Crown Drawing

March has generally been a busier month with some traveling and a heavier workload. This past week I've managed to take on a side project to get a pencil back in my hand. It's easy for me to get caught up in the digital world and designing on the computer, so I really value breaks that involve paper and pencil. 

A friend came to me asking for a drawing project of two crowns. I was tasked with recreating each crown and adding some design elements to them. Initially both were to get a swirl design added, however, there was a need to make one of the crowns more masculine. I began by sketching out each crown on a 5"x7" piece of Rives BFK. From there I used microns to perfect the outlines. I cleaned up the sketch marks I initially had and then went in to do shading and detailing with various graphite pencils. With that looking well I added the extra design elements. To the queen crown I kept the swirls per request. The king crown provided a bit of a design challenge, but I ended up sketching several options where the client chose one he liked the best. I completed that with the same micron then graphite process to get the final drawings. Below is an animated gif of the progress made with the queen drawing.

Throughout the process I filmed the progress of each drawing with my GoPro Hero 5 Session. I've been experimenting with the time lapse settings and believe I have found the sweet spot. Stay tuned for a future post of time lapse footage. Below are the drawings along with some detail shots. 

When In Doubt...

These words have been dancing around in my head for a while now, and I finally got them properly down on paper. When in doubt, be rad.

It began with a 4H graphite pencil sketch followed by a 005 micron outline. The 01 micron gave more definition to the letterforms with the help of a ruler to straighten some of them out. From there I roamed freely with a 005 blue micron to fill in the RAD.

Evening Rose Sketch

Women Who Ride

I've had this vision in my head of a sticker design to represent women riders. The original photograph came from mrsjjfive's collection, a photo of flat tracker Morgan Monroe. With Morgan joining the Throttle Down Speed Co. team, the image would fit perfectly to not only represent her, but also women riders in general. 

The other evening I attempted to sketch the vision that I've carried for a few weeks, maybe even a couple months now. I took pencil to Rives BFK, took a photo of the sketch, tossed it in Illustrator and vectorize it. The graphite on the textured paper just didn't translate when I did a quick Illustrator image trace, and I was quite unsatisfied with the image. Tonight I took a second attempt-this time micron on Rives. I did most of it in a 02 micron, added detail with a 005 and then filled in the larger areas with a thick Sharpie. Already I was liking the overall image.

From there I tossed the image into Photoshop, added a Black & White filter as well as a Curves layer to make the black and white very prominent and to minimize the middle gray tones. I saved that out and tossed it into Illustrator to do a quick image trace. Since it was hand drawn the line work from the image trace was naturally imperfect. While I like the hand drawn look, I wanted to smooth out some of the line work to make the overall image more clear. Smoothing out the lines would also benefit future vinyl cuts.

To complete the image I added a black background and a thick white stroke around the entire graphic to make the woman rider really pop. Below is the transition from ink on paper to the final vector art. Stay tuned to see future applications and potential sticker and vinyl prints!

Charlotte Kainz 2006-2016

A post about Charlotte Kainz is surely overdue. I officially met Charlotte earlier this year on March 10th in Daytona Beach, Florida. Throttle Down Speed Co. had added her to the newly three-racer team and I was officially meeting her in person. Throughout the season I got to know her more each race, making sure to stop by at her pit at each one. Charlotte even joined the Aid to Injured Riders fundraiser in Oklahoma City. 

On Sunday, September 25, 2016, Charlotte Kainz lost her life racing in her heat in a nasty crash at the Santa Rosa Mile. It will probably be impossible to forget those minutes from the very first text where I asked what the hold up was in the timing, hearing that Charlotte was involved in the crash, receiving phone calls in the moment and simply waiting for the next update stunned and hopeful. My hope was quickly released, she was gone. 

Time has passed for a month and a half and I still have some very sad moments. One of the most satisfying conversations I had was with Nicalee where she suggested that maybe I channel my emotions into a memorial sticker design for Charlotte. We could sell them easily through the Aid to Injured Riders and send the funds to Charlotte's dad. I was already sketching some things, I had an idea instantly, and then news broke that another rider was in very serious condition from a separate race at the very same track: Kyle McGrane. 

A 20 year old girl from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a 17 year old guy from Gap, Pennsylvania both lost their lives in the season finale AMA Pro Flat Track motorcycle race. My flat track family was broken. Nothing made sense. Everyone was hurting. Somehow we managed to lean on each other's broken shoulders and pull together for various fundraisers and memorial services the following month. 

Brent Riley of Access Media Labs designed a beautiful sticker for Kyle and he had helped AIR by printing and donating the stickers for Charlotte that I had designed. Sunday, October 16th the Piston Poppers Raceway held their last race of the season that included a memorial service for Kyle and Charlotte. It was one of the most beautiful things I have experienced. All of the riders lined up with their bikes in the center of the track as Kyle's closest friends and family made a few memorial laps around the track. After a few laps 99 red and blue balloons were released in honor of Kyle and 35 pink and white balloons were released in honor of Charlotte. Even just typing this brings back vivid memories and a wave of shivers. As beautiful as the whole ceremony was, I have to say I was hit the hardest the very first moment I got to the track. I walked up to see who was out there and it was the little ones on their PW50s. One of the kids was sporting a memorial shirt with photos of Kyle and Charlotte, and seeing that broke my heart. The support that day was moving, and I was so grateful to be able to spend the day with my racing family.

I cannot explain how overwhelming the support has been within the motorcycle community. So many people are kind and so many have made generous donations to each of these families and to AIR to support everyone. The entire process is humbling and I am forever grateful to have grown into this racing family and to have met the racers, pit crews, families, friends, fans, everyone. