In this poster, I aim to capture the essence of the X-Men: Days of Future Past film--the use of time travel (so to say) to thwart the exploitation of Mystique's blood by the genocidal Sentinel Program. I ultimately chose to combine Mystique's face with an hourglass containing her blood after experimenting with other ideas.
A close-up of the hour-glass and Mystique:
Close-up of Mystique's face:
Work in progress: This was Mystique's original look. To adjust it for the hourglass, I reduced the hair length, but maintained her iconic back-brushed look with the ends flipped.
Work in Progress: At first, I thought of converting Mystique's red hair into a blood droplet. This idea however, didn't express the time-travel plot that is so salient to the film. As a result, I developed the hourglass option instead, while still maintaining the "blood/hair" analogy.
Work in Progress: In another stroke of thought, I considered combining Mystique's face with Magneto's helmet--especially after finding that the patterns on Mystique's forehead beared stylistic similarities to the helmet's design! Though this look is somewhat striking, it still did not convey the time-travel plot, so I moved on...
Final image:
