Cloud Toys - Giving it Another Shot

Well, I'm sending "Cloud Toys" over to Qwerty.com to give it another shot at getting printed, after my rejection from Tilteed. I was quite sad to not see it print at Tilteed. I had a ton of comments, a lot of friend requests for this shirt, and I assumed I had good votes. I guess it just wasn't their cup of tea.

Qwerty Final Design Comp

Derby #202 - Anthropomorphic Food

Original pencil sketch (Digital)

I was in Myrtle Beach all week this past week. I took some time to doodle in this fantastic beach house I was staying in and came up with a concept for the Anthropomorphic Food derby for Woot. I haven't wooted in a while so I was enjoying finishing this piece. This one wasn't designed out of necessity to have a derby entry. Rather it was designed out of pure joy. It's this reason I'm really happy with it. Please review the sketch, finished piece and half-tone closeups that follow to get a peak into my design process that went into this 4 color piece. Oh, and of course, please swing by my link in the right hand panel and vote!

Also, in new news, APSketches finally has a facebook fan page! Click the facebook link to the left and become a fan of APSketches today! I will have contests and tee give aways as well as shameless self promotion. Every new fan counts towards my ego, so sign up today!

Commissioned Work - 1 of 3

In the wake of my Woot printing, I was contacted by a rapper from the west coast. He liked my work and wanted to know if I could do some illustration work for him. We settled on not 1 but 3 illustrations! Well, this post is all about the first of those 3 pieces.

Original Concept Presented to Client

This piece started as a simple enough concept. Upon hearing his lyrics, I heard him rap about things like "smoking blunts for breakfast." So in honor of his praise of marijuana, we decided to do an Alice in Wonderland themed design.

One of the unifying themes of the work I'm doing for the rapper, is the Asian themed dragon. It's part of his logo and symbolic.

This shirt is being DTG printed which is totally different from what I usually do. There are no limits on numbers of colors in DTG as it is full digital. This has allowed me to have some cool textures and lighting.

The following are a series of progress shots so you can see the design process that took place. More than 20 hours of work went into this piece.

Let’s Get Kraken

Well, as promised, my octopus shirt is officially on sale at Shirt.Woot.com! here is their bizarre writeup about it:

Shirt.Woot Design Comp

And so I said to Dorothy, “Well, what else would I do with my ink now that I’m at Harper’s?” 
But you get a tough skin in this city, so I pay it no real mind. Naturally, as an out-of-towner, my first instinct was to hide in some coral or maybe beneath a tea cozy made of shells. Harpo took me aside and explained how that would only make me a target. “Larger than life, my friend!” he said, “And then they can’t ever touch you!” He understood camouflage, that man. I suppose he had to, though. Did you know his real name was Adolph? Talk about needing a place to hide!Yes, she laughed at that too, she’s a darling girl. Not like that nasty Harold fellow. Did you know that last week he ordered a cuttlefish stew just as I walked in the room? Of course, as an octopus, I’ll eat basically anything, and he didn’t know that. You should have seen the look on his face when I sat down and asked Luigi for a spoon of my own. I though Donald was going to burst with laughter.

I have my critics, sure, we all do. Those sharks would tear me apart if I let them. But I’ve got a stranglehold on this town, and I’m not letting go. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere. And at least nobody mistakes me for a squid! Except maybe in the Village.

Design Detail

Wear this shirt: on your way to the rooftop garden, in the shade.

Don’t wear this shirt: around the Gorilla’s Union. They’ll be pretty upset.

This shirt tells the world: “First, we take Manhattan.”

We call this color: I Guess The Navy Would Have Jurisdiction But It’s Really Hard To Decide

This shirt will be available for sale for a minimum of 7 days on shirt.woot.com. It will be $10 for today only, and $15 after that. It will stay for sale on shirt.woot.com so long as the sales figures stay relevant. This is an exclusive contract I signed with Woot, so I can not sell this design elsewhere. So, if you want to rock this tee, time is running out!

Zombie Starbucks

Shirt.Woot! shocked and excited their artists this week by announcing this weeks derby theme to be zombies! Zombies have become a pop culture icon. I really wanted to make a statement this week instead of just drawing a generic zombie shirt, and I wanted to show off my skills for character design and gritty art.

Zombie Starbucks - Original Pencil Concept

The statement I wanted to make is an Anti-Starbucks stance. I'm a coffee guy, OK? As a Graphic Designer in a production setting, I inject coffee directly into my veins. For those of you who wonder, I prefer Tim Horton's coffee to all of the competitors. I think Starbucks has the worst tasting cup of coffee on the market. It tastes charred and bitter and requires far too much cream and sugar to make remotely drinkable. I'm making a statement here against the zombie culture of consumerism. I wanted to portray the morning zombie line of corporate folk lining up ready to fork over $4 for a cup of burnt tasting Joe.

