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!

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.

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.

The Weekly Projects From Shirt.Woot

Shirt.Woot.Com offers the derby every week. The Derby is a great chance for up and coming illustrators to get their art out there. It also offers a great forum to get comments on your artwork and to better yourself and evolve as an artist.

What I really love about the weekly derby is the specifications that come with a project to do. This is great practice for someone trying to break into the world of illustration. An illustrator lives to do projects. It's helps narrow your inspiration and concentrate on an idea. The deadlines are tight if you want to get any hope for votes. This keeps me working hard in my office/studio on weekends doing something productive. I can't say enough good things about shirt.woot.com!

From now on I will be posting my weekly entries and their progress. It's something to write about and drop in my portfolio. And, I'm notorious for not writing in my blog that I care about so much.