Making of: GE Oven Print Ads

Mer-cow sketch for the GE double oven. You can now cook fish and beef at the same time not get the smells mixed up. HAH.

Real estate pig showing a couple a new space they can call home. Super spacious new oven.

I had to find a new rock, this one ended up being too small. Let me tell you these rocks are not easy to find.

Cutting suede and wrapping it around the cow was probably one of the hardest parts, you can never really get it even looking all over the figure.

New, bigger rock found and painted over.

The huge oven I created using 40 x 60" foam core sheets. 3 cans of spray paint. Plus 3 more since they wanted a more perfect, even tone to the grey and no longer speckled.

Painting blotchy skin was pretty fun.

 

         This was one crazy project, let me tell you. It's my first big print ad job. It's definitely a whole different process then editorial work. I've been working on these two pieces for all of February. Editorial illustrations have a normal deadline of a week or a few days. So the time frame given was more than I needed... or so I thought. I got to work with BBDO and the client was GE (General Electric). There's a lot of sketching and re-sketching and tons of changes along the way. Changes straight from the beginning, during the sculpting process and even towards the very end. But it is all worth it for the end result.

        What was different and new to me was that I didn't have to photograph my work. Apparently all advertising companies always hire a photographer, even though I am technically used to doing it myself. I totally love the idea of having a shoot done in a professional studio, all the space and lighting equipment is very convenient. I had the privilege of working with a wonderful and talented photographer named Chris Gordaneer from Westside Studio.There was tons of assistants helping out. The Art Directors for BBDO were all on set, as well as my rep Amy to make sure things went down smoothly. The GE clients came down to the shoot later on, just to approve the final images and add any comments. Everyone was super nice, it was honestly such a great team effort. It felt to me like a big collaboration. There's just so many people involved in these GE oven ads, it's unreal.

"Kira did an absolutely fantastic job on both the pigs and the mer-cow. They looked great on camera and were fun to play around with after the shoot. That mer-cow had eyes for me like you wouldn’t believe." -Chris Gordaneer

The prints ads will be featured in Canadian Living. Also will be submitted to a few advertising competitions.

      To sum it up, I would totally do it all over again. It's a completely different experience working fully on your own in studio and emailing the final work vs. seeing all the interaction between the many people who are involved in the project and getting various feedback face to face.

To see the final works, please visit my newly designed website www.kirashaimanova.com

-Kira :)