Really Todd Akins? Really...

Maybe you follow the news maybe you do not, if you do then the name Todd Akins may haunt your ears a bit. This is a tribute piece to him, he did not say the words in my piece exactly, however, he did say;

"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down..."
~Todd Akins

THUS! PREVENTING PREGNANCY PEOPLE, I mean...why hasn't this been uncovered until just now? What's with all the pregnant rape victims? Anomalies I suppose. Why give rape victims the choice to abort a pregnancy under our legislation when the body does it NATURALLY!? Get it together sir. Such a touchy subject and you are blabbing your mouth about things you have no right discussing (a woman's right to her own decisions about her body). Anyway, I will spare you more political mumbo jumbo and skip to the typography.

HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

Worship Vinyl

I decided to do this piece because it seems that the deeper and deeper I get into the extreme music scene the more I tend to see vinyl records having a HUGE sales presence and being a common topic of conversation.

Since the early 20th century the physical distribution of music has changed so much, technology comes and goes. In a lot of ways it seems like this technology has stood the test of time (regardless of it's extreme niche market). Vinyl records may not be as popular as other forms of media but they have a steady market, sales in CD's decline every year as do DVD's.

Speaking of CD's what do you do with them when you are finished putting them on your iPod or phone? I personally end up throwing it away or it just sits in a drawer somewhere. But my vinyl records have a specific shelf in the living room adjacent from the record player and will not be thrown out, nor will they collect dust.

That being said, I do not worship vinyl but the extreme music community seems to, so this is a bit of a ode to that. Vinyl is the sun and the market is steadily orbiting it without any feigning interest.

This was my initial sketch...

Chicks on a Bench

I had the fun opportunity to work with a young gentleman by the name of Daniel Shepard, he is a director, producer extraordinaire at Woodland View Productions. He had an interesting idea of some improvisational comedy animated "Adult Swim" style that he wanted to execute on and when I met with him and heard the audio, I must say it was pretty awesome.

We decided to keep the animation simple and not go crazy, since it was just he and I working on it and myself doing all the design and animation. After some background ideas and character designs I started animating and I must say it had been awhile so it was fun and exciting to get back into the loop of the process. You tend to forget how rewarding it is. Took quite awhile but I managed to produce about 5 short web episodes for this "Chicks on a Bench" project and the final product I can definitely say I am proud of.

From the beginning we wanted the animation to be somewhat crude and elementary (this ain't Disney or Pixar) and I think it works with the style of comedy pretty well. I really hope this gets picked up or we can work on some more. It could be a good thing, hell it already has over 90,000 hits, which is insane to me. My most popular video had was maybe 200+

SO GO CHECK IT OUT!

http://www.youtube.com/user/chicksonabench?feature=results_main

INKDcredible Hulk

Design worked out for some tees and hopefully the last run of tanks before the summer ends (this would look cool on a tank). Came out pretty well, took a little time to get the type right. Clients like it and are making snap backs with the same type treatment. Can't wait to see the final product.

It's strange when someone asks you to draw such an iconic figure and alter their identity to fit their needs and message, you want to make sure you are true to the identity of the character but you also want to get the customers message across. Which made choosing tattoos a bit difficult, honestly, if it were my choice he'd be covered in Samoan and other Pacific islander tattoos. They preferred something a bit more specific, but in the end it doesn't really matter if you can make all the tattoos out. When was the last time you saw a guy covered in tattoos and actually noticed the intricacies of the designs?

Spur of the moment.

This was actually a spur of the moment drawing I did directly in Illustrator. I have a tendency to not have a goal when I start drawing or illustrating something for myself. I just let the fun happen and go with the flow. I started out doing my daily animal drawings and ended up with all seeing eyes, custom brain fonts, skulls and mysterious splatters of would could be blood or ketchup. This probably needs a little more work over, adjusted composition, maybe some tonal quality but for the most part it came out pretty interesting and it was done quickly (exciting for me).

FATVM means fate in Latin and is the name of my bands album, so I suppose this could be a shirt design for the newly released EP.