Rusty Saddle Bike Night to Now That's Class

The Rusty Saddle Bike Night to Now That's Class is tomorrow night! The Big Ride starts at 7pm at Blazing Saddle Cycle, 7427 Detroit Ave, and ends with a raffle at Now That's Class 11213 Detroit. This is co-sponsored by Blazing Saddle and Rust Belt Welding. Even though I do not ride a bicycle, and it would be insanely frustrating to be driving a car on that street at the time, I would still love to see Detroit flooded with bicyclists riding westbound. There's something awesome to me about seeing a huge group of people on bikes traveling in a pack. I blame AKIRA.



I did this black and white version because it was taking me a long time to get this finished and Paul at Now That's Class really really needed it to get the word out about the first one, which as I mentioned above is TOMORROW, April 5th, 2012! So I blasted this version out and I hope it made it to the hands of the people that need it! I saw some up at Gypsy so I know it's at least out in the hood.

Here's what Paul sent me when he hired me for this one:

The idea the Blazing Saddles guys wanted was something like was like

"Zeus on top of a mountain or something crushing a scorpion or some type of animal in one hand and either stepping on or crushing a bike or a pile of bikes. Maybe with lava and fire in the background"

If you've seen any of my previous work, you should know that this is a completely ridiculous, but right in the center of my wheelhouse, request! It's funny, sometimes I really like when a client has a pretty specific idea in mind, but on the whole, clients have pretty odd ideas about what's even possible to do in a drawing. Paul is always a total blast to work with and the Blazing Saddle/Rust Belt dudes are all rad so I would bend over backwards to make sure this work is as ape-shit-bonkers as I can make it, and it visually represents the event and vibe of what they're doing here. I hope I did that!



Which brings me to my next point. Even though I like the b/w version fine and it get's the info out as well as it needs to, I really really wanted this to be in full color that burned off the page. I could almost see it on the page as I was drawing this, how it needed to be to really set it off. So, I took the extra time and really went bananas on the colors on this one. Also note that under the text is a very rough, crusty version of Blazing Saddles on the bottom left and a very rough, sketchy version of Now That's Class on the bottom right, with a much much windier version of a path between the two. I don't really mind that this got covered with text at all, but I like to think that it plays out pretty well even with the text.

So, hey, if you ride a bike in Cleveland and want to get involved in this, DO IT. It's probably going to be a ton of fun, and hey- you get a free beer if you ride your bike to the bar!

The Castle of Uncle Robert

All Dinosaurs are playing this Friday, February 17th, 2012, at The Happy Dog with other local stalwarts Ultra Ultra and Vince Roy. There's a facebook event page for it HERE.

This show is actually also the World Premier of the All Dinosaurs video for "The Castle of Uncle Robert", by Turnstyle Films. The few stills they made available for this video was largely the inspiration for the art for this poster.



Having seen these, I drew up this rough, and laid it out pretty quickly. I actually had in mind the way I wanted this to look, and I knew I what I wanted to get across. The idea that this was not just a regular show, but the Premier of this video really got the visual narrative/comics part of my brains going into overdrive. I've been working those muscles a lot lately. I'm always pretty stoked to be able to incorporate graphic elements or techniques commonly attributed to the language of comics into other projects. It still kind of feels like I'm getting away with something, like it somehow subverts the established standard of expectations and/or what's acceptable. I'm sure that's all just in my head, though. Culturally, I think we're sinking deeper and deeper into the visual narrative comics pool.



At any rate, here's the rough I did, and sent to All Dinosaurs for feedback and approval. I mostly wanted to make sure is jibed with the content of the video. I also wanted it to be as awesome as it could possibly be. Back to the comics front, breaking up the page like that gave me the space to ad the extra information about the video and make it pretty clear without having to worry about it.

Along with the feedback, Dave from All Dinosaurs also sent me this:



So, I knew I wanted to change the idea of the tree stump with the bird to an alpaca. I knew they filmed the video on a farm, but didn't realize it was an alpaca farm. Pretty great. I immediately changed that and we were off to the races.



Here's the final inked lie art. I drew it mostly with a brush and ink, then went in for the details, cross hatching, and texture with a 01 Micron and a crusty old toothbrush.



Here's the final again, I was going to go through the coloring process, but I changed my mind. At any rate, I did that in Photoshop, pretty straight forward on this one.

