So, you're a TRACER!...

Hey, I hate to admit using the light table here, but when Toyota comes and says they need their two big selling Scions depicted in exacting detail, you don't have much choice. The shapes must be there you know? Besides, anybody who works in this field knows that even though you might want to, sometimes you aint got 700 hours to map it all out with rulers and sun-dials like the great masters would have. So, break out the magic tracing machine, say a prayer to the art gods and get started. Anyway, it's still quite fun to make up all that good shiny stuff and turn real objects into an ink line. And in the end, Toyota is happy.

The close-ups...

See post below... Yes sir, that's the one and only Chris "Coop" Cooper at top left, and the incomparable Rat Fink himself, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth at the bottom right.

House Map!...

This was a time consuming one. When we did the House Industries 10 year book, our AD Andy Cruz wanted a double page spread of an illustrated map that essentially had caricatures of all the past and present "House" employees jammed onto it. It also served as a visual guide to some of the influences that each one of us has. For example, Andy is an avid fan of most things Polynesian, hence the House Tiki Type collection of years ago... so he ended up in Florida at the legendary Mai Kai sipping a fine drink. Different people that we've worked with are scattered around here too. This was done by illustrating all of the pieces onto bits of paper and such, ruffling the edges up for effect and then pasting them onto the US of A, also made of torn paper. Then that whole big mess was attached to a large painted board that stood in as the water. It's probably 5 feet wide. I know things are hard to see, I'll post some close ups in a few...

@#!&in' Slayer!...

Since it's now October and that creepy crawly candy filled holiday is on it's way, I thought I'd post a skull and crossbones. A good skull seems on first thought to be really easy, it took a some work to get this thing right. Not going for realism here, but sort of that cool skull you always drew on your crappy paper bag book covers in junior high school while listening to Slayer and Iron Maiden... come on, you know you all did it. ;)

Speedball...

These blogs are loaded with super talent, there are so many artists that showcase incredible character designs, I'm in awe of them... just check the links bar for proof... anyway, I realized that I don't have a single thing on this blog yet that shows anyone from head to toe. I imagine I'd better fix that so here's a caricature from a piece we did on Mr. Ed Benguiat. Ed is a living legend in the field of lettering and type, and a huge Yankees fan, hence the baseball/speedball lettering pen/ink theme. The guy's responsible for the original Planet of the Apes logo, the SuperFly logo and billions of great typefaces that we take for granted today. So, I know the arms/hands stink and his feet are loaves of bread, but deadlines wait for no-one and I promise I'll do better next time. I do like the quick inking style and I learned a lot from this piece which is all we can hope for sometimes.