Just a few of my favorite Belinelli action... ahem, excuse me Stallone action flicks only on GSoM!

The hype is on! Everybody's catching on the resemblance Marco Belinelli carries similar to that of the Italian Stallion himself... Sylvester Stallone! As kids I was raised on nothing but action filled movies starring Stallone, Arnold, Martin Kove (the bad guy from Karate Kid) and Van Damme films like no other. Lately I've been seeing comments like "That new dude from Golden State looks like Rambo!" on GSoM. We've got a new international film superstar on the come up on the Warriors in Marco Belinelli! It's is fun for me and many others around the Bay.

I'd like to contribute my 2 cents (in a design sense) by whipping together a few of my favorite Stallone Movie Posters (with the help of GSoM community member Sleepy Freud on the Rocky tip) and share some quick tips, when using Photoshop and why I chose the movie! Check it out after the jump!

"Demolition Man." Seriously, I would actually watch this. Marco would need to bulk up, and Jackson needs to learn some of Wesley Snipe's moves to make this happen though!

"Over the Top." Just looking back at Over the Top brings back fond memories of me forcing my dad to take me to the theaters and watch Rocky arm wrestle Truckers! (lol, notice I made it look like a straight DVD release!)

"Rambo." Belinelli as Rambo has the looks of a cool, calm, collected cat who isn't getting enough sleep! Imagine him holding a Bazooka in the Roaracle Arena!

"Rocky." I have to give my man Sleepy Freud credit on this one. It's so inspiring yet simple- somebody's gotta hold up a sign like that come game time, especially for a game on TNT!

On the Photoshop Tip
I just realized that I've been using Photoshop for the past 11 years (man I am getting old!) for making parodies. I've seen a lot of good ones on this site and a lot that can only get better. My best advise is EYEBALL YOUR WORK. It's never going to look as good as the original, but attempt to make it look as close as possible. Belinelli is the perfect example of a guy who can fall straight into a Photoshop layer and work well with the idea of becoming a Stallone look alike concept. Here's two other keys:

1. Don't just pick any picture on the web. Surf and find a legitimate site with a handfull to chose from. If the image is too small and you free transform it to make it bigger, it's going to look like a Tetris puzzle and get all blocky. For hi-res pics for the web that are at least big enough for web standards I use sites like View Images, the Warriors website (wallpaper section). Shoot, I'll even try going to a players MySpace page! They all have an account and some of the fan related sites are really cool. The bigger the pic in resolution the better. It's always better to size down than size up a picture.
2. Don't just clip a picture out and slap it on. Eyeball that layer and make sure it fits. Go all out and use some of Photoshop's great functions: feather the picture, drop a drop shadow under Baron's chin, sharpen the image or adjust the colors to get the closest skin tones as the concept, and make sure your clipping paths are clean. Practice, practice, practice... like a piano lesson. I know a ton of us use Photoshop here and now you know what type of standards I use to make things look as close to the original idea as my parodies can possibly be.