We went the extra mile and did an extra print run of these posters over at Jak Prints, and they look incredible. The poster is 12" x 18" on this really nice heavy matte card stock. If you're interested in getting one, we'll have them at the show and they'll only be $5. I wish I had a better photo of it, but this should give you an idea of the size and what it looks like.



For those of you not in Cleveland, or able to get to the show on Friday, I added this one to the Shiner Comics Store, still only $5 but there is a $2 shipping charge. I usually don't list specific posters, but this time I wanted to make it available online too. I think I'm going to update the store soon and list a bunch of other original art, so if that's something you're into, stay tuned!

This show is going to be great. If you are in Cleveland on Friday, you should definitely get over to the Happy Dog! Witness "The Castle of Uncle Robert", see Vince Roy, Ultra Ultra, and ALL DINOSAURS.

Old Friend for a New Year: Hunrgy Hungarian Returns, MELT 2012!

Hey friends, it's January, it's 2012, it's time for The Hungry Hungarian Paprikash Melt at Melt bar & grilled!
Pulled Roasted Chicken
Huge Homemade Dumplings
Creamy Paprikash Sauce
Provolone Cheese
Amazing Vegetarian Version Available

As you can see, I went with a nice quiet snowy winter scenario starring our favorite polar bear friends and family, Junior Bear looking out the window watching the snow fall and accumulate. I have pretty fond memories of doing that as a pup, just watching the sky full of flakes and clumps of snow. It always blew my mind, the idea that no two snowflakes are the same. Sometimes, if it was particularly clumpy snow, you could pick a cluster drifting on the wind and watch just that one, try to focus on it and follow it through the path to the ground, or watch it get pushed back up into the gusts of wind. Those were good moments.



I wanted to show the process a little more for this one, but I don't know what I did with the rough sketches I used to develop the concept. I knew I wanted to use the polar bears but I wasn't sure how. I landed on this after thinking of the "watching snow fall" idea, and wanting to do an warm color inside vs. cold colors outside juxtaposition. So, here's the black and white line art, drawn with brush and ink on 11" x 17" Bristol Board.



On to the colors, the first step was just to go bonkers in Photoshop with the warm/cool effects. I chose my pallet and kept it pretty limited. I had a good time though. I really like the looks on the cat and dog's faces.



Here, all I did was add a subtle texture to everything outside the window using a map of ink splatter I made specific for this piece, then changes the color of the line art inside the window to that brownish orange, the color of lines of the Christmas lights, and then created a glowing effect on the window and the lights on a separate layer set to a pretty low opacity. Some of these touches are overt and some are simple and subtle, but I think it's all important. I think in some cases there's a fine line between kill and overkill, especially in Photoshop.



Lastly, for the illustration at least, I added two layers of snow falling. It's just a matter of making those ink splatter pieces, dropping them over the art and changing the color to white. Then setting one of them to ...shoot, I think it's only 35% opacity, but it's pretty low.



I drew the text by hand and scanned it. Here's what it looks like before coloring it and adding it to the poster. I like these banner moves. I used to do that a lot, then migrated away from it for a long time. Now I'm finding really good uses for banners all over the place at Melt. It definitely falls into the "tattoo art" themes have been a large part of Melt's visual dynamic.



Here's the line art for the Hungry Hungarian Melt sandwich. I've drawn so many of these, I can draw them in my sleep. This is actually the last thing I do for these posters now. Sometimes I draw the sandwich when I draw the illustration and the text, but lately I've gone all the way up to final colors before drawing the sandwich. It occurred to me to just reuse the sandwich drawings from last year, but eh... that would be weak sauce. Weak. Sauce.



Here's the final again, with the text and sandwich. It's a great sandwich, too. I highly recommend it, especially on cold cold Cleveland in January nights after trekking around in the snow and winter all day.



Also, Beverly Hills Cop is being screened as one of the January Melt Late Shift movies at Cleveland Cinemas' Capitol Theatre on Saturday, January 21st at Midnight. Melt is doing a special Fried Banana in the Tail Pipe Trick Melt sandwich, with fried plantains, grilled pineapple, fresh avocado, spicy tomato relish, and muenster cheese. I can't wait to try this.



I used this screen capture from the movie to get Eddie Murphy's likeness down. Though, this image is from when Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart are in the strip club, I set him outside in what I wanted to be an 1980s styled color wash, almost an abstract blend of pastels and process colors. I really wanted it to pop. I think that worked.



