Team Fortress 2 Character Posters
One of the best games to come out in the last five years is Valve's Team Fortress 2. Although the gameplay itself is fantastic and the art direction is incredibly well-done, one of my favorite things has been the characterization. The nine different player classes are all very distinct (and often hilarious) in their own unique ways. With this series, I decided to make posters of each class in a different style fitting for the character.
The Demoman's poster was clearly inspired by 1970s blaxploitation posters (Shaft, Dolemite, etc...), and the fact that one of his "hats" is a big afro. The text of course being from Valve's Meet the Demoman video.
The Engineer's poster goes along with him being a good ol' boy Texan (well a good ol' boy with a genius intellect and penchant for making heavy-caliber automated weaponry), but a Texan nonetheless, so I went with the similar design style of 1950s-1960s Texas postcards.
The Heavy's poster is probably the most obvious, in that he's a large Russian killing machine, and when you think of Russian art generally you think of Soviet-era military propaganda posters
The Medic's poster was inspired by 1940s-1950s German constructivism, as well as the fact that he's got a bit of a sinister streak to him as a character, hence the "Do No Harm" juxtaposed with the large needles and using a Gothic-style font.
The Pyro's poster doesn't really have any particular theme or homage, but I found the deadly seriousness of the pose and text contrasted with the ridiculousness of the character to be oddly funny.
Since the Scout's main theme is baseball, I felt it only appropriate that his poster looks like an old baseball card. And since he's a Boston hooligan, I included Fenway Park's famous Green Monster in the background.
The Soldier's poster is easily recognized as being based off of George C. Scott's iconic pose from the poster for the movie Patton.
For the Spy, I felt the most appropriate style would be that of a lot of 1960s spy/thriller movie posters, including Vertigo and James Bond
For the Sniper, being a rather affable yet thoroughly-capable Australian, I decided he would do best with a Crocodile Dundee movie poster homage. The pose, visual composition, and text are taken pretty much directly from the poster for Crocodile Dundee II.
