There really were no major changes to this concept for the Henry VI Part I: Joan of Arc poster. I had to just go in and keep refining the look that I had established while keeping some painterly spontaneity. Joan is based on a golden statue in France sculpted by Emmanuel Frémiet. The battle carnage in heavy armor suits was typical of the day.
Getting on a horse in such heavy armor would be a heroic task on its own. Huge respect for the horse who would have to carry so heavy a load into battle. In the poster you can only see the saddle and a bit of the horse’s neck armor.
The basic premise of the poster is that Joan and the roses would be bathed in a golden light while the battle behind her would be subdued in grey darkness. Pikes and swords jut up everywhere. The pikes were responsible for defending against enemy horsemen. The Pikes jutting up into the sky often cross thus creating inverted Vs which mirror the Henry VI title.
Medieval horse armor was known as barding. It evolved into steel plates which could protect against targeting by infantry arrows and slashes. The armor would cover the head, neck, chest, and flanks. All that armor would add 90 pounds along with the weight of the rider and her armor. This would be a heroically strong beast. Joan had to lift the armor on her arm and the standard one-handed sword which typically weighed about 2.5 pounds.
Painting the roses involved the most delicate work on the poster. Painting all that armor involved focusing on the mid tones of the metal and then a bright highlight to give that metallic flair. When I did the poster I did not know who would play Joan. That auditions had not happened yet. Lorena Cohea played the part as the feisty and fiery Joan of Arc. I looked at photos of her after the run of the show and she isn’t that far off from the Joan of Arc that I painted, if you bathe her in a golden light.
I gave the little red puddle where William Shakespeare’s name appears a glinting highlight which implies it is a puddle of blood. Joan stands out against the deep purple and blood red storm clouds which overshadow the battle below.
The show ran from January 10 to 21 in 2024. I regret that I didn’t sketch the show itself since I was in my studio working on other illustration assignments. I know what would have transpired since I read Shakespeare’s script. I also know this was a bare bard production which meant that the actors did not rely on a director for the staging they blocked in the scenes as need on the fly. They also went into costuming and selected their own costume for the show. This is very much like the way productions made their way to the stage in Shakespeare’s day. The set might have been minimal but Shakespeare s words carry heavy weight of relating the intricacies of the politics of being a king in medieval France and England.