Here's the dessert card for January. Continuing with these characters, I'm not sure this one is as successful as the last two, but I like it. I like using the word balloons and the panel breaks on the card. I've been working on a lot of comics lately, and this is like that bleeding into the way I'm doing everything. Also, Heath Bar Crunch Cheesecake!

That's it for now. I feel like I've been typing for a year. I hope this post made sense. Hey, check back later in the week, I'm going to post some fun stuff and hopefully you'll be into it. I figure if you're still reading this then chances are you will be.

Mad Weapons

It's a Very Red 7 New Years Eve with Russian Circles, The Roller, Eagle Claw, and Boyfrndz! Kiss 2011 AD goodbye!



When I launched into this I knew for certain I didn't want to do anything ...Russian, or with circles. Also, it being N.Y.E., I wanted to do something eye-catching. This wasn't the moment to be subtle, not that I've been all that subtle over the past few batches of posters, but... y'know, sometimes it just needs to be taken to eleven. This, and the next few posters for shows in Austin, would happen to be some of those sometimes. Anyway, I started with this big ass robot not unlike other big ass robots I've done in the past. This quickly evolved into the last rough, with this primitive Shewolf rockin' mad weapons.



A lot of times I don't take my pencils this far, the refined. I usually keep them rough and then do a lot of the work in the inking stage, but this time around I opted to get more thorough and make sure everything was dope before I starting to ink.

Russian Circles is pretty goddamn good. I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend New Years Eve. Personally, my Ladybird and I will be watching the Lord Of The Rings Extended DVDs all in one sitting. Happy New Year, Gandolf!



I inked the living shit outta this with a brush, then went back in with a rapidly dying Micron .01 pen, then splattered it with a toothbrush. I'm overall pretty satisfied with how well the inks look. I like the fur and the way the robot is textured. I like these characters a lot. As with almost all of my posters, there's a story there somewhere, to be told. I did at one point have a narrative for the Shewolf character I had drawn in the past, vague intentions of a huge volume of pages that wander through that world and the moments that make up this character's reality- bouncing them off our own world and the balance between the microcosms of particular instances and the much much bigger picture of the long view, the grand scheme. The forest vs. the trees (or probably more accurately, a segment of the bark on one tree in the forest) so to say. Maybe some day, I'll make that comic? Someday, I suppose.



So, lastly, here's the lettering and splatters I used to create the textures and the splatters in the coloring stage. I was planning using this one as an example of the process of coloring, but then got carried away and forgot to take screen caps or save the file at various stages. Not that my process is all that informative or complicated, but... it's good to check in on that type of thing every now and again.

Well, I've spent way too long on this post already. I've been listening to the Drive Soundtrack as I've been typing this. Man, I know most people probably mostly love the pop jams, College song Real Hero, or Nightcall, which... great fucking jams, but the Cliff Martinez stuff on this one, the instrumental tracks... holy shit, this is good. Everything about that movie makes me super duper happy.

More coming soon. Two other Red 7 posters, Ten Imaginary Movies, and then some new comics!

Breaking Radio Silence, Part 2: Grand Scenesterism

I've recently done a couple pieces for Scene Magazine, covers and what not. It's actually a pretty awesome gig doing work for them now. They recently took on my homie, and design powerhaüs, OKPants, AKA: Aaron Secrist, as their new Art Director and he's really whipped things into shape, with the quickness!

At any rate, I did the cover of the May 18th issue, which was for an article, The Job Machine, about an organization, Global Cleveland, that is working to bring a specific type of immigrant, H-1Bs, to Cleveland to fill jobs, and what that might mean for the region. I used the local iconic image of one of the Guardians of Traffic statues that hold sway over the Hope Memorial Bridge (Lorain/Carnegie). I think it came out pretty awesome, even in print it looked better than I expected.

In addition to that, I did the cover for an article about Ohio selling off the prisons to private corrections firms, and the impact that will have on the system, all the lives completely wrapped up in that, and the communities that have to co-exist with it.

Years ago, I did the art for a series of columns in the Cleveland Free Times written by a man who was actually IN prison at the time, called simply "The Joint". I posted a lot of them on this blog, but apparently only labeled some of them, HERE. After reading the draft of the article, Shake Up in Lockdown, I went back and looked at all the art from The Joint, which I hadn't looked at in years. I felt a strange level of pride for all that work as the memories flooded the vines of my mind grapes. There's a distinct illustrative growth that I think is apparent over the arc of the series.



