January READS - Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

I've always been interested in psychology in some way or another so when I was Christmas shopping I was pretty stoked to run across this gem. Not only does it sport a beautiful green and black cover but it has a super sneaky laminate that tells the consumer that they are sexy and should buy the book. Needless to say I was sold. Bazing.

Anyway, so far so good, neuroscience is pretty neat and it's interesting to learn about how people perceive their surroundings consciously and unconsciously as it will aid in building more meaningful products for the future.

Read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Unconscious-Rules-Behavior-Vintage/dp/0307472256

Inkd Life Clothing Design

Design created for Inkd Life Clothing. They were super excited about it! Can't wait to see the shirts and jackets in action.

My roomate sent me this IM this morning. Completely unrelated to art or design but full of funny awesomness.

 Matthew:  I had a dream that you and I were going to get into Zords and fight monsters. It was a long involved dream using some of the plot from the Ducktales movie. I had a feeling that the entire time we were gonna get to fight in Zords and then when the time came and Zordon told me we had to get to training soon because the monsters were wreaking havoc. I was like "sweet" and then tracked you down via a trail of instagram pictures (everywhere was end of the world parties). But then I woke up before Zords.

 Sent at 10:18 AM on Thursday

 Matthew: 

Brand and Company Guidelines

I've been trying to pinpoint the key elements that are issues within the internal structure of the company and fix them and so far I've come up with this.

One major problem with the company is that no motive exists, no community, no spirit, so by creating a brand and essence for the company I hope to create a different mindset for it's employee's. This book will hopefully spark an employee's ownership of their position within the company.

The other problem the company faces is a lack of proper, standardized communication. New hires tend to learn everything as they go and so far this creates confusion and the possibility for errant orders. Considering there is also a quick turn around on reps it could cost the company a lot of time and money. With that in consideration I've been attempting to make this book as simple as possible so it's easier to grasp the information inside. Keeping the layout striped down, including only necessary copy and picture references will help promote a smaller learning curve. 

The goal is to create a book that will not only serve as a brand reference but also cover the necessary steps to ensure new hires understand the processes that enable the company to operate efficiently.

I'll keep updating as more issues arise but hopefully I can create something that can act as a guiding light for new hires and encouragement for the business owner to continue where I leave off.

Coffee and InDesign for the win.

USA TEES Branding

I've been working on getting a comprehensive brand together for USA TEES for a month now, since there has apparently been a lack of one for 28 plus years. The logo is getting worked out and some basic guidelines are starting to come together regarding communication between shop and customers. There is a ton of information to consolidate and organize it's a bit staggering that nobody has bothered to put this together.

Here are some screenshots of work being done. I'll post more updates as they are available.

Thanks for looking!

The celebration of a birthday.

On Sunday my coworker will celebrate his 29th birthday and he asked me to use a photo he took with a painted naked woman and make him a shirt. Since I've done stuff for him before I know the style he likes so I intentionally made it look a bit sketchy, threw in a bit of Aztec influenced patterns and some west coast style lettering. Came out kinda cool. He loved it.

Glad I could help you out homie. Happy Birthday.

Project update - BSKY NYC

Recently I completed some illustrations for a street wear brand here in Brooklyn that I'm quite proud of and I'm happy to say these pieces will be included in their new Fall 2014 line. Keep an eye out.

This series of illustrations is a bit of a departure from normalcy for me since I'm usually illustrating with traditional media and cleaning up in the computer. However, these were 95% completed strictly in Photoshop. I wanted to challenge myself and create a different workflow.

Imagery of the panther is used to create a sense of power and grace while the mandala, in this context, is meant to embody the universe, wisdom and impermanence. Trident's and alchemy symbols are also used to push the feeling of power, self worth and the root of oneself even further. 

I'm a symbol and imagery nerd... 

The trident representation of Neptune in particular embodies the becoming, being and the passing away, the cross (or line) at the bottom of the trident is considered the root or stabilizer for the erratic nature of this concept. Which I thought was very inherent of human nature, we are a very erratic species and we need something to root us, and keep ourselves on track.

Anyway, I'll post up the full pieces when I feel they are 100% ready, I'd say they are about 90% right now!

Thanks for reading.

Bunch of kids

Generally when I do character designs each character ends up on a separate page in my sketchbook so it was nice to put a few of them together on one sheet. The definitely look like they want to get into some trouble.

Workspace

At work I'm always trying to keep my work space interesting and my brain moving. So I take 2 minutes to draw on a post it every now and then. Keeps my mind playful.

Bondage Illustration

This piece started as an illustration for Prostitution, a local NYC band, but they have their eyes set on another piece I did so this one will now just be something for fun. This is a mix of sumi ink wash, watercolor and a little acrylic. It was definitely fun to draw/paint and since watercolor and painting in general are all still new to me it was a fun experiment.  Trying to loosen up with this whole painting business but I like control too much!

Below you can see the piece and then the mock I did for their LP, it was a first draft. There were a few minor and embellishments on the LP so it looks slightly different than the original painting.

Prostitution LP (in the works)

Untitled

I started this piece awhile back, maybe a few months, but I just completed it tonight. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, it just started as a drawing on the Greyhound bus and evolved from there. Most of my work starts as a simple doodle and just continues to work itself out, about 90% of the time I have no motive.

Hope you like.

Thanks!

"To Raise Thy Throne Above the Stars of God"

The purpose of this piece was to represent the essence of what Lucifer is and how he is depicted through the ages. Take what you will from it, there are many ways to describe what's going on but I'll leave that up to you. It was damn fun to draw and a bit of a departure of my normal pen, ink, computer routine. 

I'll include a final framed image with more details at a later date.

Thanks for looking and enjoy!

Tattoo for a friend.

A buddy of mine asked me to draw Atlas as a tattoo design for his arm. I don't usually do tattoo designs because it's such an intimate experience with the artist you choose to get it done by but the idea of drawing Atlas sounded too fun to pass up.

To the young fella who would be getting this done I hope you actually get it. The idea of someone having my drawing predominantly etched into their skin is kinda morbidly exciting.

Right now this is where I am...work in progress.

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.

07-25-2012

So maybe not everyday...guess my animal a day will be every other day. Anyway. Here is a woodpecker...interesting creature. Guess I should move to color at some point...next time.