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!

Puttin' In Work

Ride Dirty ( 8x10inch, acrylic ink, india ink, pencil and watercolour, 2011)

Salutations! Here are some things I've been working on. The piece at the top I finished yesterday, and is just a practice piece to get my typographic, compositional, and rendering skills tighter. They need more work! I'm not happy with the piece as a whole but I like some of the elements. The second image down is just a black and white version cause I thought it looked cool (maybe better than the colour version? you be the judge). The next two images are some of the process from a collaborative logo design over the summer - I took care of the calligraphy while my man Colin worked on the digital side and the rest of the branding. Lastly we have a wildstyle design for my man Jamie aka DJ AA. Wildstyle isn't my specialty, and this piece definitely still has a couple kinks to work out, but overall I'm pretty happy with the final feel. Catch you on the flip!

Train Harder

Train Harder (watercolour & india ink on paper, 2011)

(original sketch)

Ayo homies! Here's another page out of my recently completed watercolour sketchbook - the first page in fact. A couple of posts ago I mentioned how I was placing bits of advice and inspiration for myself throughout the work, and here the message is to train harder. The sketchbook was mostly meant to tone up my watercolour, pen-and-nib, and hand-rendered typography skills, but ended up being a great place to study composition as well. I'm fairly happy with the overall composition and execution of this particular piece but by the end of the sketchbook (I ended up doing 21 paintings and 3 unpainted drawings in 2 weeks) I was more confident with contrast and colour choices, although overall this was still one of my favourites. Check back for more soon, and tell me what you think of the new style!