Complex Magazine

Just got the call from the extremely friendly designer over at Complex Magazine last week about a fun little fashion spot for their upcoming issue. Basically it's a fashion gone wrong image of a style that I saw a lot of in the midwest, the always frightening, all denim suit. It was big change from the more concept driven stuff that I have been up to lately, but it was a lot of fun trying to add a few details to give him a little more "character". Plus, any day that I can draw a mullet is a good day.

Portrait of Arikawa

Just completed the full page portrait of Masakazu Arikawa, the president of a company called M Cube, for the premiere issue of Electronic Magazine. Below are the usual process pictures, which for this project involved a more in depth black and painted portrait than usual. I was a little worried how the paint would translate into color, but it was a fun challenge that seems to have worked out pretty well.

Brush Pens

For anyone who draws with ink with at home, and wants to take it on the road, a brush pen is easily your best bet. Below are my current favorites, which are available from most any Japanese stationary store/the internet. These wonderful pens range from 5 dollar plastic thingies to perfectly made beauties with natural hair tips and replaceable brushes/ink cartridges.

But if your looking for a great all around brush pen I recommend the pentel pocket brush (2nd from right) which is affordable and refillable, plus it has a really cool looking silver kanji by the clip. Anyway, all of these pens are great fun, and everyone should try out a brush pen at least once. Enjoy!

SHORTOMATIC.COM

Imagine my surprise when I was contacted, out of the blue, by a new  website to provide them with images that were to be printed on not posters, cards, magazines, or tee shirts, but for board shorts.  Seriously, how nifty is that?  So do yourself a favor and roll on over to shortomatic.com.  Their shop will be open for business in one month, and for now their site is a blog,  detailing the minutia of setting up their shop.  It covers everything from color matching and illustration selection to eyelet choices and packaging.

All in all, it seems like a really great setup, so for now, enjoy this sneak preview of one the three illustrations from my portfolio that has been chosen along with it's design mockup.

The original.

The product.

  

Migration

Once again the wonderful and talented SooJin Buzelli at Asset International hired me for a really exciting illustration. I don't really get to do animals very much, so this was all pretty ew to me. And it is always impossible to not be exhilarated to work with an adventurous AD with a nifty idea. Below is pretty much the full process, with the final being featured in the PLANADVISER 2009 buyer's guide.

Wooden Toy Quarterly

"WE JUST GOT A POSTCARD IN THE MAIL FROM THE TALENTED ADAM SCHMIDT OF BROOKLYN WHO'S ILLUSTRATIONS YOU MAY JUST WELL SEE IN A FUTURE EDITION OF WOODEN TOY. WATCH HIS SPACE, HIS WORK IS DOPE AND HAS US FEELING ALL NOSTALGIC"

Above are the kinds words that have been heaped on me by Wooden Toy Quarterly. It's a Australia based publication which features an eclectic mix of painting, street art, design, and illustration. Go now to http://www.woodentoyquarterly.com/. and reward the people who take the time to investigate random postcards.

Deer Tick

On Friday at the Bowery Ballroom I saw a great show by the Providence band Deer Tick. During my stay in Providence for 4 years while attending RISD there was a Deer Tick show almost every weekend at AS220. For me Deer Tick and their War Elephant album was basically my soundtrack for school, and it gave me warm fuzzy feeling to see them in New York at such a great venue.

The only negative part of the evening was me dropping my camera from the balcony, but miraculously it didn't hurt anybody and managed to survive. Despite it looking like an exploded view drawing I still was able to take a few pics.