These are the roughs I jammed out and sent Aaron, and the editor, Erich, to light the fuse on this piece. I knew it needed to be claustrophobic and have a great many number of people in it. One of the worst problems in the corrections system is over crowding, and the pressures that puts on the inmates and the C.O.s was something I thought would be visually compelling.



They chose the fourth option, and I just ran with it. I love drawing crowds of people and trying to make them all look like unique individuals with stories of their own. Essentially, I'd like you to be feel able to point out any single dude in that shot, and feel like you could read their story and it would be interesting, at the very least, and a compelling tale about a dude, at the very best.



I've been to prisons, I've never been IN prison, but I've been to them. I've even been to the prison they talk about in the article, in Grafton. I've visited, and spent a lot of time paying attention to the convicts, inmates, the Corrections Officers, the other visitors, who's there and the way everything is set up. I didn't use any hard number statistics as a basis for the crowd on this cover. I based this drawing on what I have seen, with my own eyeballs, in my own head, right in front of my brain. Prisons are pretty dehumanizing, and it's easy for people involved to get wrapped up in the systematic details, and what those statistics mean. To loose sight of the vast number of actual lives involved. It's also very easy for people who don't have the first hand experiences of being there and seeing it in person to not think about it, or even give a shit about what's happening. It's easy to glance at an article or catch some seconds long news bite about the system and think "hey- that's fucked up, thank god it ain't my problem. It's all those people that are statistics' problem." When I got assigned this cover, in some small way, I felt like this was an opportunity to silently state "LOOK- this is what we're talking about. THIS is what we're dealing with." I don't know if it worked or not.



Here's the final colors. I think it came out good. I think I saved a palette of swatches in Photoshop just to use for the clothes and skin tones. I knew I wanted it to be pretty colorful, but also limited. Lately I've been using this Color Scheme Designer website to cheat. It's pretty helpful, but I often then go way off into the wilds after setting up the palette.



Here's the final with the text designed by Aaron, which looks awesome. I always do all my text by hand, and I love the way that looks, but goddamn does it look great when another designer spikes it over the net straight into the opposition's faces (yes- a volleyball reference! Who knew?).



Also in the mix over at Scene, I drew this background are for the featured Happy Hour of the week, which runs in the center of the magazine every week. The art stays the same, but the Happy Hours change every week. I drew this pretty big, brush and ink on Bristol Board... 14" x 17", I think.



Here's the colors. This one I knew I could get pretty bright and vibrant. It's always a blast coloring a city scene. It's easily one of my favorite things to draw. There's definitely an opportunity to make buildings and other urban structures just as expressive and characteristic as ...characters. It's architecture and also part of bigger scheme, I think cities lend themselves to articulating something that maybe can't be said otherwise. I have to think about this way more before I keep on typing.



Aaaaanyway, here's a shitty cellular telephone camera picture of the spread in the magazine. I like it. It works.

Next up: MELT megapost.

Dr. Feelgood, Fetko- Get Better!

Today (and yesterday), MELT bar & grilled is offering a special benefit sandwich called The Dr. Feelgood Melt, which is a Masaman Curry Chicken sandwich, with chicken roasted then bathed in a sweet and spicy curry, spicy chana del puree (chickpea lentil), mango and golden raisin chutney, and of course... pepper-jack cheese. Vegan and vegetarian options are available, if you don't dig on poultry. 25% of the loot made from these awesome sandwiches goes to Chris Fetko, a Melt employee that had a fierce bicycle accident back in June.



I don't really know Fetko, but I'm pretty stoked to have done this poster and to have been part of this benefit sandwich. The Melt Family is a pretty tight crew, and it's a Family I'm very proud to be a part of (even if, in all honesty, I'm probably more of a "crazy cousin" or "scary uncle" type member of the Melt Family). At any rate, the word was Fetko is a huge Mötley Crüe fan, so the sandwich was names The Dr. Feelgood. That record has one of the very best of all the shitty hair band record covers of that era, so I knew I wanted to include that as part of the art. It's so iconic and memorable, even if you can't stand those catchy but banal jams. I actually had a ball drawing this homage to "The Crüe", switching the snake to a chicken, and adding the Melt logo to the dagger.

