Marina and the Diamonds

Marina Diamandis is certainly one of my favorite pop stars. There's a refreshing uncensored quality to her lyrics that is simultaneously conceptual, funny, and melancholy without coming across as insincere. It doesn't hurt that she's a real musician either.

I originally created this poster for Marina's "YouTube Presents" appearance that my sister & I attended a few months ago in NYC. Since that wasn't a "real" concert however, it never quite felt complete - so with this imminent show at Terminal 5, I thought I would polish what I'd done and make a more definitive version. 

With my poster, my aim was to replicate/reference the subtle, "static-y" TV effect that's apparent on the cover art for "Primadonna." Furthermore, the text is meant to acknowledge the multitude of identities and archetypes Marina takes on in her current LP "Electra Heart." The bubblegum's heart shape is simply a reference to Electra Heart's first track. 

Hope you like it!

Thumbnails.

Raw scan of the original illustration.

"YouTube Presents" version.

Final Terminal 5 version.

Shiny Toy Guns

I've been anxiously anticipating Shiny Toy Guns' third album since they released single 'The Sun' not long after announcing the return of original STG singer Carah Faye. I've been a fan since We Are Pilots, and I've consistently been impressed by the band's songwriting and production. At long last, 'III' was released at the end of October 2012 and it does not disappoint. Some of the best material they've ever written appears on the album ('Somewhere to Hide' and "e v a y" come to mind), and I can't recommend it enough.

In addition to their new LP, Shiny Toy Guns recently wrapped up a short leg of touring the U.S. last night in NYC at Santos Party House. It was for this show (originally scheduled for Oct. 30th but delayed due to Hurricane Sandy) that I created an original poster for. It was a bit of struggle coming up with a design I liked, but no matter what I knew that I wanted portraits of the band to have some part in it.

So, once I illustrated the individual drawings below, I roughly assembled them based on some of the thumbnails I sketched. The concert's delay was somewhat of a blessing in disguise in that it gave me just enough extra time push the final design to a place that I felt was polished and good enough to present to the band.

I had the pleasure of personally giving Jeremy, Carah, Mikey, and Chad prints of the final composition last night and was very grateful for the experience. They all seemed genuinely impressed, which is of course the ultimate compliment. My thanks to the band for signing a couple copies for me, and for sharing their time with me. I hope I helped commemorate the tour for them. It was the least I could do for a band that's been so generous to my home state during this time of crisis.


RAW graphite portraits (rendered entirely w/ PALOMINO Blackwing 602 pencils)

Chad Petree

Carah Faye

Jeremy Dawson

Mikey Martin

Final poster.

Signed poster!

Free Dominguez

I can remember my 2 older brothers playing Kidneythieves when I was younger, and being very struck by it. "Taxicab Messiah" is hard to forget. One of my more distinct memories is staying up late one night watching MTV (which was the only time of day they when would play music videos when this happened) and being shocked to see the video for the title track from "Zerospace." I'm not even sure I knew a video existed for the song at the time - this being before YouTube, I immediately tried to tape as much of it as possible so I could share with my siblings the next day.

Since then, Kidneythieves have released a third album "Trypt0fanatic" and an EP "The Invisible Plan." Meanwhile, singer Free Dominguez has kept busy in between KT releases doing solo work. As of late, she's made a point to play intimate NYC shows when in the area. For her most recent NYC gig this past September, I tried illustrating the kind of poster I'd be interested in buying. Luckily, some other fans felt similarly!

Thumbnails

Final illustration

(you'll notice the right eye is under-developed since I knew I'd be covering it with an arrow anyway)

Hand-drawn arrow + text

Glitch-y effect I accidentally got when scanning the illustration - ended up being a critical part of the final poster!

Photoshop explorations.

Final poster.

(photo credit: Free Dominguez)

Keep an eye out for Free's upcoming Kickstarter campaign for her next solo LP 'Volacno+The Sea.'

Free on...

Twitter

Facebook

Tumblr

School of Seven Bells

I've been a School of Seven Bells fan for a long time now. I can still remember my friend sharing their song Half Asleep via MySpace! I've happily followed them ever since. As per their newest (arguably best) album "Ghostory", my original poster illustration attempted to play up that theme, but was also rushed, and I kept hitting dead ends with it. However, it's still something I'm willing to revisit at some point - the pencils could definitely be tightened up for one thing.

When SVIIB announced a date at Maxwell's in Hoboken (one of my favorite venues), I knew I needed to start from scratch.

Original thumbnails

Original illustration.

Photoshop exploration.

Thumbnails take 2.

Final portrait of Benjamin.

Final portrait of Alley.

Final poster.

Maxwell's specific poster.

Physical copy, graciously signed by Benjamin (upper right) & Alley (upper left), as well as the other Alley who does live keyboards/backing vox (bottom right) and Chris who does drums (bottom left).

That's now twice in a row in which the artist in question has liked my work enough to describe it as "beautiful" (verbally and in ink), in addition to their signature (Katie Stelmanis from Austra was the first). I'm humbled and honored by their comments: I look up to these musicians.

Austra pt. II

I've been dying to see Austra live for a long time now - so much so that I created a poster for them long before they'd announced any tour dates in my area [see my original poster for Austra here]. So, by the time they did announce an NYC date, I already had a piece in the vault ready to go. However, in the weeks leading up to the show, I realized I needed to revamp it and make it the best it could be. That, and I wanted to create a show-specific version of the poster as I'm prone to do.

I finally had the chance to see the band last night and they didn't disappoint. The whole show was great, but my personal highlights were probably the fantastic new songs they played.