Zombie Starbucks - Finished Inks

I really got to use the new Wacom Cintiq in this derby. From pencils to inks, everything was done entirely digitally. It amazes me how much these pieces really look like the medium they are supposed to represent. The versatility this equipment provides is unbelievable. Wacom should really start paying me to brag about their equipment, because I can't say enough good things about  their products.

This style is really typical to my kind of artwork. Yes, I try to do simplified cutesy designs to sell tee shirts, and you could call me a sell out, but I wanted everyone to know that this is really what I do and what I'm capable of. I'm very proud of the raw gritty sketchiness I brought to life in this piece. There was one problem however. I am a terrible colors. Fortunately, my friend Tony Odysseyroc Avina, who is a professional comic book colorist, offered to color this piece for me.

Zombie Starbucks - Tony Odysseroc Final Colors

What's most important to me is that this is my first collaborative piece I have ever done. I am very used to doing everything myself from start to   finish. There has been no bigger thrill for me than to see a true professional's take on my artwork. Currently, this piece is in 67th place in the derby, but that's with my crappy slapped together colors. Tony and I plan on shopping this design around and selling it to a website that appreciates what I'm trying to say, and our artwork. Let me know what you think of the APSketches, Odessyroc collaborative zombie coffee shop piece. 

CONTEST TIME!!!

Well folks, in an attempt to stir up some votes for my "Cloud Toys" tee design currently up for voting at Tilteed.com, I am holding my first ever contest! Here's the deal:

Design Detail

1. Go HERE and register if you need to.
2. Vote for my design.
3. Leave a comment.
4. IF THE TEE GET'S PRINTED I will randomly select 1 comment that was posted on the design during the voting period. This selection will be broadcast via video to ensure the choice is totally random. This person will receive a FREE copy of the Cloud Tee's shirt!!!

That's it! It's simple and FREE to do! So swing on by and vote for my tee, you may end up owning a free copy of it some day soon!

Design Composition

If this contest goes well, I will hold many more in the future, so this is just another reason to keep reading my sketchbook!

Breathing new life into a dusty piece.

I drew this piece about 5 years ago when I was working at the local mall in a kiosk doing wrist watch sales and repair. I was an assistant manager and worked in a pretty dead mall so I had a lot of time to doodle and I created this entire piece in a shift. I've decided to dust it off and breath new life into it.

I've always wanted to do like a Pulp style comic cover. I will be hand drawing and updating the text into something far more dynamic, moody and exciting. I will also be changing the pupil style of the giant eye and giving this piece more of an underwater feel. One thing I've always loved about this drawing is the way the pupil bends and contorts in the rounded surface of her bubble helmet. If you look to the right side of her head you will see that the dome shape of her helmet is creating like a magnifying glass effect on the iris behind it.

I picture this being a full front tee shirt with BIG impact. A sci-fi/horror themed non-existent comic book cover with a 1960's flare to it. If you read my blog you also know that I LOVE larger than life monsters.

"Pulp" by Aaron Hogg

One of my inspirations for this piece is the tee shirt by Aaron Hogg titled "Pulp." I think his bold use of color, text and line work combined with his 1950's / 60's flare is fantastic and flawlessly done. Plus he's using a martian octopus and we all know how crazy I am for octopai (see avatar for my tattoo.) Aaron did a great job and I plan on purchasing his tee to rock along with my take on pulp comics hopefully one day.

I'm usually afraid to show people where I'm getting my inspiration from because I HATE being accused of stealing ideas. I am not stealing an idea here though, but being inspired. I drew my piece 5 years ago and have always been inspired by pulp comics ever since I was a kid watching Tales from the Crypt and reading their comics. Should Aaron read this blog I would hope he would be encouraging and flattered at how much I love his piece.

I will post updates as I get them. I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to attack this piece. I am buying a Wacom Cintiq 12WX next weekend and may wait till I have this advanced piece of equipment to really dive into this piece as the tablet should make this much easier to accomplish and I suspect will boost the quality of my work exponentially. If you have any other references you think I should see or any advice or comments on this idea please let me know! Thanks for reading and as always, thanks for your 2 cents.

Derby #191 - Robots Save the World

I had a bit of a different take on this derby. At first, I wanted to do a heroic robot defending us all from hordes of aliens and UFOs. After much agonizing and doodling over this idea, I decided this was the obvious and wrong path for me. On Wednesday, I had a spark of inspiration.

