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.

Jeremy Jay

 

this poster is notable for being pretty much the first time I've drawn a 'real' person in a poster or final piece of work.

it's also notable for being pretty choice. haha

HOLY FUCK

Pretty different from the usual stuff.. just trying out some things. I contemplated attempting to do this pixel-art styles. I'm kinda glad I didn't, as it would've taken roughly a million years. give or take.

more posters in the works at the mo.. check back in a couple of days.

Sora Shima - Destroy Electronica

Yeasayer

There's an earlier alternate version of this. But then I had a sleep and decided it wasn't finished. But the other one was out in the wild for a while there.  I'll post up a small process thread for this if anyone's interested. as a side note, drawing hands is HARD. They took forrrrever to get right.. and they're still not awesome.