Collabo-Ray-tion
In addition to spring, collaboration is in the air! I really like getting to mix things up with other illustrators. And, man, has there been a lot of that going around.
With some art direction from a friend, I tackled an age old concept: Make a black panther ripping through stuff! So, with the concept suggested, I went to work trying to capture all the awesome that such an image should drip in. Really, if it doesn’t look like Lisa Frank mated with the dude from Trapper Keeper (Mad Balls!) and gave birth to a Garbage Pail Kid, I failed. This tee may be up on Woot’s shirt site. If not, My friend and I will likely shop it around. I did create it with the Woot demographic in mind, though.
See a heap of process and a gaggle more designs after the jump.
I just finished two (more direct) collaborations with Kyle, the art director from Electric Zombie. He and I hit it off pretty quickly. One or two Robocop quotes, a mutually professed love for the horror comics of days past, and a love for all things Voorhees and I’m sold. He did the original, blue pencils for this piece “Hatchet Job” which I inked and he colored.
Additionally, I did the coloring and he did the inking and placement/embellishment on “Rot Mouth:”
If you want to see the final designs, he’s trying something novel for his summer line of clothing. He’s already bought all the designs, but he wants the community at large to pick which he’ll print first. Go and vote for eight of these tees now!
I also did the springboard panel for a new collaborative comic at my art collective, Stylus:
And this character for a collaborative skate deck design:
Man. This doesn’t even touch on the two CD booklet/album art jobs, six or so lettering gigs, two branding jobs, or sixteen character designs that are due this week. Or the three tee designs I had due each day since the 9th of last month. Non disclosure agreements, ahoy! Come to think of it, I should probably stop writing this post and…
Apr 9th, 2008 #
Congratulations, Ray! You’ve got a heck of a lot going on, and I’m glad to see you’re capitalizing on many more venues that offer better compensation (at least by my estimation) than a place like Threadless. In all fairness, Threadless can be a good place to experiment with new designs and ideas while trying to get a sense of marketplace reality. I try to encourage artists to get the best possible agreements for their art, preferably either non-exclusive or licensing arrangements so that there are continuous revenue streams for popular and “repurposable” artwork. I corresponded with Jim Benton (creator of the Happy Bunny character) and he said for him the best venue to shop his artwork was the Licensing show in Las Vegas, where you can directly interface with manufacturers. Think about doing it! So many artists have no clue how to work their advantages.
Apr 9th, 2008 #
To clarify, the Licensing show has been held in NY, and is moving to Vegas…
http://www.tsnn.com/blog/?p=88
Apr 9th, 2008 #
I send fun, stress relieving, personal works and the like over to Threadless. 99.9% of my work is commissioned, professional work.
I tend to be very protective of my rights/licensing and only send things that I’m not too partial to!
Thanks for the link to TSNN. I hadn’t heard of that particular venue before. Neato!
Apr 11th, 2008 #
The thing that first interested me in your work was your zombie series, because I’d been drawing zombies for years also (you happen to do it with more style) ;)
Here’s my contribution.
http://www.threadless.com/submission/158492/Punk_Is_Dead
Apr 16th, 2008 #
so u only use? manga studio for all this work ??
and does it export sth that can be used on threadless? cause i dont think it works as vector or it have convertor?
Apr 17th, 2008 #
It exports a raster image. Yes, I use Manga Studio for much of my work.
Apr 23rd, 2008 #
Awesome stuff, as always.
It’s really interesting to see your collabs. I find it interesting when looking at Rot Mouth.. it’s definitely a PenguinX piece but the texture in the tones makes it seem really different than your usual coloring.
The skate deck character… I was left really surprised for some reason, it’s you..it’s your themes, it’s your style of character but.. but..but… angular strokes? Very different. I may need to catch up on some of your artwork but your (digital) pen always seems to flow, your lines bend. But in this case, the elbows, the forehead and the facial bones really pop in a slightly different way than usual. Nice.
It reminds me of how I remember Genndy Tartakovsky’s work on Samurai Jack or Clone Wars.
Glad to see you’re still going up up up in your Illustration career path. Go Ray!
Apr 23rd, 2008 #
I’ve definitely been experimenting with simplification as a means of rapid production. The cleaner and more geometric a character, the easier to draw sequentially. It’s moving away from realism for the sake of iconography too. I’m working on a few comic concepts.