Spinal Tap…

With the new year under way, there are some great projects coming my way. This was a commission, for the clients husband who is finishing up chiropractor school. This was an extremely fun piece because I was given complete freedom to make it funky and make it colorful. At first I was just thinking to have the spine alone by itself, but there was still a lot of canvas to work with. That’s when I thought to add some vertebrae, and directional arrows. When it was time to paint I wasn’t really sure how it was going to turn out. I don’t usually paint this large and at first it seemed really overwhelming. After about and hour, of just throwing paint every which way, and getting some cool dripping affects going on, there was a little more direction. The hardest part about doing a painting like this, for me, is knowing when to stop painting. I stopped. Before it was too late.

Jordan 11 gif rotation…

I haven’t made a sneaker gif in a few months and well with the Jordan 11 re-release I couldn’t resist. In my opinion these are the best looking Jordan’s ever released, and my best gif animation to date!

City Boarding…

A friend of mines came to me about a month ago with a plain skate deck, and asked me to paint a NYC theme on the board. How could I say no? I was never into landscape painting, but city scape painting I have really begun to enjoy! I used pen and acrylics and then sprayed it with a clear enamel coat to give it a nice glossy protective finish. If you bring me a plain skate deck I will customize it to your hearts desire!

Blue Board…

Here is the finished board, a little over due but completed non-theless.

The Swagger Gifs Continue…

I am still having a of fun making these simple gif animations. I have been trying lots of little tricks and it almost seems endless, you just have to imagine it. I still have to learn how to integrate Adobe After Effects into the mix! I’ve seen some really, really cool little gifs made using both Photoshop and After Effects. I have been posting most of these gifs to my tumblr, but lately I have been having some issues uploading them. The bottom two – the purple sneakers and the camera – at that size I was able to post with no problem. The top two sneaker gifs, are a little more subtle in animation, and when I first uploaded them they weren’t playing right, I wasn’t sure if it was because the file was too big. So I made them slightly smaller. One of them seemed to work, but the smaller I made them they still didn’t work when uploaded? I didn’t want to make them any smaller, so I just decided to post them here.

This just in a sudden surprise just happened as I am writing this post; I pressed the preview button to see what this post will look like once I press the publish button. Usually the gifs are not working on the home page and I will leave something like this - “click the image to see the gif in action” –  so you could see the animation. So now you only have to “click on the camera to see it in action”. This still leaving me a little confused as to why the gifs I made work on some sites, at certain times, while others times they may work, but work different ways? I’m not sure, but this just makes it more fun, because now I have to go figure out this problem so I can continue to make more Swag!

Swagger Gif Box…

So I’ve been on a rampage with these gif animations! I mean they are really simple to make, there is more than enough material to choose from across the internet, and it’s a lot of fun! I am working on a small project making gif animations, and these are my warm ups sketches, before getting to the bigger picture. I would also take one of each! Click on the image to see the gif in action.

Another Sneaker Gif Box…

So on my Monday morning stroll through the world wide web, I found some more goods to make some simple gif animations before I get to some real work. I have been using Photoshop CS5 to make the animations. Click the image to see it in action

New Gif Box…

 The reason I have been making these sneaker gif animations lately is because I was approached recently to make some simple Tai Chi gif animations for some one who is creating a falls prevention website for senior citizens. So, like all the sketches I do before I get to the final drawing, these are my morning sketches before I get working on my main project. Click the images to see the gif in action, but don’t stare too long though…

The Gif Box…

Here are a few more gif animations I made today just for kicks. I’m working with images I found on the web, so I take no credit for the photographs, just the simple animation. Click the image(s) to see the gif in action. Download and enjoy.

Sneaker Gif Box…

So on my morning stroll through tumblr and some other fresh sites I frequent I decided to grab a bunch of images of some sneakers that I like. As I was posting some other images and about to post the sneakers, I realized that if I upload each one, tumblr just makes some boring slow slide show. I’ve been playing around again with Flash and Photoshop, and creating simple gif animations. Since the images are of the same sneaker with different color schemes, it was really easy to create the animation. Click on the image to see the gif in action.

The Sneaker Box…

Download and create your own color scheme…

Halo Snowboard, done…

Finally Finished! Did this one for my brother-in-law, and as you can see he is a huge Halo fan. All I can say is that this was a pain in the ass to paint. I had to gesso this multiple times, and still it would chip, hence a pain in the ass to paint. Hopefully he won’t use it on the slopes, Enjoy Frankie!

Hittin’ the Deck…

This is the first pass with acrylics, spent about two hours on it so far. I wanted to keep a very limited palette, so I only used five colors.

New Corner Studio…

Here is a snapshot(s) of my new studio in the city. Not much space, but it has everything I need with a bathroom behind door number one, too your right. I do all my work out of this tiny little room, sometimes I don’t leave this room for days at a time, Thank  you bathroom!

Hands on Deck…

I know it has been a long while since I posted anything. No excuses, but here is the skateboard deck that went from green to this. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, at first I wanted to put this on the board, but when I drew it on the board it didn’t seem to work as well as the sketch. So I gessoed it over and began anew. This is the one I wanted to do first, but I wanted to try the other one out for the value of the picture, but it didn’t work out. This seemed to work out a lot better.

On DECK…

So I made it out to the skate shop and picked me up a plain deck. Can’t wait to start painting this thing, though I am not sure what I want to put on it yet… I  like so many of the designs I did, but feeling a bit indecisive, but excited to paint this thing. Either way, as I was talking with the guy behind the counter, he said something that made me realize that buying this board is no more expensive then buying a canvas. If you get a large size canvas it can range up to $30, depending on how large you want to go. Even if you stretch your own canvas, think about the materials and labor it takes to get it all stretched and gessoed and ready to be painted? So think about it, if you want a painting from me, say you want it on a skateboard? Go get one, have the guy at the shop put the grip tape on, nicely. Get at me and I will customize your board!!!

The More iCustomize…

                  

Some more sketches of some propaganda art and The JOker. If you’re looking form some custom art work for your skateboard (s)  contact  me!

iLookin’ too Customize…

So lately I have been doing a lot of work with the computer. I still draw and sketch, but I have been finishing the work with photoshop and/or illustrator as well as playing with flash. But with the weather getting nicer, I brought the skateboards I had painted and customized – with wheels and everything – out of storage and thought about how much fun it was too paint and put it all together and make this really cool looking board. Not like the ones you see at the mall. But, I don’t skateboard, so when I was at the mall one weekend I took the two boards that I had fully customized with me – I figured it wouldn’t take long before some kid would ask about the board – to just get them out there in the world. Plus it would make some kids day. I didn’t even make it to the food court before some kids noticed and without hesitation, to their surprise their day just got a lot better. They went home with some new boards and I didn’t even go to the food court. I made their days and they saved me the calories, and with that I want to customize some more skateboards!

iRetro…

I don’t know if I said this before, but this all started with my wife asking me to make a retro piece of her, like a Lichtenstein. You have seen the first version I did, which I thought she would have be happy with. No. She said to me “I like it, but, I don’t have blue eyes or blond hair.” Ok, so back to the photoshop drawing board. I still had a lot of fun with this one, I didn’t need to change the drawing, but she needed glasses, because my wife wears glasses. I made them with illustrator, and did the rest with photoshop. I am really beginning to love the mix of traditional media and digital media!

Can’t Make Up mY miNd…

Which way would YOU go?