Illustration Friday: Glamour

Guyinadress (unfinished), 2006 • graphite, black Copic marker, Staedtler pigment liner and Photoshop®

Ever do something you didn't feel like finishing but felt you had to share anyway? That's this one here. I got to coloring, and I was like, "nuh-uh. Stop now." I think part of my reason for stopping was that I wasn't gonna color it at all initially. The drawing came out differently to how I originally saw it in my head, but I liked it anyway. And how I was coloring was different, too, so it all felt kinda funny, y'know? I might take a stab at re-drawing it this week. We'll see.

I'm all for dressin' nice n' shit, but all this pretentious label bullshit is ridiculous. I don't give a f**k if you're sportin' Vera Wang or Bob Mackie or f**kin' Frederick's of Hollywood (actually, it depends on who's sportin' Frederick's. Their stuff is mad slutty. I like that.). All that shit is product placement, and I'm not interested. One of the reasons I don't watch award shows.

Unintentionally, this dude looks a little like Ami James. That's not a diss towards him at all, in fact, Miami Ink is one of the few "reality" shows I can tolerate.

One thing I'll say about glamour is this...actually, it was said better by one of gigposters peoples:
"I think I'm gonna pretend I'm a gay fashion designer so I can cop a feel on hot chicks at award shows."

UMFM Logo & T-Shirt Launch

What an awesome night. Seeing people wear something I drew/designed is too awesome for words.




Now this was a surprise! I designed this for Elliot (aka Satchel Paige aka Satchel Pagé aka "Ness") months ago, and now it's just seeing the light of day.



Crazy. Wanna see more? Go here.

Clash of the Titans!

Here's the poster I did for Winnipeg's one and only Hip-Hop soundclash:

Should be a shitload of fun!

Illustration Friday: Cats

Smokin' Pussy, 2006 • IKEA® pencil and a dying Sharpie® Twin Tip on notepad

Totally no-frills this week. I did this at work (I love pre-production week...it's so laid back).

Mental visual stimuli: Frank Kozik, smoker, artistic jack-of-all-trades, cat owner, and the man behind the "Smorkin' Labbit"; and René Levesque, the late, heavy-smoking, charismatic French separatist.

The infamous Muta bladejob (revisited)

WARNING: If the sight of blood makes you queasy, this post ain't for you, 'k?

Remember this post?: http://elnegromagnifico.blogspot.com/2005/06/infamous-muta-bladejob.html

Well, now you can watch the whole damn match yourself via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/?v=DumwnqSFKvY

Don't say I didn't warn you, 'cuz I did.

I'm down with SFG!

As of yesterday, I'm a member of Sugar Frosted Goodness!, a collaborative illustration blog, run by Jeff Andrews of Design Inspiration. I'm in good company there, as my man Jeope is part of the crew, along with blog faves like Ward Jenkins and Jared Chapman, and fellow gigposters.com guys like Rob Schwager and Nathan Santistevan. This should be fun!
The blog is here, and my first entry is here. Word.

EDIT: Whoa...I just noticed that the famous Elwood Smith is down, too!

A tube full of Eye Noise!

I got this awesome tube full of posters (11 of them!) from Thomas Scott, owner n' chief designer of Eye Noise, straight outta Orlando. This is one generous dude, and a fantastic designer.

The posters he sent:

• Peter Hook: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=54037
• Gang of Four: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=52105
• The Frames: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=45304
• Wilco: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=40436
• Blonde Redhead: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=35667
• The Rapture: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=32845
• The Dirtbombs: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=31299
• Stellastarr*: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=28791
• Andrew W.K.: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=20270
• Buzzcocks: http://www.gigposters.com/posters.php?poster=20268
• ...and his Hud Rolling Roadshow poster: http://www.eyenoise.net/enlarge.asp?pID=204

Too cool. I seriously need frames and flatfiles. Pronto.

Illustration Friday: Sea

I worked on this for a while, and I'm not sure if I dig the end result that much, but here it be:



O.G. Navy Seal (Time 4 Sum Aksion), 2006 • graphite, Photoshop® and sponge.

No big stretch here...sea = water = gun-toting seal.
For the big ass version, click here!

R.I.P. David Gordon McCulloch

Sarah's grandfather passed away yesterday.
One of the things I'll remember about him is his selflessness. He was always concerned with how everyone else was doing, to a fault. Now I know where Sarah gets it.
One of the last times I saw him, he was in Grace Hospital after having his second stroke. There he was, attached to all these machines, and the first thing he asked me was "how's the job?"

I know Sarah wishes I knew him before his first stroke, and yes, it would've been cool to have met that version of the man that got all of his grandkids to roll him smokes (really!), but I'm thankful for the years I did know him. I'm gonna miss him.

Hey, all you graphic design students!

Peep this, kids...a site dedicated to the work of the late Alvin Lustig:
http://www.alvinlustig.org/
Impress your teachers with your newly acquired knowledge!

Al'z Book of Lists for 2005: a post-mortem

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I asked, she said yes

Sarah and I are finally takin' the plunge!




Here's the whole deal as told to the folks of gigposters.com:
"I was worried about how this would go over, because she's kinda made it known that I'm not exactly the romantic type, which I'll totally own up to.
The thing is, I've been told by several folks that since we've been together for 7 years, she'll be happy with the fact that I've FINALLY asked. So, we had dinner, which was totally kickass, by the way. From there, we decided to hit the Forks to check the fireworks, which I figured we'd up at, as long as we could brave the cold (it's a compartively mild 25º F (-5º C) out as opposed to the usual temp.). We puttered around until a quarter-to-twelve and joined the rest of the folks outside to ring in the new year. We did that, and then the fireworks went off. Right there, I bit the bullet and pulled the ring out of my ill-fitting suit jacket and said, "will ya marry me?" The look on her face was priceless.
Getting over the initial shock, she said yes.
Apparently, I did okay...more than okay, apparently. She said it was "very Winnipeg". Folks behind us and in front cheered us on.

The act of giving her the ring and asking was 95% "okay...here goes!" and 5% "what the f**k am I doing?!?"

I'm feeling pretty good right now, though."

http://flickr.com/photos/elnegro/sets/1722085/

Hey...happy new year, y'all!