affinity designer Chicken Abbey Road - The Re-shoe

[awakenedbyowls]

I did this stupid photo design 8 years where I photoshopped 4 chickens walking across an old country road with zebra crossing lines and it went a it viral across the internet (so much that two musical artists stole it and put it on their album cover) and so I decided to redesign it better recently and ended up with this

One morning in the Spring of 1972 - in a parallel universe somewhere - George, Paul, Ringo and John are on a road trip to a farm - to grow some wheat - when they bump into their old pal Buster Bloodvessel out walking his chickens

Trying to get some nice dust brush effects going on but I don’t feel I’m 100% happy with the result so far so might rework bits of it - if anyone has any nice tips for me then I’m happy to take them

[iuli]

Fantastic illustration, and makes for a great opportunity to revisit Abbey Road. For me it’s perfect as it is.

[awakenedbyowls]

Thanks iuli I think you are right sometimes it’s better just leaving things as they are if they seem to work. I think the grainy effect would work good on a T-shirt so see where that goes maybe. Going to do another one or two, maybe one in the day in summer or a winter one - it looks good with snow if you give it a circular aperture then it kind of looks just like a snow globe.

[Komatös]

And what chicken runs barefoot?  😂🤪

I was 6 years old when the album "Abby Road" in 1969 was released. Thank you for reminding me of a wonderful childhood.

 

[awakenedbyowls]

2 hours ago, Komatös said:

And what chicken runs barefoot?  😂🤪

I was 6 years old when the album "Abby Road" in 1969 was released. Thank you for reminding me of a wonderful childhood.

 

Good question. Take a look at the feet of all The Beatles 😉

Did you figure out who the old man is supposed to be?

[Komatös]

Oh my goodness, I didn't recognize Paul Mc Cartney. All chicken legs without footwear, you can quickly get confused at my age. 😂

[awakenedbyowls]

55 minutes ago, Komatös said:

Oh my goodness, I didn't recognize Paul Mc Cartney. All chicken legs without footwear, you can quickly get confused at my age. 😂

Right - that’s not so encouraging as I’m hoping that while not too obvious all four of the Beatles are recognisable? I’ve tested it on one friend without telling her and she recognised them but I had to ask her what she thought they looked like. Most folk get the link through the chickens anyway mind so I’m relying on that.

Did you spot the Easter egg though - that they are all wearing shoes apart from Macca who was the only one barefoot in the original? Black feet white feet anyway - I think Macca’s feet should be a bit smaller actually.

I seem to always default to blank faces when I try to draw cartoon caricatures - which is because I’m not that good an artist to draw faces (yet) and the minimowlist/blank works quite well in an slightly dark way. If I put faces in it’ll just either not look like them anymore or just look crap I think.

And all the people standing on the road are now dead, whereas the ones in the tractor are still alive - I also placed them all in the design without thinking about the order they appear on the real Abbey Road cover and then later thought I should put them in the same order left to right and it turned out I’d put them that way anyway without thinking or knowing off the top of my head what the order was

Oh and since you are such a big fan from the old days it sounds like - I also had the pleasure of sharing an art exhibition with Peter Blake (who designed the Sgt Peppers Sleeve) and also Yoko Ono - and hundreds of other well-known artists in 2015 for the Secret 7” Charity Exhibition/Sale where I designed a hand made Sleeve for St Vincent. 2020 was my third appearance more recently also when I designed a digital sleeve for Bob Dylan. I was there all three times as one of the normal people who got lucky enough to have their designs picked, sadly never made it down in person to visit the exhibitions either time.

The wee white burdie silhouettes are also traced from small paintings that were sent me to by email by Phyllis King in 2013 when I asked her for copyright permission for a design I was working for a Talenthouse Competition about Ivor Cutler (she was his partner in art and life and features on some of his recordings - she offered to send me originals in the post as well and I declined saying email scans would be fine! How I regret that now - one of my favourite artists/poets offers to send me their original art in the post for free and I said no thanks lol

Anyway, hope some of that background into is of interest or value to you - if you search for “chicken abbey road” you’ll find lots of websites and socials showing the original photo design along an old country road in the summer (don’t have a copy on this computer so can’t just add it here)