Dilek Baykara - St Vitus - 9-25-12 New York

Dilek Baykara - St Vitus - 9-25-12 New York

The "single poster interview" seems to be more and more popular, so be sure I am at the moment working hard to have many others online soon, but not that soon indeed, as I really want you guys to take your time to discover Dilek's art. I was really happy to have her on the blog in the beginning of this year as I thought her work was not properly represented on the web, and, once again, it is a pleasure to welcome her on the blog today to speak about her latest St Vitus poster. Enjoy !!

Hi ! Last time we spoke together you told me you would like to do something for a band outside of the metal genre, is this dream came true ?

Not yet, but I am focusing on personal work right now and taking on different subject matter. We’ll see where this year takes me. I still hope it happens.

Well, we are not actually outside the metal world with this St Vitus poster we are here to talk about today, first of all some "technical" points :) How many prints have you made? Can we expect different variants?

I printed 100, it was incredibly difficult since I have never undertaken such a task for myself. I had a friend of mine who is an excellent printer (Alejandro Chen Li) assist me in racking and helping me correct any mistakes along the way, since its nearly impossible for me to pull a highly detailed image onto a 22”x 30” sheet of paper by myself. I remember after the entire experience that my hands were sore and my wrist was aching for the next day. I’m not complaining, because it reinforced the fact that it was rewarding in a sense since I knew I pushed myself even harder than before. I might print a different variant in the future depending on time constraints and whatnot.

Did you have guidelines for this one or were you entirely free ?

Where does this horses idea came from ?

I didn’t have any guidelines, but I decided to try doing a 3 color print since I’m beginning to venture into using color in my work, and decided to ease into using blends more.  As with my other posters I decided to base this off of a song. “White Stallions” was a song that really appealed to me visually right off the bat, so I ran with it.

Seems like they are in danger with those fireballs falling from the sky and all the blood under their legs, does this refer to a specific lyrics by St Vitus ?

The song “White Stallions” is a fast song, especially for a band like St. Vitus. I basically wanted to capture that hectic chaos that is happening within the song itself. So I based the concept off of the obvious, by drawing White Stallions. Since the song deals with drug abuse (heroin) lyrically, I decided to have them run through a lake of blood. As for the fireballs, I wanted to simulate some effect of the sky falling upon the horses. Since they are trapped in a never ending cycle of abuse. A lot of thought went into figuring out what to put together visually, but when I read the lyrics and heard the song it really came together in my mind. So yes, I’d say they are in danger, I wanted to capture the energy of the song and the drug itself as (Scott Reagers) explains it in the song.

I really like the lettering on this one, was it created specially for this poster ?

I always try and make all of the lettering work with the font of the headlining band. It was really frustrating, but I managed to make it work somehow by taking the original font that I used as reference and made it looser like the St Vitus logo itself.

Did you receive feedback from the band ?

Dave and Henry told me they really liked it, which was more than enough for me to hear to feel great about what I did.

From their fans ?

I sold a good amount of posters that night and the 30 posters I gave to St Vitus to sell on the rest of their tour didn’t last long from what I heard from their tour merchandiser, Kim.

From your fans ?

I got really positive feedback from my friends, though I can’t consider them fans since they know me already.

Was it the first time you were working with Saint Vitus ?

Yes it was, and I hope it won’t be the last.

Well, thanks a lot for your time and answers, and I hope to welcome you again on the blog soon

Thank you for the interview!