often work with pencil and/or pen, before the hand-drawn art gets perfected on his iMac doing all sort of commercial work, such as book and DVD covers or snowboard and t-shirt designs, but for past few years he has been delivering licensed and limited screen printed posters mainly. He has worked on numerous classics so far, with long list of titles planned for upcoming months. See more of his works on Behance or his website.