Steeeeeeeeeeeeezz Skateboards

Back in September, Joe from Steez Magazine, e-mailed me about possibly doing a skateboard graphic for a run they wanted to do for the holidays. Since I've been skateboarding for about 13 years, this was a huge deal to me. I guess if you don't go pro and get a board with your name on it, the next best thing is to have a graphic of yours on a deck, or you can try to be like Mark Gonzales and have both, but good luck on that one. Joe was pretty open to whatever I wanted to do as long as it could have some kind of crazy face, or person on it. 

I mostly just thought of stuff that looked funny to me or would be funny to someone else. A fat guy giggling and acting very giddy was one of my first thoughts. That giggle Homer Simpson has is comedy gold and that may have been subconscious inspiration from my years of watching him.

Old ladies doing anything that's out of character is something I like to see. I love seeing little old ladies smoking, drinking and swearing more than a 16 year old. I could die a happy man if some old lady threw me the horns or the "gnarly" hand signal surfers and skateboarders get associated with.

Joe got a kick out of the giggling fat guy (I'll just have to save the gnarly old lady for some other opportunity). We played around with the idea of him reaching for the Steez logo, or maybe reaching for some other person on the nose of the board. Joe then recommended a beer can, and we decided that we could have him spraying some beer, and place the Steez logo in the middle of some foamy goodness on the nose of the board. You can tell we were reaching for a very sophisticated concept on this project

The stuff nightmares are made of.

I drew the head, hands, and spray separately so that we could play around with places for them to be on the board. Doing a skateboard graphic for the first time is tricky because when you first try to fit something on the entire length of the board, you never really think about what an awkward dimension it is to work with.

These were the color ways we played with. While I liked most of them, we had to decide on two that we liked the most. Joe and I both agreed that the lime green and navy color way had the best contrast. I wish we could have done all of them but oh, well.

We decided on the lime green/navy one and that we would do wood grain for the negative space. We also decided to just do a blue and white one for those more simple folk out there that don't dig all that fancy shmancy jazz. Unfortunately, I found out a few weeks ago that there had been some confusion with the printing company and only the white and blue colorway had been completed. It was a bummer to hear, but on the upside, there has been talk of doing another run in the future, with a new graphic.

Just a day after Christmas I received some of the boards from my friend Andy, who works on the magazine and grew up in the same town I did. Even though there had been some minor hiccups with the project, it was still great to have some of the decks in my hands. Skateboarding and drawing are my two biggest passions and to be able to combine them is amazing. Hopefully I will be able to stay involved in both for as long as I live. A big thanks to Joe and Andy for doing this and choosing me to be the one to do their first ever run of skateboards.

p.s. I will post, at a later date, where these decks will be available and how to get your hands on one if you would like to do so.

More Randumbzzzzzz From Summer

Here are some sketches and little head studies of some recognizable and unrecognizable people and places.

Sean Hannity has an amazing, "I know you can't stand me, and I don't give a shit." look. It pisses me off just looking at him. It's probably the reason why he is so popular. Which makes me wonder, with caricature, why do we even draw these people we can't stand and maybe even get a little worked up from just seeing a picture of them? Even if it is to tarnish their image or poke fun at their mistakes, it still makes me wonder why we devote our time to them. It probably stems from some sick satisfaction of drawing humiliating pictures of people we didn't like in school.

This following guy is the cartoonist/caricaturist, from the late 1800's/early 1900's, Eugene Zimmerman. Originally from Switzerland, he later lived and worked in Elmira, NY, which is just about 15 miles away from where I grew up. You can still visit his house/studio since it's considered a historical landmark. Him and Mark Twain would occasionally see eachother wandering the streets of Elmira.

I was savagely assaulted by an army of ferocious mosquitos while drawing this house. But, in the end I'd say it was worth it, I walked away with a drawing, and some itchy spots on my arms and legs, and most of them never walked away, or flew, due to my cat-like reflexes.

Summer Sketchzzzzzzzzzzz

Summer has been sort of quiet, so I figured I'd share some random sketches. It's nice having friends that blow glass. It requires them to be quite focused and still for a while, so I basically have free models to draw whenever I want. Here are some from my friend's studio.

These next two are just a few from a bunch of pages where I just lay down random colors and then draw whatever comes to mind when it dries. I wouldn't say these are great images by any means but you never know when a random sketch can inspire you for something bigger later on.

Illustrating album covers? They still do that?

Here's a recent album cover illustration I had done. My friend Jeremy and some other friends put together an album and asked me to do thier cover. It's pretty cool knowing some people out there still seek traditional illustration for things like this, but who knows how relevant album covers will be in a few more years given the current decline of the music industry. Jeremy knew exactly what he wanted for the cover and it was a pretty quick deal from sketches to finish. Hopefully I can get an image of the final cover soon and post it here and find some link to thier music. All I can say at the moment is the band goes by The Forgotten, and it's not the punk band by the same name.