My original concept of the word "save" was a religious meaning. We all hate sitting in our home only to hear the doorbell ring, and when we get the door there are 2 young men in white button downs with black ties, black pants and the book of Jehova. "Have you heard the good news?" they ask you. No, you didn't win the lottery. Unfortunately the good news is that Jesus loves you. If you know me, you know I don't really care. For those of you that do wonder what I am, I was raised Catholic, but denounced my religion when I was 16. I have since declared myself godless, which isn't exactly true. I identify with the Unitarian Church because they believe in the search for the truth, and deny the magical ridiculous elements of the Bible. In any case, this was my first take on this derby, but after some discussion among friends, it was decided that this concept may be considered offensive and would get rejected. I am very opinionated about religion, but to make a statement like this would make me guilty of shoving my views in a religious person's face, which would make me a hipocrite because it's exactly what I'm irritated at them for.

So after some great suggestions from friends I came to this final conclusion. Another door-to-door solicitation I've gotten in the past are from dirty hippies in disguise asking for me to donate to a particularly popular cause. Stop global warming buy purchasing carbon offsets! Feed the homeless, help the pandas, or feed the homeless pandas! I have to bite my lip not to argue with these people when they ring the bell. Not only did they interrupt my drawing or my TV show, but they are preaching that the world needs saving, but with my monthly donation of $12, the world will be saved! You see people, I could save the world, but I choose not to.

In any case, my shirt is up for vote right now on Shirt.Woot.com so please, if you're reading this, click the link to the right of your screen and drop me a vote! I don't see this going anywhere on Woot! but I think I know a few guys who run a few sites that might be interested in printing this design with a little tweaking.

Thanks for reading! I am waiting for some money I should be getting this week to run out and buy the Wacom Cintiq tablet, which should make me far more productive on here. I am hoping that once I have this nifty gadget, you can expect an explosion of art from me and a lot more updating of the blog.

I've Been Busy

I’ve been pretty busy. With things other than art that is. I have been meaning to update this blog. Before we get to business though, an announcement.

I’ve received confirmation from the art department at Woot! that my shirt featuring a gigantic orange octopus attacking the Empire State Building titled “It Would Be Epic If…” has been accepted and will print as a daily tee sometime in the next 6 weeks! This is huge for me as it’s my first major printing. To date this is my favorite tee design. I think it’s very wearable and really done in my true style. I love monsters and things attacking cities so this one was right up my alley. Though the down payment for the design is a large one, let’s hope is sells well as the royalties I could stand to make on a hit selling shirt are huge! I have already decided that if an extra 500 shirts are sold after day one, I am taking the royalty money I will receive and buying a Wacom Cintique tablet. I have signed an exclusive contract with Woot! and am just waiting for a confirmation on the date and my tax forms etc. I will update my readers with more information as to the sale when I have it.

This is my latest project that I’ve been working on. If you’re a reader of my blog, you’ve already seen the pencil drawings. This is the ink work. There are some things I still need to fix, but I’m not exactly disappointed with the way things are going so far. I will say that I think something’s missing. Throughout the process of inking this piece, I stopped and restarted from the beginning 2 or 3 times. I wasn’t happy with the quality of the lines being created and it felt rushed to me. To remedy the situation, I brushed up on my Illustrator skills and created a whole new range of ink brushes. I’m still not entirely happy with drawing completely on a computer via the tablet though. I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun that my girlfriend, Natalie, bought me for Valentine’s Day last year. Before that, I used a 12” Wacom Intuos II. I still had trouble then. I really think the quality of my artwork will increase exponentially if I upgrade to a Wacom Cintique. To be able to draw on an LCD screen and see what I’m creating in real time would be amazing. 

 This is a progress shot of the color work I'm doing so far. Once again, I'm just not happy with the way things are going. I am not convinced the colors are correct. I have this vision of a wild drab blue sea sort of reincorporating it's self with the navy blue of the tee shirt. I picture stormy skies of half tone dots, a glowing lamp on the crows nest, maybe even a bolt of lightning crashing. I guess I will keep doing what I'm doing as I can always, and usually do, change the colors individually after all is said and done. I need to keep this design restricted to 6 colors to be marketable. I'm hoping everyone gets the inside joke and has a little chuckle when checking out this shirt.

Well, that's my update. I've got 4 or 5 other designs in the idea phase. I have one giving a satirical nod in the direction of the great I Can Has Cheeseburger website. I've got a few others but as for right now, the I Can Has Cheeseburger design is standing out as the next one I'll be working on. I'm just starting to get concerned that I will be typecast as the giant animals attacking things guy. That should be a hint as to the I Can Has Cheeseburger idea. As always, thanks for reading, and please, by all means leave me a comment and let me know what you think about the progress of my Deadliest Catch design. I feel like I need all the critiques and help I can get on this one.

Be Kind, Rewind

It's time for another derby, the first derby I've participated in since coming in 4th in the maze derby 5 or 6 weeks ago. The theme is Retro Audio. I decided immediately that I wanted to do something about tape cassettes. I love them, I think their design aesthetic is really cool. Any way, here is my concept:

 

And below is the final product:

 

The title of the piece is "Be Kind, Rewind." I will submit it tomorrow. I don't think it's exactly a winning piece, but it's the best I can do in such short notice with homework to do tonight also. This may be one of those pieces I hang onto and tweak for sale elsewhere.

