George Bush Novelty Currency

This is something I've been working on for a while. The front is pretty much done although I need to add some shadows around the scroll work. This gave me a real appreciation for the engraver artists that do the real currency.

I started by trying to create a bunch of custom brushes for the scrolls none of which worked so I just gutted it out and drew them all by hand. For the guilloche patterns I used the SecuriDesign plugin for Corel Draw. First I had to relearn Corel :wink: and it took a lot of trial and error to get the guilloche pattern right. There was no way to save presets in Securidesign so I had to write down the settings and then adjust them if it didn't work. The numerous settings in this plugin are mind-boggling.

For the portrait I manipulated a photo in Photoshop with the liquify tool to exaggerate certain features. I added a crown and got a demo of a Photoshop engraving plugin from Panopticum to give it the right look for the bill.

The rest was good old fashioned vector work in Illustrator. Right now I'm working on the back. I'm using a $20 bill as reference for the front and a $1 bill for the back because I like the intricate scroll work of the dollar bill better. I think the back will be even more challenging than the front was.

Final UPDATE: I just couldn't leave this alone so I redid the scroll work to add more detail and got rid of the drop shadows in favor of the engraved-like shadows. All done with vectors and custom brushes I created. I also replaced all the gradiant fills with a custom paper swatch I made from the same paper background. Thanks to PamzyLove for this tip. Lordy this was a pain to get looking right. I also changed some of the numbers with a special meaning.

Minor Update (changed United to Divided States)

Now I'm on to finishing the back. I'm a glutton for punishment!