David Bowie Birthday Tribute To 50 Years Of Changes
Music icon David Bowie received a 50-year animated GIF makeover by illustrator Helen Green in honor of the performer’s 68th birthday. The GIF is comprised of 29 illustrations of Bowie ranging from his humble beginnings as David Jones in 1964 and spans throughout his superstar career as David Bowie, ending with a recent portrait derived from 2014 photo.
Green shared her GIF on Tumblr and garnered more than 40,000 responses from Bowie fans around the world.
“I felt inspired to create a short visual journey through many of Bowie’s styles and guises, from young Davie Jones in 1964 to David Bowie in 2014,” Green wrote.
The 22 year-old portrait, fashion, and lifestyle illustrator Green wrote to the Huffington Post, “In celebration of David Bowie’s birthday this month, I created a little animated portrait of Bowie through the years in appreciation of his mesmerizing evolution and reinvention.”
“It’s my little tribute to how he’s fascinated us over the years.”
[Click on below image to see GIF animation]
Titled “Time May Change Me,” Green is selling signed 8″ by 10″ black and white and color prints from the David Bowie GIF on her website for $15 each.
According to the Official Davie Bowie Facebook page, it took Green a total of 35 hours to produce the Bowie pencil drawings and to process them digitally.
“Each pencil drawing was coloured digitally and animated in Photoshop, and took around 35 hours in total though much of that time was spent finding references where David was facing in a specific direction,” Green said.
“For many of the drawings, I used a reference from a different year, but facing the correct way. For example, the reference for Ashes to Ashes Bowie was his 1976 mugshot, and a sideways-facing ‘Heroes’ Bowie for the drawing of Davie Jones. It was quite a triumph to see all 29 drawings in motion for the first time!”
Besides David Bowie, the UK-based Green is also known for her illustrations of music legends like Bob Dylan and lesser known but talented acts like First Aid Kit.
The Inquisitr reported on David Bowie’s 68th birthday earlier this month, when his fans took to social media around the world to celebrate. Besides honoring Bowie on Facebook and Twitter fan pages, many fans visited the David Bowie Is exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago which attracted 193,000 attendees. A record-breaking 52 million Twitter accounts displayed the exhibition hashtag #DavidBowieIs while the MCA website drew more than one million visitors thanks to the vastly popular David Bowie exhibition.
