Pug sticker

I recently asked my Facebook followers ideas for something cool to draw for a sticker design. I received hundreds of ideas but one that really caught my attention was the pug. There's nothing special about this idea more than any other, but when it was mentioned, I instantly wanted to draw the pug's face. Here's a brief rundown for my work process, which was quick by my standards.

White Tiger

I was commissioned by Swedish fightwear brand Kenka to draw a series of rashguards celebrating the four mythological animals that represent the seasons in ancient Chinese and Japanese folklore. The White Tiger is the symbol for autumn and of the west.

I began with a quick layout idea:

I wanted to evoke the flavour of some really amazing tattoo artwork I have observed of tigers and cherry blossoms, but with the twist of drawing it in my own personal style.

I chose to draw the tiger in pen first:

Then I scanned this into Photoshop, cleaned it up a little, then worked on it some more in Illustrator.

This is the bare bones tiger in vector form:

The branches bit was easy, but the cherry flowers were fiddly. I first drew some basic cherry flowers that were intact and attached to the tree branches:

Then I went to town with 3 or 4 different petal shapes, each one with a nice pink to red colour gradient, then copy and pasted them at random places:

The front panel was simpler, I reprised the tiger and played around with mirroring him along with logo placement. Same again with the sleeves.

The final result is a really neat piece of garment making in my opinion!

Photoshopping a composite together

I don't use Photoshop as much as I do Illustrator. The few functions I do use relate to a little post production work on my photography. But this weekend I was in a tight spot. I needed photographs of a person wearing my new product - a hooded top - but I was running out of time before the product went live.

The above photo was produced by compositing a photo of me onto a stock picture of a brick wall. Here's how I did it...

The curious case of the bewigged lizard

When I met black belt instructor Raphael dos Santos during my trip to Cornwall recently, we discussed the idea of a personal mascot for him. Raphael is known for his ultra low standup stance (despite a strong judo background) and it is a stance often likened to that of a lizard. I sketched out my idea of what I thought would be a cool gi wearing lizard.

I wanted to avoid any confusion of another well known BJJ lizard mascot - the one that Lucio 'Lagarto' Rodrigues uses - which can be seen here. Lagarto's version shows a lizard in upright posture.

When I scanned in the pencil sketch, I then traced over it with the pen tool in Illustrator and all was going well at this point.

I then added shading. I wanted a dark heavily shaded effect, similar to how Spiderman is portrayed in comic books.

But when I posted it on Facebook, I was quite surprised by the comments. There were at least half a dozen very immediate responses informing me that the lizard looked like he was wearing a wig. I simply could not see it myself so I dismissed it as an anomaly only a few could see.

But the comments kept coming which suggested to me that this was not the isolated prank postings of a few internet trolls but a very real problem. I examined the design again. I still was too conditioned in my mind by my concept that I could not see the so-called 'wig' until someone pointed out the spinal shading resembled a middle parting. It then hit me and I could not stop seeing the wig. It was an effect very close to observing one of the Magic Eye posters.

I felt bad that Raphael's logo might be subject to ridicule so I offered to change it (even though he said he loved it the way it was).

I removed the shading, simplified the gi lines and redrew the left arm. This broke up the head adornment effect while still maintained the posture. The end result is a vast improvement I hope.

Mind you...I now miss the wig. Who else in the BJJ world has a wigged lizard for a logo?

Canvas shoe art

I've been having some fun drawing on canvas shoes. I first came across the idea when browsing Instagram. There are a number of custom shoe artists out there and from what I can see, the concept is a very popular one.

Here is a breakdown of my experiences with drawing on shoes...

Heavenly Footlock

The Heavenly Footlock t-shirt is a collaborative project together with Tatami Fightwear, BJJHQ and 93 Brand to raise funds for the charities RAINN and Rape Crisis.

When I first began sketching down the concept, I realised quickly it would be quite a task to get it looking as technically decent as I wanted it, and I needed help too....

Chinese Lions

I have long had a strong personal love for Chinese lions (aka Foo dogs). Stone statue lions stood guard at the Chinese restaurant my parents owned and were the mascot our establishment used on all our branded tableware and printed material. My sister and I loved them. So it's no surprise that I still like to include my interpretations of Chinese Guardian lions whenever I can. The ink drawing I am holding above for example was drawn for my own branded clothing range - a grey hooded top:-