I was going through some old sketch books and discovered this. At the time, my son and I thought it would be absolutely hilarious if our dog had wheels instead of legs. I guess you had to be there. I showed it to him today, we still had a laugh.
I watched the movie 'Soylent Green' last Sunday night on Amazon. When I was a kid, I thought it was the coolest movie ever. This movie ranked up there with 'Westworld', 'Logan's Run', 'Omega Man', 'Planet of the Apes' and 'Silent Running' as my favorites of the pre-Star Wars era.
I especially loved the detailed illustration on the movie posters - riot police with trucks scooping up people and putting them in the back of trucks to be carted off to who knows where.
Soylent Green was filmed in 1973 and set in the year 2022. There are 40 million people in New York. The greenhouse effect' makes it hot all year round and the only food is rations of processed colored soy crackers. A new flavor 'Soylent Green' is introduced, made of a new 'high energy plankton' - but it's in short supply and riots are frequent. While investigating a series of mysterious murders, the main character 'Thorn' (Charlton Heston) stumbles upon the Soylent Green's main ingredient.
(Spoiler Alert: "It's People!")
Tools: Sharpie and Micron pens. Scanned and colored in Photoshop.
This morning I woke to the news that a meteorite struck the Earth, injuring over 1000 people.
This drawing has nothing to do with that event, but it's a phrase I've been trying to find a use for since I was a kid.
So, there you go.
Happy Friday. Don't let any space junk hit you in the head tonight.
This is for all the lonely hearts out there on Valentine's Day: Give up, you'll be forever alone.
I actually did this one a while back while experimenting with the Procreate app on the iPad. I also had just picked up the More/Real stylus cap. I like this stylus cap because it slides over the end of a regular sharpie, giving it a more natural 'pen' feel and weight. It's also got a firm tip, which is more natural than drawing with a mushy tipped stylus.
Tools:Procreate App on the iPad 2 using a More/Real stylus cap.
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.” ~ Pope John Paul II
Tools: Copic Multiliner SP BS, Brush Tip, Strathmore Tracing Paper. Scanned then outlined in Illustrator. Composition in Photoshop.
“Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” - from Michael Pollan's Seven Words and Seven Rules for Eating.
The posting of this drawing is not a coincidence, as I've decided to spend this month re-examining how I eat. And what better month than the awful, cold and gloomy February to do it. I eat pretty well (for the most part) and exercise but the holidays are a great excuse to slack off. I don't want to turn around in May and see that my shorts are a lil' snug. It's not a nice look.
Eating properly isn't that hard, it just takes a little more planning and a lot of discipline. I'm keeping a food diary to keep tabs on what I eat for the next month, cutting back on beer (sad face) and cutting out the junk. Wish me luck!
The seven rules according to Pollan are as follows:
Illustration details: Hand-lettered, scanned and recolored in Photoshop. Watercolor paper background. There was minimal cleanup in Photoshop to keep the loose, hand lettered feel.
Some people are just full of shit.
Tools:Pilot Precise V7 Stick Roller Ball Pen, 0.7 mm Fine Point. Colorized in Photoshop.
I'd heard this phrase a while back and jotted it down in my sketchbook. I then discovered it's also the title of a popular self-help book.
It's a handy phrase for when you're too scared or think you don't have the balls to do something. It's also another way to tell yourself to get off your ass and just do it.
Unless your decision involves death (yours or someone else's), dismemberment or whether or not you should get that cool neck tattoo – just go for it.
Tools: Headline Type: Pilot Super Color Jumbo Marker (which was a gift from the super-talented Philly artist, Sean Martorana, who inspired me to get off my ass and start doing more art-related projects). Subhead type: Sharpie on Bristol Board with Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.4mm touch-up Background: Stock photo
'Think Outside the Box' – those very words used to send me into a blind rage. An old boss used to use this term all the time, thinking that the very phrase would inspire creativity and magic inside me.
He also used ambiguous phrases like "make it crisper", like I was cooking french fries instead of designing a logo.
Good times, good times.
Tools:COPIC Multiliner Brush Pen on bond paper, scanned then Image Traced (Sketched Art) in Illustrator CS6. Traced art dropped into Photoshop for final composition.
Alternate version:
Sometimes you stray from your path, fall off the horse, lose yourself in the forest or (insert whatever euphemism you choose).
Take a deep breath, get yourself present and remember: There is only now.
Worrying about the past is a waste of time; only a fool trips on what is behind him.
Worrying about the future? Instead of letting your mind conjure up all the awful things that could be – face your fears head on and take action. Why worry about what could go wrong - think about all the things that could go right.
