Bulletproof Love

It's a band of a friend of mine.

We sat down and decided to make some visuals to go along with the music. Something you would see and immediately relate it to the band.

So at first we decided to design a t-shirt for the band. A common enough way to bring attention to a band. So here are the pieces we made to create a shirt that would look good and be simple enough for the average person to be able to understand.

A less that clever way to portray the band's name.

A big piece of the t-shirt design, the bullet casing with the heart of smoke coming from it.

Main logo:

And here is the final shirt design we ended with...

Band art.

Band art.

Wrangler is Back . More Painted Shoes

So here's my TJ back on the road.  About 4 months ago, I slid it into a tree while 4x4ing and I messed up most of whats under the front end. Headlights went out as well.  Then not too much later, I got it stuck in a park, where it shouldn't have been in the first place.  The car got impounded, and had gotten flats and some other minor damages. The worst though: Having pumpkins slowly rot in your back seat for 2 months...

So over the past few weeks, me and my dad have been fixing it back up.  It ended up costing more than it should have due to the need to keep buying newer and better tools to get the job done.

-I spent $600 on new tires.  33x12.50's
-Next was a lift kit. I got a 4" Skyjacker lift for $500.  We needed this to replace my front and rear lower control arms that I bent up pretty well, and we needed to be able to fit the 33's under the Jeep too.

-Next was reinforced axle mounting brackets. I also bent these up past fixing. To put these on, we got a $1000 wire-fed welder.

-$40 on a pair of new headlights, after  taking apart the entire dash around the steering column to figure out what the problem wasn't.

-$400 for an impact wrench to take of some bad lugs.

We had to buy other various tools and bolts and replacements throughout the process, accounting for even more money.  But in 4 weeks, roughly 30 hours of work, we went from a stock Jeep, to a lifted Jeep that can drive over a stock Jeep.

Here's what we ended up with...

Some different angles, before and after shots...

And apart from fixing my TJ, I've also been focusing on making more custom shoes.  These ones here were for a friend of mine. She wanted a water theme like my pair.
I roughly sketched the design out in pencil first, then went straight to paint. This pair took about 5 hours of painting.
The colors didn't turn out how I imagined.  They are too similar to one another for the design to really pop. I want to redo this pair, with more detail and a better color scheme.
Also I need to try a different type of paint. The dollar-a-bottle fabric paint I am using now really isn't working so well I've noticed.  Acrylics are my next shot!

Daily Tablet Practice

Day One

45 minutes on my first painting with the tablet. Just getting used to the tablet and working with a pen instead of a mouse.

Day Two

More practice with light and shadows.

I tried to work with white and black as much as possible on this one while still keeping some color in the picture. Could use some practice on textures as well...

Day Three

I'm trying to work with light as much as I can in these daily paintings.

This one started off as a quick speed paint, but once I got to the lighting, I ended up needing as much time as I could get.

Speed painting. I stopped at 35 minutes. This one was great practice on perspective. Creating it at first took me some time. I guess I just have trouble getting the perspective I have in mind on to the canvas.

Day Four

Playing with light, shadows and perspective. The three things I need the most practice with. I found drawing the light source and the surface's direction to be very helpful with all parts.

Tablet + Photoshop

First painting I did after getting a tablet for the first time. A Wacom Bamboo. Limited myself to 35 minutes on this one in Photoshop. Speed painting practice. Looks like i need work with lighting mostly.

One layer in photoshop.

Also painted in Photoshop. Nearly 2 hours painting time. Original size was 2000x3600. Mostly work with textures and lighting. I say I need as much practice as I can get.

Custom Painted Vans

I bought a pair of Faded Glorys that just happened to be my size at the thrift store. $8 bucks for a plain tan pair. I figured I could spend $10 on paint and make them my own, so this is what came of that brilliant idea:

6 hours of painting freehand with not much of a plan, but it worked out I'd say. Lots of changing up sketches and plans, but I'm happy with the results.

Like I said, $8 dollar shoes, $10 on fabric paints and $4 on paint thinner to clean things up in the end.

Next pair I need to be a bit more clean. Colors mixed where they weren't supposed to and the surrounding rubber on the bottom got almost a full coat of paint.

Here's the background of the right shoe before it was covered up by the octopus and bubbles.

A picture of the pair after the first session. I wanted to stick to reds, yellows and tan, but like I said, plans changed.

 Work area:

 I sketched up the entirety of both shoes before starting on the painting process. It's a much more crisp and detailed image with just pencil. With enough practice, I'll be able to do that with paint.

Before starting, I sketched up a rough plan. In my head I was going to draw a template for the left and right and do everything real precise.  After finishing the left sketch, this all changed. I just worked off of it and decided to get right to the real deal as soon as possible.  The only things that stayed consistent between this and the final shoes were the sun and smoke.

Before anything was done to them

Quick Sketches

I limited myself to an hour on this one, and this is what I ended with. I also decided not to use an eraser at all and see what mess would result. My iPhone doesn't take the best pictures either...

Original: http://bobbb12345.deviantart.com/art/Ppparrot-195318441

A sort of collage sketched up a while ago for a good friend of mine. I've never seen headphones and a record put together to make a guitar, so I claim that idea.

I'll finish a full drawing of this someday.

A quick sketch-up to get my perspective right for a drawing I wanted to do.  Since I'm so in love with music, I figured what better way to showcase that than to draw a massive set of headphones.

The result of that previous sketch. Perspective looks right to me, so I'm glad I got that down. It was the toughest aspect for me. I want to find a way to incorporate headphones in the next drawing I'll do. it should be easier the second time around.

As I am obsessed with space, the only logical thing would be to create a piece of space art.  I used a pen for this, and made it real quickly.  It's not a complete piece, but it's as complete as I'm going to make it.

Cherry Blossom: WIP

Painting with a mouse is tougher than expected, but I'm making headway. So far, lighting is the most delicate part of painting this branch. I've been painting and repainting the shadows and highlights, but so far this is the best result.

Nearly 2 hours painting

Rediscovering an Interest

  After about 6 months of being busy with classes and wasting my time and money with friends, I have finally been able to slow down and begin focusing on art again. I've been active on deviantArt ( http://mt-y.deviantart.com/ ) for about a month from starting up again.

  Here is my latest piece:

Rendered in Cinema 4D.  About 30 minutes of me trying to remember my way around the program and getting back into the rhythm again.

I am ready to focus on digital paintings in Photoshop though.  I have a tablet headed my way from Canada, courtesy of my big brother.

Now time to crack down and create a masterpiece...