Thursday, March 31, 2011

Somewhat of an introduction.

If you couldn't tell from the name or layout, this is an art blog. My art, to be specific. And if you haven't guessed by now, that picture up there is me with my niece Lily. Isn't she adorable? I figured I'd introduce her to one of the greatest graphic novel classics early on in life.

Anyway, I plan to dump some of my artwork on this blog. DISCLAIMER: I am not the next da Vinci, and my next piece will not be the next Mona Lisa, but I still love to draw. You don't have to be Kelly Clarkson to sing in the shower, right? Exactly.

I recently got a tablet and love to just scribble around in Corel Painter with it. However, before I jump straight into all of that, I'll go over what I used to do. Besides doodling on my notebook, I used to paint on shirts, and then eventually shoes. Instead of going deeper into that, I'll just show you:

Shoes:
Who Wears the Watchmen?
These were my first shoes that I painted. They're based on Watchmen, and I've included the panel the shoes reference in the bottom right of the photo. I create theses shoes just like I do my shirts, I ironed on some freezer paper with the design cut out, and then I used a paint roller to apply the paint. After it's all dry I simply remove the freezer paper and viola! The shoes are painted. They came out pretty well, and I proudly wear them even though they are quite dirty by now. I should also mention that I was inspired to paint shoes by someone who does it really really well, KyozoKicks.

Spy Sappin' My Shoes!
These shoes are my first hand-painted shoes. You can see the original designed here. It's from a game I play a lot called Team Fortress 2. My friend's cousin even commissioned me to do a pair for him! I added his game nickname by request, and I must say, they came out very nice as well! It was a weird feeling being payed to do something I consider a small hobby. Feel free to check out my flickr and see some photos of the painting process, as well as some close ups of the shoes.

Wear Pre, not Stop Pre
These shoes were created for my dad, for Father's Day last year. My dad, like all of my family, is a big runner and loves Steve "Pre" Prefontaine. More importantly, he looks exactly like him. I kid you not! These shoes are based off of a t-shirt that I have about Pre, and I think they came out alright. 

The ScribbleVans
Finally, my favorite pair of custom shoes. These were a gift for my girlfriend, and they're based off of a game called "Scribblenauts." That game is also the the inspiration for this blog's title! The game has a very distinct art style and I did my best to capture it onto these shoes. These were even featured on the game's Facebook page! It's a great feeling to have other people love something you make! You can also see the creation process of these shoes as well as some other angles on my flickr (linked above).

I don't have any picture of my custom shirts, and most of them are just game logos or characters painted onto shirts anyway. I haven't painted shoes or shirts in a while, but like I said before I have been doing a bunch of doodling recently with my new tablet. I'll update tomorrow with some examples of that!