Don't worry.
It's going to be OK.
Prints and more available at Society 6. Support starving artists!
Not so much a 'resolution' for me personally, more like 'advice' to all the Cubicle Farmers and Corporate Stooges who want to break free. Trust me, once you do, you'll never look back. Daily drawing #6. Hand lettering scanned and traced in Illustrator.
Support starving artists! Prints and more available at Society6.
A quick time lapse of some lettering to welcome the New Year. Let's hope this year starts out better than this one ended. We've both been down with the flu (more or less) since the middle of the month. We survived the holiday, but this evil germ has out stayed its welcome.
The quality isn't the best. I'm still working out a better setup for taping, plus the usual battle with iMovie for editing eats up a lot of time.
I had the opportunity to work with the folks at Philly Founded in December 2012 to help get their efforts off the ground with a logo and landing page design.Look for more news about Philly Founded in early 2013 or sign up for updates at PhillyFounded.com.
Today's drawing is some hand-lettering featuring a caricature of Walter White from Breaking Bad.
2 weeks ago I was hit with the flu, which had me pretty much out of commission. So, while I was flat on my back, I spent some time with Walter White and Jessie Pinkman with a Breaking Bad episode marathon on Netflix.
When this show premiered in 2008, I didn't take to it right away. The main reason was that I started watching at Season 1 / Episode 4. If fans recall, Episode 4 ("Cancer Man") was where Walter reveals that he has cancer. At that time in my life, I was also going my own'cancer episode', so I wasn't real keen on watching a show about it, as my own reality was hard enough to take.
Looking back, I really wish I'd watched the first three episodes, because it's definitley up there with some of my favorite television right now (along with 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men').
Here's a time-lapse video I did of a 5-minute lettering practice. There was no tracing, no sketching, no guideline, just a blank piece of paper and a pen.
Pen:Sakura Pigma Sensei (0.4mm) Paper:Canson XL Recycled Bristol Board
Hand-lettering on 9"x12" Bristol board. Scanned and colored. Minimal cleanup in Photoshop.
An illustration created with the 'Paper' app on iPad. I used the Fountain Pen brush for the main strokes, then used the Magic marker and Pencil brushes for some detail work. I used a More/Real Sharpie stylus cap, which gives a more natural drawing feel.
The Five Basic Tools of 'Paper'
I fell in love with the 'Paper' app when it was first released. It's a very stripped down, simple app. You have a simple set of 5 tools and a basic, muted color palette. That's it. The tools are in a handy 'drawer' that slides down, out of your way, to let you get down to business. You can organize your drawing in 'notebooks' that mimic Moleskine journals. You can add/delete pages and move them from one journal to the other. The best part (for me) is the ability to share drawings via email, Tumblr or Twitter, or just save to Camera Roll.
'Paper' is great for loose illustrations and diagrams. It has no layers, filters, import or color correction and you can't change the color palette. But that's kind of the point - keep the tools out of the way and get your ideas on paper. If you're looking for something more robust for the iPad, I'd suggest Procreate.
stop-daddy-is-working
The amazing crew at United Pixelworkers keep churning out fantastic t-shirt designs. I love just about everything they put out (and have the shirt collection to prove it), but the set they just released really hit a note with me. The new set is called Daddy's Working/Mommy's Working, a tribute to the work from home moms n' dads just trying to get some shit done.
Back in '99 when I went out on my own I had a lil' 2 year old bouncing around the house. I was very fortunate to have family to take care of the little guy, but not every single day. On those days I was home with him, let's just say the only real work that got done was early in the morning, during naptime or late at night. Obviously, it got easier as he got older, but not for what felt like a very long time. Then he started preschool, kindergarden, elementary school and only then did I have what felt like a normal schedule.
I gave up a lot to be the stay at home dad, but I wouldn't trade one second of it for a regular j-o-b or even a full-time babysitter. Yes, there were many trying moments, but I was blessed with a pretty mellow kid (OhDearLordJeebusThankyouThankyouThankyou). We had some fun times together, but of course he has no recollection of it (good thing I took pictures to prove it).
Seeing this shirt just brought it all back for me. Moms and Dads can go score one of these sweet tees at United Pixelworkers. Shirt designed by Paul Armstrong, who seems like a pretty cool dad himself.
Thinking about travel destinations. A quick sketch done in my Moleskine 5.25" x 8.25" unlined sketch book. Inked with Staedtler 01 and 07 pigment inks.
Hand-lettered on vellum paper, scanned then redrawn in Illustrator. Shadows and background texture created in Photoshop.