The sketch idea's were pretty repetitive, but it was more about dealing with the composition since the concept was pretty much taken care of right away.

The 80's, So Hot Right Now.

Immediately after I finished the first illustration for Joe, he shot me back an e-mail about doing another one for the same issue. The article he sent over was about the many different groups of characters that flock to the slopes, but it mainly dealt with "The Joey." Even after snowboarding for years, I had never even heard about this so it was a pretty entertaining little nugget of information. "The Joey" is pretty much the biggest goofball at the resort. The one who always gets in the way, wears the craziest outfits, and is altogether clueless when it comes to any sort of etiquette on the slopes. Joe had initially mentioned using a lot of dayglo colors and after reading that I couldn't help but envision acid wash jean jackets, tight jeans, and patterns that you might see on Saved By The Bell.

I felt like the first round of sketches were too heavy handed, in that they were sort of telling the viewer how to feel, or were giving away the reaction too much.

I was glad with what we settled on after looking at the sketches. I think it captured the idea of "The Joey" better than any of the others and honestly, was probably a lot more fun to do than any of the others would have been. A bonus perk to the whole shebang was that it ended up being a fun trip down memory lane.

Snowboarding in May

A childhood friend of mine helped start up a snowboarding/skiing magazine called Steez a few years ago, and he recently told me to e-mail their art director, Joe LoVasco, about doing some illustrations for them. A week after I initially contacted Joe, he shot an article my way for thier new issue about the SIA snow sports trade show in Vegas. After 37 years, the event has started to become too polluted with "glitz" and "glam," and is being moved to Denver to help get back to the roots. The magazine is usually black and white so it was great to read from Joe that they are now doing it in color, and to just do whatever I want.

These were the 3 quick ideas I had that I was sure would all be turned down. I still want to do the one of that infamous neon cowboy with the snowboard under his arm, just for kicks.

"The Bird Show"

This was a piece I did for a juried show in April. The entrants had to submit a piece that could be whatever came to mind when they thought about birds. I always wondered what it would be like if a bird tried to sneak one out in a birdbath. A pretty idle thought, but it's fun to imagine what it might be like. I ended up receiving first place, so I guess enough enjoyment came from the idea I had to share.

Sex Can Still Be Awkward

About a month ago I was invited to a dinner party for a few local artists where we would all hang out, have a few drinks, or more, and then enjoy dinner together. There was a little catch to the event; we all had to bring a piece with us, that dealt with the idea of sexual energy, for a critique after dinner. It kind of threw me for a bit since I had never done a piece dealing with that subject matter. I really thought about it for a while and eventually got something. The night was a fun time and everyone had an interesting take on the subject. A big thanks to Tom Buechner for having me there.

Another Old Dude

Ambrose E. Burnside was a General in the Union Army, which he relunctantly accepted, and suffered a crushing defeat at The Battle of Fredericksburg. After another failed attempt at fighting the Confederate Army he requested President Lincoln accept his resignation. He may not go down in history as the greatest General but he may have paved the way for a revolution in facial hair.

Ben

My friends and I love watching Drunk History on www.funnyordie.com and in case you're wondering what that is, I'll fill you in. The premise is pretty simple: people get ridiculously drunk and then tell stories from American history. The stories are usually pretty hilarious due to how drunk the person telling the story is and also the absurdity of the story. There's a couple episodes on Benjamin Franklin, who is played by Jack Black. I decided to draw Ben for my friend because he always toasts Ben Franklin, which is in reference to one of the stories, and I wanted him to have some kind of picture on his wall to toast. I am starting to attempt to incorporate type into my drawings but I think it'll be some time until I'm happy with it.

Return of The Scraps

Woody Allen

After some other bigger illustrations I had more scrap paper laying around again, so I've just decided that all scrap paper from now on will be used for these little head studies. I like doing them and it's fun to sort of experiment here and there with them and see how it affects my other work. Who knows how long it'll continue but it'd be cool to have a gigantic stack of them years from now, and plus it's a good way to use the extra paper instead of throwing it out.

Rudyard Kipling

Introducing, Matty P

This is my friend Matt. Months ago he asked me to do a drawing of him and at first it was going to be a simple sketch but I turned it into this mess of a picture. I wanted to incorporate a lot of things/events from his life into it, so all the little bits and pieces in this picture have been his job locations, skateboard poses, traveled roads, childhood stomping grounds, and actual clothes. He's a character for sure.

2000 and Shine

Well, 2009 is kicking off on a good note. I just found out this guy was accepted into the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles 47 show and catalog. I had done this piece as part of a final project series for a class last Spring.