CIGARETTE CARD — ‘Cole Fasthorse’.

“Irreverent, mischievous, steadfast .” - Description of ‘Cole’, by his creator.

Since consuming media like the ‘Red Dead Redemption’ franchise, and TV shows like ‘Yellowstone’ and ‘1883’, I became very interested in the Old West and its art and culture- specifically cigarette cards. In those days, when smoking was seen as medicinal and everybody did it, and there were collectables in the packs of smokes. The National Portrait Gallery says “Cigarette cards first emerged in the US in 1875. Cards issued by the US-based tobacco company Allen and Ginter depicted actresses, baseball players, Native American chiefs, and boxers. Becoming instantly popular, other tobacco companies in the US and UK quickly followed suit, soon making them a worldwide phenomena.”

I wanted to lean more into Red Dead Redemption’s style of having famous gunslingers on the cards, like Calamity Jane and Butch Cassidy. Cole is a sharply dressed outlaw, which I reflected in his three piece suit. With how early printing was in those times, I wanted to recreate the texture by using halftones to imitate the circle pattern I saw in the colouring of a lot of early cards.