Photoshop The Host – Chris Duke of Motorz

January 29th, 2010

Chris Duke of Motorz posted on his Facebook page a request for anyone to Photoshop Peter of “Family Guy” onto his new “Season 3″ photo.

Chris is a cool guy that I have gotten to know on Facebook and from his show Motorz so I thought I would take him up on his request.

The trick was getting the shirt to fit around Peter’s neck in a natural looking way. After a few tweaks here and there I was pleased with how it turned out.

Chris just posted an article titled “Photoshop The Host” with all the details. See the image I did at the top of the page beside Chris’s picture and at the top of the images below.

You can give it a try too, he has details on his website. Whether you do artwork or not check out Chris’s videos on Motorz. You can also check him out on Facebook and Twitter.

Dandy’s Drive-In T-Shirt Design

January 25th, 2010

Dandy’s Drive-In in Bend, Oregon needed some t-shirts for their business and contacted me about a design they had in mind.

Dandy’s has been around since 1968 and their logo includes a certain styled lettering along with a skater-girl. They wanted to add additional elements for the shirt design like a Camaro along with a few adjustments to the skater-girl.

The adjustments they wanted to see to the skater-girl included adding pushed up long sleeves, change the shorts to jean shorts and add more detail to the skates.

When making adjustments like this sometimes I draw directly on screen and in other cases I sketch on paper first. In this case I sketched on paper first and then later scanned the sketch, redrawing it all in illustrator.

Originally designed for black ink on white and/or light colored apparel they also needed a version for black shirts. There are times in which the same artwork can be used but with this design a version for black shirts needed to be created.

This project went as smooth as any project can go! Dandy’s was great to work with, they knew what they wanted and gave me excellent instructions.

Here is a photo of the two of the girls who work at Dandy’s Drive-In wearing the new shirts.

Happy 75th Elvis!

January 8th, 2010

Oh yeah, I am a big Elvis fan!!!

Free Poster Winner for December 2009

January 8th, 2010

The December contest winner comes from Humble, TX. They chose to win the “1968 Cutlass Convertible” artwork.

Enter today to get your chance to win a free poster!

Happy New Year!

January 1st, 2010

Since we are starting a new decade why not take a look into the future of transportation as it was suppose to be in the video “Magic Highway USA”.

A White Christmas for 2009

December 26th, 2009

Merry Christmas! I had a great Christmas this year and I hope you did too!

To top everything off, we had a white Christmas this year. I don’t think I can remember the last time it snowed on Christmas. Everything was just picture perfect, until it was time to go out and shovel the driveway, sidewalk and deck.

Snow on deck

Even with the foot high snow drifts I still couldn’t help humming “White Christmas” while shoveling.

Mythbusters Rocket Car Pancake Video

December 7th, 2009

Awesome video of a car getting flattened by a rocket.

Free Poster Winner for November 2009

December 2nd, 2009

The November contest winner comes from Portsmouth OH. They chose to win “Froggi” the 1960 Sprite artwork.

froggi - 1960 Sprite

Enter today for the December drawing!

Illuminati Motor Works Concept Car – Seven

November 26th, 2009

illuminati-concept-art

This is artwork of the concept car “Seven” from Illuminati Motor Works.
Illuminati is one of 42 teams left competing for $5 million in the Progressive Automobile X Prize.

The rules for the Progressive Automobile X Prize is that the cars must seat four, have four wheels and have a minimum range of 200 miles. They also have to get the equivalent of 100 miles to the gallon plus be feasible as a consumer product.

The Illuminati Motor Works team members are:
Kevin Smith: Team Leader and Principle Engineer,
Josh Spradlin: Graphic Designer/ Fabricator,
Thomas Pasko: Master Automotive Technician,
George Kennedy: Mechanical Engineer
Nathan Knappenburger: Computer Science and Electronics Engineer.

I have been working with Josh, their graphic designer/fabricator, on creating artwork for the project. Josh does a great job at designing. What I have been doing is taking Josh’s sketches and redrawing them using illustrator.

original-line-work

What makes this project a challenge is that the vehicle is so different from anything we currently see on the road. It not like they can say, “Take an existing model and add this or change that”. So when working on a project like this it is great to have someone like Josh who can direct me on what the final car will look like with his sketches.

Below are links to recent articles about them in The State Journal-Register and the Illinois Times.

The State Journal-Register | Springfield, IL
Local guys driven to win $5M car competition

Illinois Times
X PRIZE team passes the test – Illuminati Motor Works is one of 43 left in international competition

Find out more about Illuminati Motor Works at illuminatimotorworks.org

You can also friend/follow them on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Frankie Pumpkin Carving Pictures

November 21st, 2009

Jason sent me these great photos of a pumpkin he carved using one of the Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencils! He said he used Xacto knives, steak knives and his Dremel tool to complete the job!

Thanks Jason!!

hot-rod-pumpkin-carving-1

hot-rod-pumpkin-carving-2

hot-rod-pumpkin-carving-3

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