5-7-5 gig poster

My friend Rebecca can get some quirky/awesome ideas when she's booking shows for Costello's.

For the show on February 17th there are 5 bands, with a $7 cover and $5 Steam Whistles, 5-7-5, not unlike the working syllable scheme in a Haiku! Too bad the Japanese didn't make Haiku's end with 2 syllables, just think how cheap drinks would be! Also 5, 7, 5 adds up to 17....like February 17th.... It all comes together in an eerie way, and none of it is a stretch. I've never seen Jim Carrey's movie The Number 23, but I imagine the reoccurring numbers felt a little like this. Oh and there's a Haiku contest, with incredible prizes (not sure what they are, but it always feels pretty incredible to win something).

Above is the poster I did for the show. The other day I had talked about doing a take on the one of the pieces from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, and having the Haiku/Japanese connection was the perfect excuse to make it happen. Miesha Louie (of Meisha and the Spanks), Nathan Johnson, Mark Mills, Elder Abuse, and Backlash are all set to play, so come give them a listen!

36? gig poster

 
Here is the gig poster I did for 36? (that's not a question, that's just their name). 36?, as well as Steve Wirzba (from Hunger Hush) will be playing at Costello's on Feb. 20th. Check out the Facebook event page here for more info.
I kind of wanted to do a take on Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji for this, but thought that despite their iconic appearances the actual name of the series could be a bit obscure and make things confusing. But I'm having some fun with that idea in an upcoming poster!

cliff house

Here are a couple pics of the Elsethings event at Cliff House as well as a couple pics of my art (that is still hanging up there as of now). Big thanks to Sarah and Colin for letting me be a part of this!

Make sure to check out the music from Nicolas Field and Georgia Sound who played the Elsethings show and killed it.

A few older pieces mixed in with some new ones.

Hey it's my friend Jenna with my Curiosity piece!

Georgia Sound performing

heartvark posters

Here's Gen putting up some of the HeARTvark posters, at what must be the Divine stairwell.

mallard gig poster

Here's the gig poster I made for Mallard. I couldn't resist going with the Duck Hunt theme. I switched the colour scheme from the usual bright green and blue you're used to seeing on your NES in hopes to make it a bit more in line with the Mallard vibe, (just check out the lyrics "I live for the fall, for nothing at all, except to sport my autumn colours" from Mallard Time). They play at Costello's on Feb 20 with The Dead Yetis.

Watch a Mallard performance below.

fairytale friday installment 1: the little mermaid

  

This is the first installment of my new Fairy Tale series I'm doing for FFWD Weekly. I'm pretty excited about it, I think they're some of the best pieces I've made!

Every week (for the next 8 weeks or so) will be a new fairy tale illustration, so collect them all! I will post them up here on Fridays for the sake of alliteration (issues are released on Thursdays though).

This scene depicts the little mermaid's voice being taken by the witch.

I don't know if I'll have time to delve so extensively into my process for each of these, but I thought I would for this one anyways. I love seeing artist's processes, and I get asked about my own quite often, so hopefully someone can take something away from this!

I started off trying to come up with the idea, here are just a bunch of ideas I started with overlayed over each other. I sort of knew what scene I wanted to try to depict already.

Once I had the general idea, I started coming up with some character designs for the witch character in the bottom left there.

This was going to be the general idea, as well as the basic composition.

 I have refined the character designs here, as well as the environment. I wanted the witch to have a witch doctor/shaman vibe and for there to be an occult feeling in the ritual/spell he was executing.

Tightening up the composition. By having the mermaid pressing herself against the rock more, it increases the tension and further implies that it is an unpleasant experience.

Here I have inked all the elements and am beginning to lay in the flats.

The flats are almost all put in, I haven't started worrying about colors at all at this point (though some of the teal ends up staying fairly similar).

I'm beginning to play with the colors more at this stage.

Shadows and highlights are added in for the finished piece.

Hopefully this isn't too much boring info!

Your song of the day is not under the sea, instead, listen to How To Dress Well's Ocean Floor for Everything.

january sex column

Here's my illustration for this month's Keepin' It Sleazy, read it here, or grab an issue of BeatRoute at your favorite pub.