The Making Of "Clock Tower Valley": How Artist Scott C Created His Incredible 'Back To The Future' Print

(Artist Scott C is known all over the world for his charming and distinctive pop culture art, but he has outdone himself with the Back to the Future-inspired "Clock Tower Valley." We invited the artist himself to share his process, including photos and videos, guiding us through the creation of this ambitious print. There are numerous references, characters, and locations scattered throughout this piece, each of them requiring care and attention to detail...and Scott offers us a step-by-step look at how it came together. For more of Scott C's work and to pick up a print of "Clock Tower Valley" for yourself, you can visit his shop here.)There are some films that should be held up to the sky and rejoiced. Back to the Future is one of those films. It is a world that I want to live within and explore, so I wanted to create a piece that celebrated every square inch of this film. I wanted it to feel like a Disneyland map or a medieval tapestry with flattened perspective, where one could get the lay of the entire land and decide where and who to visit.  I named it "Clock Tower Valley" and I would like to take you on the journey through it's conception and creation. It is a valley of clock towers, prom dresses, undersea dances, cutting edge inventions, hazmat suits, wooden crate scooters, and VW vans. There is a famous orange vest in this painting and a car that travels through time. Let us embark.

I gathered all of these drawings and scanned them into the computer to compute the heck out of this thing. I cut all of the little elements out of the drawings and began to assemble them in photoshop. I started by enlarging the thumbnail of the entire space and just laying all the cutout characters and elements into the drawing like a puzzle. This is when I decided what things would make the final drawing and what things would be cut. I arranged and rearranged until the scene felt just right.It was at this point that I reached out to my good friend Peter Sciretta over at /Film for his advice on the drawing. I knew that this was his absolute favorite film and wanted to put that knowledge to good use. He suggested adding a few elements, like the photograph of Marty and his siblings. It was difficult figuring out how to incorporate that photograph into the drawing since it was such a tiny little thing, but we both agreed that people would enjoy seeing it. I ultimately solved the problem by just putting some eyes and legs and a little smiling mouth on the photo, like I always do. It really had it be its own character. I did the same with Little Flux. I like bringing objects to life in paintings, so they can hang with everyone.

My printer only prints on 8.5" x 11" sheets of paper and this was a big painting. So I needed to tape the pieces together to make it nice and big.  

Once the drawing was there on the paper in all its faint splendor, it was time to figure out the color scheme. In a painting with so much going on, it is a good idea to simplify the color scheme as much as you can. I selected a few basic colors as a road map to stick to for the background elements. I painted little squares of color that professional artists call swatches. Feel free to call them swatches even if you are not a PROFESSIONAL. You can live your life how you like!

Initial colors often take the longest to get in there because decisions need to get made. Luckily, the color schemes of the outfits have already been chosen by the costume designers on this film, so I just looked at my reference. I gave myself a bit of a break on this and just plugged everything loosely in there. It always looks like a real mess at this stage, but that is how it goes. We will save it later with lines!

My favorite time! Linework time! This was when those blobs of color that vaguely look like characters and buildings began to take shape. But this was also a rather stressful time because this was when the likeness of the characters either hit and miss. Some of the likenesses felt like successes while others felt a bit like misses. But you can't win them all. If any of the likenesses were just too overwhelmingly bad on a character, I just got my paper towel wet and wiped that part out and started over. Watercolor is quite forgiving in that way. If you don't like what you painted, just wipe it out and do it again! I definitely did that in this painting here. Especially with Marty's face. His face was tough to get right.

This thing was almost done at this point, but the time came to go back and heft up some of the outlines on these characters to help them pop.  This is a little cartooning trick, you guys. Make the lines on the inside fainter and thinner than the lines on the outside. Sets that character right in there on top of the background.

At some point, you need to call that painting "DONE." I could probably work on a painting indefinitely, but I do not have infinite hours to work on a piece.  I just need to call it DONE, so I can walk away and get some fresh air and shift focus onto new projects.  So I called this thing DONE! I now present it to the masses!And that is how the story goes. I hope everyone enjoyed this little journey through "Clock Tower Valley". This was a piece I have wanted to paint for a long time and it felt good to revisit the movie that helped shape my world so much.