After the show, which took place at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, the band (including lead singer Katie Stelmanis) went to Glasslands for a DJ set. It was there that I had the honor and pleasure of giving Katie and bass player Dorian Wolf a set of the posters I made. They were both gracious, appreciative, and super nice. Katie even complemented my Pretty Hate Machine shirt (!!) and liked my artwork so much she gave me a hug and a personalized autograph on my copy. Amazing.

My bucket list continues to shrink.

Show-specific design.

Generic design.

My personal copies signed by Katie and Dorian.

Steven Wilson

Steven Wilson is one of my favorite musicians period. He's most well known for his work with Porcupine Tree, but he has a massive amount of other bands and side-projects of comparable greatness. Lately, he's been focusing on music under his own name - most recently a forthcoming concert film titled "Get All You Deserve" in which Steven and his remarkable backing band perform songs from both his solo albums (and even throw in an amazing tune from his upcoming 3rd solo LP).

When I started my Steven Wilson poster back in March or April of this year, it was more closely related to his last studio album "Grace For Drowning" and I very deliberately borrowed the amber color scheme of that record. Since then, Steven announced the previously mentioned live album, so it seemed like a good excuse to tailor what I'd done to the most relevant release.

Thus, I changed the color scheme to match the incredible cover image by Lasse Hoile (Steven's visual partner-in-crime and a huge personal inspiration to me).

The illustration is meant to convey the 2 different sides of Steven - the one explored in his first solo album "Insurgentes" (bottom left) and the one that currently exists in the double album "Grace For Drowning" (upper right). Since the main intent of the poster is for it to be something you'd buy at one of his concerts (i.e. a performance that is inclusive of ALL his solo material), I wanted a drawing that represented both albums up to this point. Hope you like!

Raw, graphite illustration.

First version - obviously modeled after "Grace For Drowning."

Latest version - meant to sync visually with the "Get All You Deserve" cover art.

Steven Wilson official site.

Steven Wilson on facebook and twitter.

Official Steven Wilson street team on facebook and twitter.

Pre-order "Get All You Deserve" for a Sept. 24th release.

Chromatics

If you've seen Drive starring Ryan Gosling, you're familiar with Chromatics, and by extension, their label Italians Do It Better. In fairness, "Tick of the Clock" isn't the track most representative of their sound - their songs are typically more vocal driven - but the majority of their output still is a satisfyingly dark, melancholic take on pop music. Their latest album, Kill For Love, is a perfect example of this.

As tiresome as it's become when describing a band's music, the songs crafted by Chromatics on Kill For Love are genuinely cinematic, to the point where the band are offering a full size 25 x 37" poster of the album's cover art (complete with movie-style credits). Considering how prominent "Tick of the Clock" and "Under Your Spell" (by labelmates Desire) are in the Drive soundtrack (Chromatics producer Johnny Jewel even wrote an entire score for the movie that was unfortunately shelved), the "cinematic" descriptor feels earned for once. As such, when creating a piece for the band, I wanted the artwork to reflect that. Since they already have a poster that you'd find in a theater or box office, I thought I should do something for home video.

I don't know if the imagery is too on-the-nose, but I simply couldn't resist. As you'll see in the thumbnails, I considered including the entire band, or doing multiple versions with different band members (which is still a possibility). Yet, if there's one figure to include, it's singer Ruth Radelet.

Thumbs

Final illustration

Obviously, Frank Miller's Sin City was an inspiration. I generally avoid complex color schemes to begin with, so the plentiful blood seemed like a good opportunity to suggest that color had drained out of Ruth's body.

Final image

A more poster oriented version

Perhaps a full VHS package is in line?

Kevin Smith

I've been a Kevin Smith fan for a long time: his movies, his comics, his amazing Q&A's, and most recently, his armada of podcasts - especially "Fatman on Batman" in which he interviews pivotal figures in Batman's history, usually people from the brilliant Animated Series (i.e. Mark  Hamill, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, etc.). He got Kevin Conroy (the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman from the Animated Series & the guy who has been voicing the character for the past 20+ years) on the latest episode, and what an episode it is. It goes deep, an it gets heavy. It's an amazing listen for any fan of the Batman cartoon. Conroy actually attended Juliard the same time that Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve did (among other great stories and factoids).

At the very end of the podcast, Kevin Smith asks Conroy to give him life affirmations in his Batman voice, like: "Kevin [Smith], you were right to do what you did with Red State at Sundance" and "Kevin, you lost your father, and I lost my parents, but know they still love us." Some really personal and moving stuff that ended up inspiring the drawing I made.

When Smith announced he was doing a signing for his new book at Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, NJ (which would also be filmed for the new season of AMC's Comic Book Men), I knew I had to attend and give Kevin a piece of original art. Almost immediately, I thought of the "Fatman on Batman" podcast...

It was a brutal day (my brother and I waited on line for 6+ hours), but meeting Jay Mewes, Ming Chen, Mike Zapzic, and of course Kevin Smith himself made it all worth it. For all I know, he threw out the drawing as soon as I left, but he seemed genuinely appreciative (and just genuine in general), especially considering he was supposed to sign from 2 to 5pm, and ended up signing from 2 to 10pm - signing stuff people brought, posing for pictures, and talking with EVERYONE who waited.

Hats off to you, Mr. Smith. You're a class act and I hope you enjoy the illustration.

Thumbnails.

The final piece (finished while waiting on line).

Random sketch I did while trying to maintain sanity on line.

Me and the inimitable Ming Chen from Comic Book Men. He liked my Walking Dead t-shirt.

Me and Michael Zapzic (doing an excellent Kevin Smith face), also from Comic Book Men.

My brother, myself, and Jason Mewes (who is just as nice, ridiculous, and vulgar as you'd hope he'd be in person). He graciously took a ton of pictures with people waiting on line.

A few minutes before meeting Kevin Smith.

Me and Kevin Smith (who thought to grab the drawing right before we had our picture taken).