"Killer Headphones" Skull... - Daily Line Art #2

Tentaskull Shirt Design for Socialaundry

Check it out... my "Tentaskull" shirt design is now available at Socialaundry.com!! They're a very cool and socially conscious American brand, with portions of every sale going to both charity and the original artist. Definite thumbs up!!

Tornadoes and Turkey Vultures

I was compelled to take my fascination with scary looking birds to the next level on my Fort Worth reaction project for The University of Hartford's Illustration MFA program. A native Dallas / Fort Worth artist myself, I took this opportunity to collect some exhaustive reference material from the Fort Worth zoo and do a fun pen & ink piece in LP dimensions with just a hint more color than usual.

12x12, pen & ink on scratchboard.

Oh! and here's a 3D anaglyph version for red/blue glasses!

 

Lastly, 2D and 3D prints with glasses are both available in my store

TentaSkull / Cthulhu Drawing

This is a little more death metal than my typical work, but actually quite in line with my influences.  I listen to a lot of really aggressive, rhythmic metal music in the studio, and also follow a number of artist who work primarily doing band art commissions.  Guys like Grindesign, Godmachine, and Jonathan Bergeron (aka Johnny Crap) are versed in pen and ink, like myself, but either work completely in photoshop or at least do their finishing touches digitally.  This was a fully inked 9x12 drawing which I then finalized in Photoshop.

I'm working on integrating limited color into my line art to give it some extra oomph and accessibility... can I say that about a skull design?

In any case, I'm planning some limited edition screen prints and tee shirts based on the one-color version of this design.  Stay tuned!  Meanwhile, there are digital prints available on my Etsy shop.

Skull on Plaid

In keeping with my effort to stay loose and lively, here's another whimsical skull in brush pen.  Isn't he fashionable on plaid?  I pulled out a gray prismacolor marker to help push the pattern back a little.  This would have taken me a few extra hours if I'd done it with a technical pen, but I'm thinking once I get the hang of this brush stuff it'll be great to blend the tools together... using brush for the fat and flowing outlines and pen for fine detail and hatching.  Lot's to play with there!

On a side note, as a metal fan I'm well aware of how cliche skull art is... yet that allure is always there!  Must be some kind of primal fascination in us.

Screen-Printed Scarf Concepts

A great thing about my propensity for working in black and white is that my drawings translate nicely to red/blue 3D and to one-color screen-printing.  

While teaching myself to expose the screens and print on textiles, I'm (sloppily) building myself a new one-color press that should really speed things up and cut back on misprints.  I'm doing all of this out of my one-bedroom apartment, so keeping it clean, organized, and in consistent quality are all high priorities.  This is easier said than done between the full-time design job, graduate studies, hobbies, social life, and down time.

So in the middle of all of this, I've been plotting scarf designs. I'm excited to get everything under control and organized for the launch of my web-store, which will feature hand-printed shirts, scarfs, and posters of my original illustrations and designs.

The end goal is to turn a fun DIY project into a consistent, high-quality outlet for my illustrations and designs... something I can be confident bringing to the public through the web, art/craft fairs, and beyond.

Branding Ideas

Playing with different branding ideas for an illustration-based webstore and apparel line... hand-printed shirts, scarves, prints, and originals.  

I'm far too indecisive about these things, but I can say that the skull itself is definitely going to reappear on a shirt or scarf or two.

Flying Spaghetti Monster / SquiddySkull

While working on some tee-shirt concepts for a favorite metal band of mine, I deviated for a moment from some more lofty and original ideas and went with a more stereotypical skull graphic.  The thumbnails actually looked pretty sweet so I thought I'd do a small 6x8 inked version, ballpoint on bristol board. 

It took just under 2 hours to do this while sitting at my local coffee shop during their weekly open mic night.  Towards the end, as I was making the background a nice and evil black, an epic solo performance of 'Jesus Loves Me' provided a lovely soundtrack. Probably not the inspiration they were going for, but the lord works in mysterious ways. Or flying spaghetti monster, whichever.