Here it is, color, bigger jpg:


Here's the OG Dr. Feelgood:



Fetko's homie, and Melt coworker Jim Allison got to do a little Art Direction here, where I needed to know details about the injured man. I drew this sandwich featuring a depiction of the successful face-plant. These nerds play D&D, so note the percentile D10s- rolling to see how many hit points he lost.



Here's the full color, larger jpg. I hope it meets with approval and is somewhat accurate. I do like being able to include real people into the posters and stuff I do at Melt. It's fun, and the people I use are always super stoked. I usually turn them into robots or animals though. So, there's that.



Here's the scan of the text, which I actually really liked doing. Overall this may have been the most fun poster I've done in a while. Not that the other posters aren't fun, but all the little individual details about this one added up to being a good time. I did have goddamn Dr. Feelgood stuck in my head for a week, though. That was bad.



I wish I had had the chance to post this sooner. I do have a giant backlog of Melt stuff to post. I'll get that up here as soon as I can! Stay tuned!

East Side Victory: Year One

I as going to wait until May 21st to post this, but I feel like jumping the gun a little and get it up online today. The East Side Melt bad and grilled opened a year ago, this month. To celebrate, I drew this poster featuring the return of the Dog Soldier from the East Side Invasion poster.



Going propaganda can be tricky for a couple reasons. Firstly, while the source material was stronger than a Yeti, aping that style is the most cliché, overused, go-to for lazy designers, and can so easily fall face first into the deep end of the snooze-pool. Seriously, it's an epidemic of weaksauce out there, ripping off the propaganda poster style, especially of the Soviet kind. That's the other main reason to steer away from the aesthetic, it's so blatantly political, and not just in a good way. I avoided Soviet Propaganda, and specifically looked to the design leanings of the poster art from the WPA Program during the Depression and then World War II era in the United States. I know Melt still took some flak over these posters, being accused of warmongering and whatnot.



My initials sketch was super rugged rough, as I had an image in mind, but I wasn't really 100% on if it would work or not- just needed to get a better idea of what it would look like on paper. Some ideas are better than others- and even though by now I'm pretty good at gauging what works in my head, sometimes I'm still kinda way off. I think this one was good though. This is actually drawn really really small.



Second attempt was drawn a little bit bigger, with slightly more details, and quickly getting a better idea of where the text should go. Still really rough, but drawn about half the size of the final. After this I just blew this version up on my copier and then used a lightbox to redraw it on a piece of Bristol Board.



Here's the finished inks. I drew it mostly with a brush, then went it with pens to add the details and the cross hatching, then splattering the thing with ink using an old toothbrush and my fingers. I used to be really into flags, for a while. I feel like I used to incorporate them into my fliers and posters a lot more. Right now, hanging off the front of my house is the flag of Commodore Perry, most famously flown from the Lawrence and Niagra during the Battle of Lake Erie.



Here's the final again. I was just at the East Side Melt again last night, and had a blast. It's such a great spot to hang. We even got to slam that Banana Split Bread Pudding, which: DUDE... astronomical.



These posters are only available at the East Side Melt, but you can also order an archival print at the Shiner Comics Big Cartel Store, as well as archival prints of any of my posters, various original drawings, and my other zines and stuff.

PRIME TIME: Winner and Still Champion!

Melt bar and grilled's special for May is the Return to The Ring of the Flavorful Fan Favorite, the Bout Ya Can't Live Without, the Beef That's Got Beef, The Prime Time Prime Rib Melt.
The Prime Time Rib Melt!
Tender prime rib slow roasted with a cracked black peppercorn spice crust.
Sliced thin and stacked with cheesy roasted garlic mashed red skin potatoes and provolone cheese.
Zippy horseradish sauce and a deliciously rich au jus for dipping.
Vegetarian and vegan options!

With this poster, last year I kicked it off with a boxing fight style poster, juxtaposing a Bull versus a Rooster dressed as a Matador. This year, I decided to pay the ol' homage to one of the most famous boxing photos of all time. From when Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston in the first round of their rematch (it's kind of a deceptive photo actually, watch this).



So this month, instead of a diptych I did a black and white version, as a further homage to the piece.



Here's the line art, brush and ink drawing on 11" x 17" Bristol Board:



Here's the finished colors of the piece:



I did a couple other posters and some other art for Melt this month, so look for blog postings about them later this week. I know I don't post nearly enough, or take the time to type up nearly as much about these projects as I wish I could, but there are things to be drawn and things to be printed.