2009 eh?

Happy new year everybody.

NYE

And another newie. I've been doing the posters for these MUM club nights in Auckland, but the first ones I did were going off the template the guys who run the Sydney nights created. I'm looking forward to doing more stuff for these guys though... posters every week, with fairly diverse headliners and the like. Should be a good challenge.

Comeback Kid

This is kinda pretty different for me. Or at least I feel like it is. First time I've tried doing the 'picture of a chick' poster. This was at the promoters request pretty much, and I struggled with it for a while before I found my direction. I didn't agonise over the line work too much either and it worked out pretty well... doesn't look as loose as it is. Or something. Either way, I like this poster a lot. I like it more now than when I finished it a couple of nights ago too. I might rip the text off this and work on it a little more. Turn it into an art print. Could potentially be a good series. Give me an excuse to practice drawing faces anyway. I used photo references pretty heavily, but modified it all enough that hopefully no one sees themselves and gets offended. or stoked. haha. That just gave me an idea....

oh yeah, I own a couple of Brian Ewing's gig posters. His work definitely had an influence on this poster.

oh oh yeah, my camera was out of batteries on exhibition opening night so no photos I'm afraid. I'll take some photos when I go in next though. And anyone out of town who was interested in prints, hit me up. The opening was insane though!  So many people. The free booze didn't last long at all, but people seemed to stick around for a while. It was a weird experience. I'm still processing it somewhat. I'll write more soon, and put up pics.

XmasX

It feels like forever since I did a poster. Been so mad with exhibition planning and the like that actual work has been sidelined a little.

Anyway, here's a poster for a Xmas show. I was a bit stuck on this one conceptually, then after thinking about the name Antagonist, the Grinch seemed perfect.  So that's what I did.

This one's notable for being the first time I've probably intentionally infringed on someones copyright somewhat. By which I mean, done an interpretation of an established character. I've never felt comfortable with my drawing style (for what its worth) enough to attempt it... but, well... I guess I do now. feel comfortable enough to do it I mean. for a finished piece o' work.

I'm very tired. Was up late, then couldn't get to sleep for some stupid reason, and when I DID sleep, it was pretty uneven.  I'm sposed to be called up for a radio interview about my exhib, but they're 20 mins late so far.  How wude! I imagine I'd be fairly low priority though.

Speaking of radio interviews, I'll be live on air at Radioactive on Tues night, and on VBC on Weds night. A regular man about town I am.

yo dawg, it's X to the E Exhibition

Funny how slow I am in posting this on my blog, it's already most other places. I doubt anyone who follows this blog at all doesn't even know about this exhibition yet (hey, leave a comment and let me know if that's not the case! I'd be interested to know), but yes, finally after years of doing this stuff in near anonymity, I've decided it's time to get fuckin famous. Or at least, see all these posters up in one place at the same time in lovely frames. I hadn't actually considered that fact until someone pointed it out themselves... I've never seen all these things in one place at the same time. Or framed. or A2 sized. I'm pretty excited about it. I've seen a bunch of the final prints (some of 'em needed the colours fixed cuz I made a hash of it) but I didn't really stand and look at 'em properly, Sam Broad and I were picking the mouldings for the frames and concentrating on that more. Suffice to say, I'm really really excited. And nervous. Oh so very nervous. This is kind of the culmination of years of working hard as hell on what basically amounts to advertising with some of the shortest life spans ever. Although, apparently not so short after all.

Anyway, prints will be available for sale ($50), as well as the framed posters($ican'tremember.rightnow). Very limited editions (15-30 max,  depending on the print and how much I underestimate how many people would want it). I honestly have no idea whether I'll sell a few, none or the whole lot. My certainty of any outcome changes constantly all day. Oh the stress!

Speaking of stress... this is the most organised I've been in a long time. It's been the kick up the bum I've needed, and it's pretty sweet. I have Jacki Condra at Rex Royale to thank for that. Years back she sold some of my skullbomb t-shirts through her store. Recently she realised I was the guy making all the posters and asked if I'd be interested in doing a show.  It took me a little bit to set a date and lock it all down, due to being a bit of a pussy, but I did it. We set the date for Dec 4. That eventually got pushed back. Again, partly because of being a pussy, but also cuz I realised I'd need more time to promo (and try and score free booze for the opening. Who goes to dry art openings? no one. Hell, if there's no booze at mine, I'M not showing up). Anyway, yeah, I've always been pretty averse to self-promo and all that kinda stuff for whatever reason. I just wasn't comfortable with it... but I've realised I've done enough work now, that I'm very proud of (goeth before the fall? ruh-roh!) and I'll stand by it while people in a crowded room drinking free piss criticise it. So... I guess I'm comfortable with that now? We'll see.

Skip to the end. I'm having an exhibition. Go to it. Buy some prints. Hi Kylee.

one last thing: I just saw my flyer, and then a picture of Kanye West. I wondered "does the title of my show make me sound like an arrogant self aggrandizing dickhole?". I decided "No, of course no one will think that".  Quickly followed by "Well they will now, stop writing!".

So SOOO Modern

Logos! Yay! No offense (okay some) to  sponsors, but you do realise no one even looks at your logos on poster besides other sponsors and promoters (who  just wanna see who they can scam free stuff off). Mostly your logos just ruin posters.  Orrrrr maybe  I should just be less shit and get better at incorporating them into my designs.... or do what a lot of folks do and just slap them on really blatantly at the end in a white box so that the logos stand out so badly you know whoever added them hated them even more than I do.

!!! WIP

 

I should probably add sketch scans to this one. but i'm tired so I'll sort those out later. hurrah!

Sora Shima Update

This was a really gruelling project, and took a long long time. Far longer than I care to even estimate.  I spent forever trying to get the band name looking right, with a mix of organic vineyness and illegible legibility. I haven't spent any time drawing logos for Black Metal Bands so it didn't come naturally. Anyway this project evolved a lot, from the inital style (I like frame 2 a lot) to where it wound up, which was somewhere far more intense than I'd originally planned, but ultimately more how it should've gone from the start.

anyway, here's a bunch of incremental saves through out the process of designing this album cover. I sometimes run into problems with clients seeing work in progress pics and not being overly happy. I'll readily admit that a lot of my stuff looks pretty ratshit til about the 75% completion, which is where all the detail and polishing goes in (see also Holy Fuck poster.. .same deal). The last 25% is time consuming as hell, but I have to do it to make myself happy ultimately.

I think I'll  post up some more of these process gifs (if only to make myself realise how massively inefficient my workflow can be. This was definitely an extreme case though.) I tend to save incremental work files fairly frequently as I tend to make it up as I go along a bit, outside of having a general overall vision of how things are going. Depends on how paranoid I am about losing some sort of mid-project genius but overworking it and being able to dig it up again without too much trouble. I now realise that I have almost never gone back to an older file and they're just eating up harddisk space. I guess it's the hoarder in me.

Of Montreal flyer

as far as poster goes, this isn't 100% complete as far as I'm concerned but the promoter needed a flyer to hand out at upcoming gigs. But I'll chuck it up anyway so friends of mine can have a looksee. Hi guys!

Cut Off Your Hands

This has more in common with posters I was making a couple of years ago, and less of an illustrationfest than recent things. Was a nice break.  This had more hand-done text but it started to look a little bit too over the top... to my eyes, it's got a bit of a movie poster vibe to it with that text.