The story of how fan art I drew 5 years ago led to a movie poster job

It has been 15 years since I started working as an illustrator.

I have had the opportunity to experience many different types of work, but there was one job I had almost forgotten about, thinking it might be impossible for me to ever achieve.

That was a live-action movie poster.

Then, in the spring of 2025, an unexpected email arrived. That dream I had almost forgotten became a reality after five years. The catalyst was that one piece of fan art.

A job I wanted to do someday

When I started as an illustrator, there were several client projects I hoped to do in the future. Books, commercials, corporate characters, and so on. Thanks to everyone, I have been able to experience most of them.

However, among those, there was one client project that I really wanted to do but thought was quite high-difficulty.

A live-action movie poster.

I have loved movies since I was a child, and my love for film led me to study in the film department at university, and from there, I got a job at a video production company. Somehow, I ended up becoming an illustrator, but it might be a natural progression for someone who loves movies and can draw to want to create a movie poster someday.

However, that is not the case.

Creating movie posters is extremely difficult

It is not that it is technically difficult.
(Well, that is not zero, either.)

In the first place, the work of an illustrator creating illustrations for movie posters tends to be quite small in terms of total workload compared to publishing and other jobs. Taking on this work is an extremely narrow gate. I have summarized the reasons below.

Reason 1: Frequency of movie poster production

The demand for movie posters depends on the number of movies released, but in Japan, the number of movies released annually is around several hundred (including everything from blockbusters to indie films). Among those, posters that use illustrations are quite limited. The limited cases where an illustrator can get involved are as follows.

• Art-house or mini-theater films

• Showa or retro-style revival screenings

• New illustrations for DVD/Blu-ray jackets

• Japanese original art posters for foreign films

• Fan art projects or limited-edition merchandise

Reason 2: The proportion of illustrations adopted

Movie posters for live-action films tend to rely heavily on photography and CG, and the current mainstream both in Japan and overseas is "photography + design." Due to visual consistency and marketing strategy, there are many situations where "photography" is required, and cases where illustrations take center stage are limited to art-house films, animated films, or instances where a specific concept needs to be emphasized.

Reason 3: High level of specialization

Since movie poster illustrations require commercial appeal and branding, requests are concentrated on illustrators with high skills and a proven track record. Therefore, unless you are an illustrator with exceptional appeal, it can be said that there are few opportunities to get work in this field.

Reason 4: Budget issues

Compared to using the same photography + design approach as overseas, or using existing materials, new illustrations and designs incur production costs. Unless the overseas photography or design is judged to be completely unsuited to Japanese tastes, distributors likely do not want to go out of their way to allocate the budget.

I've written all this out, but in the end, "drawing movie posters" is extremely niche, and it's difficult unless the person drawing is reasonably successful.

For these and other reasons, you don't see many movie posters that are illustration-based.

Examples of illustration-based movie posters

Even so, it's not that illustration-based movie posters don't exist. Here are some posters from recent works that left an impression on me. Since the films themselves have high name recognition, I'm sure movie lovers remember them.

A horror film produced by A24. This is the poster for "Midsommar," directed by Ari Aster. Created as an art version separate from the regular poster that uses photography, the illustration drawn by Yuko Higuchi is very impressive. It became a huge topic of conversation. I want one too!

Also, there are patterns of illustrations that are close to live-action like this. This one was created not as an art version, but in the same position as a poster using photography.

Also, in terms of realistic styles, there is Yusuke Saito's "Kanki no Uta" (Song of Joy).

And the poster for "The Dead Don't Die" drawn by Rockin' Jelly Bean can be cited.

As for the poster for "Kong: Skull Island," one could even say that the Japanese version drawn as an illustration was more effective at attracting audiences than the Hollywood version.

However, I cannot draw the realistic touch like the ones mentioned above, and there are plenty of people who are much better at it than me.

It's such a narrow gate that I even forgot the desire to do it

So, doing movie posters with illustrations is, one way or another, a very high hurdle. Honestly, I had even forgotten the desire to do it.

Then came April 2025. I received an email from a designer.

W-w-wait, is this...

A request for a movie poster??!!

I received a request for a movie poster

That's right. It's a request for a movie poster illustration. They wanted the illustration style to match that of "The Half of It," a film I watched while sick during the 2020 pandemic and loved so much that I drew tons of fan art for it.

What's more, the designer who brought me this request is the same designer I worked with when I asked TV Tokyo to bring in a professional designer for the "Achikochi Audrey" DVD package illustration job.

In other words, this is how it happened.

It all connected!

My movie fan art
led to a movie poster job
5 years later!

Moreover, the temporary key visual attached as a reference looked exactly like a live-action version of the illustration I drew 5 years ago!

In other words, you could even say the live-action version was trying to match my illustration; the affinity between the live-action and the illustration is just that high!

As with "The Half of It," for some reason, I am drawn to movies where full-body shots of characters standing or walking in profile make for a good picture, and I tend to want to draw them.

To be honest, I have several other projects overlapping, so the schedule feels a bit tight, and lately I've been drawing nothing but pictures with bold outlines, thinking, 'I've found the style I want to draw! Let someone who's good at no-outline art do that!' But this is something I just have to do.

Movie poster unveiled

"Universal Language"

Fortunately, the film's visual composition is like a picture book, making it very easy to harmonize with the illustration style. In particular, it was great that there were many shots where the characters moved across the screen in profile.

After watching the movie, I completed the five-tier illustration. Here is the poster with the overall layout adjusted by the designer.

Isn't it super cute?

The trailer has also been released.

It will be released on August 29th of this year, so flyers will start appearing in theaters and posters will be put up soon.

I drew fan art to convey the charm of the movie, and it came full circle, leading me to create the movie poster five years later. It was truly a case of 'the fun is just beginning'.

The dream came to me

Ah, when you think about wanting to draw something like this, if you draw it in advance, there are times when a project that is close to that image actually arises, and the needs align perfectly, just like this time.

It feels as if the dream came to me on its own. This case is a fairly niche example, but isn't that the case for many other jobs as well? If you are thinking that you want to do this kind of work or draw this kind of thing, please create it now. Please draw it.

Before long, the dream might just come knocking on your door.

Thank you for reading.