It started as a joke.
Brandon Bird was just kidding when he tweeted his idea to paint Shia LaBeouf as The Doctor from Doctor Who, but the artist's Twitter followers demanded it.
How angry would people be if I drew Shia LaBeouf dressed as The Doctor.— Brandon Bird (@Brandon_Bird) September 15, 2014
That settles it, going to do a takeoff of the "every Doctor" poster every artist at a comic con does, but with Shia LaBeouf as each Doctor.— Brandon Bird (@Brandon_Bird) September 15, 2014
Bird tells Mashable that painting LaBeouf as the 13 different actors who have played The Doctor was an experiment with mashups.
"I've seen mashups go from being weird and unexpected to a kind of lazy 'thing you like + other thing you like' formula," he said in an email. "So I liked the idea of flipping that around and doing 'thing lots of people love (Doctor Who) + thing a lot of people kind of hate (Shia LaBeouf).'"
Oddly enough, Bird and LaBeouf were once neighbors. Though he does feel a special attachment to the actor, he says it wasn't an inspiration for the project.
"I was renting a cool loft space that I couldn't really afford and he bought a unit right down the hall," he said. "He did a curtsey once to let me off the elevator."
You can check out Bird's eclectic pop culture art on his website or look out for more insincere pitches-turned-projects on his Twitter.
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