FPG3: Album Art

FPG3 (cover)

FPG3 (back)

Ayo! I'm back to share some album art I recently finished for Doobyis, a local musician. FPG#3 (which dropped today, get your copy right here) was a little more solitary and contemplative than the last instalment, and I wanted to reflect that in the cover art. D is alone in the lab with a pen and a pad, honing his craft and gettin' his 10,000 in. There are lots of little details taken from the music, like the posters on the wall (MF Doom, Ghostface, and B.I.G.), Soundcloud up on the computer screen, a Nas CD on the table, and Doobs rocking workboots and a green hat with a D, to name a few. For the back cover, I went with some hand-rendered type to represent the DIY self-made style of music Doobyis makes. A few key lines from track #2, "The Wreckage", inspired the visuals for the backside. This was a fun project — Doobyis trusted me with a lot of creative freedom and enough time to get the job done right, and I'm really proud of the results. A special shoutout goes to my man Jarett, whose critiques were invaluable throughout this piece, and my man Bmoney, for teaching me to keep my files tight — this project was drawn by hand and then coloured digitally, so with all the layers involved, not being a sloppy worker was a huge help to me. 'Till next time, onwards and upwards homies!

Hit 'em in the Rooftop Chakra

Rooftop Chakra (watercolour, india ink, chalk, digital, 2012)

( some of the process behind the piece)

What's crackin?? This piece was inspired by the idea of a paradigm shift — an intense moment of enlightenment through which we radically change our outlook on the world. The city at the top of his head, at his crown chakra, is a metaphor for the world of thought borne within. This city of thought is being dramatically restructured by a blast from above as homie gets his mind blown, energy being routed through his crown chakra on into his third eye. The city is demolished, only to be rebuilt to the standards of a new perspective, a fresh world view. 

A reworking of a project for a class I took earlier this year, this was a foray into a style of digital collage that is still relatively new to me, so a lot of time was spent fiddling with the colour saturation and image definition in Photoshop — the time spent on the execution of this piece was probably about 50/50 between traditional and digital media, but I learned a ton of things that streamlined my workflow, and will likely lead to more exploring of this kind for my illustrations in the future. The buildings that weren't drawn were cut out of magazines, scanned in, and then altered and imported using Photoshop, and the face is composed of elements of my own, along with my homie Colton Ponto's rad, thuggy beard. Also, shoutout to my man Sam Williams, the illustrator behind The Sky Press, for providing me with a few simple but key tricks last time we linked up. Word. Thanks for rolling through and checking this out, and may your future be full of profoundly beneficial paradigm shifts! Peace, homies!