I'll have the vote tag up tomorrow once I have a vote URL and the shameless promotion will begin. Another week of Woot! pandemonium!

"The Deadliest Catch" A New Design Project

As promised, I have a new pencil drawing to post today from my work in the studio yesterday. I'm working on a tongue-in-cheek shirt about that crab fishing show "The Deadliest Catch." Here's what I got so far:

I am hoping to finish this piece this week. Tonight I'm going to start inking this piece and trying to tighten up the details. In the next few days after that I'm going to figure out colors and finish the piece for submission. I'm going to use 6 colors on this one, and if my first choice tee company doesn't want it, I got another one that will also print in 6 colors. If they don't want it, there's a company that will possibly take it in 4 colors. And if they don't want it, I will make it available in my Redbubble store and for sale on this site.
I'll post updates as I have them.

FOR SALE!

The "Cloud Toys" shirt is for sale now at Redbubble.com! Swing on by and pick 1 up!

We Have A Sale!

Well I have the confirmation on the tee shirt printing I got announced a week or so ago. Here are the particulars:

This shirt is a previous Woot! entry... my first Woot! entry. Ript Apparel will be selling it for 24 hours and 24 hours only! Here are the details:

WHEN: Friday, February 4th

WHERE: www.riptapparel.com

WHAT: Tee's, Hoodies and Kid's Sizes

HOW MUCH: $10 Tee's, $38 Hoodies and various prices on childrens sizes

WHO WOULD WEAR THIS: People who love my work, pirates and octopai!

The marketing begins now! It will be brutal and furious but we are hoping for lots of sales! I want to spot someone on the street in my tee! So stick around for more updates. This is my first printing so I am very excited.

It Would Be Epic If...

Well, the hard work is over! My octopus tee-design is done!!! I have submitted this guy to the staff over at Woot! with hope that it will run as one of their daily tee's. I thank those of you who have been with this one since day 1 following me from sketch to finished product. And if you haven't, then please read back in my previous several blog posts to see get a glimpse at my design process. Maybe you'll get a clue as to what makes me tick since I sure as hell don't know what does.

This shirt has been a special project of mine. This was an idea for an illustration I had a few years ago. I did like a 6x9 ink and water color sketch and filed it away forever. I never knew I would be resurrecting it in this forum. I'm so much happier with this final design.

This design is also different for me in the sense that I'm not submitting it as a derby entry. Instead I'm sending it to the staff at Woot! directly in hopes that they'll love it and run with it. The pay would be greatly appreciated as well as any royalties if this design would sell. I know I would rock a shirt depicting a giant octopus terrorizing the Empire State Building... wouldn't you?

I'd like to thank Natalie for bearing with me as this design ate away of my time and attention, and for convincing me to change the color scheme last minute. She is my best critic when I get tunnel vision.

Here's the tee comp I submitted to Woot! This is really my "pitch" for them. Let me know what you think! As always, comments and shout-out's are welcome.

Derby #181: Mazes and Labyrinths

Throughout human history, fear at the prospect of getting lost has been pretty influential in culture: the Minotaur, wandering the desert aimlessly, and of course, The Shining. This week we want to see your designs inspired by mazes and labyrinths. Maybe it's a layout of your inescapable byzantine basement, or a send-up of famous maze-inhabiting monsters or villains. Maybe it's just a pathetic cry for help to stop feeling so lost in life. You decide.

No text.

No bunnies.

No Star Wars.

No axe murderers. A totally random rule from a totally random Woot staffer totally randomly-named Travis.

Perhaps I shouldn't be releasing my derby entry 14 hours before the derby starts, but I just finished it and I'm damn happy with it! Sure, it's simple... but sometimes simplicity is a good thing. I did terribly in the last derby and I was drawing blanks on this one but this is my idea:

And some close-ups for detail:

Follow this link to vote




Wish me luck on this one because the last derby really kicked my ass.

Cloud Toys: Threadless Submission

My cloud design has been tweaked thanks to some great advice from fellow artists at Threadless.com. It has been submitted, approved and is up for a 7 day vote on Threadless!

Time to market this design! I need your votes my dear readers. So please, visit the link below, or click the link on the right hand panel. Register with Threadless, if you haven't already, and give me a 5$$! In the mean time, my fingers are crossed.

"Not So Cleverly Disguised"

In a moment of artist's block I came up with these guys.

Clearly the monster R&D department needs to get back to the drawing board when it comes to blending in among the humans.

In any case, I just submitted this to the staff at Teefury.com so keep your fingers crossed that they will be interested in printing.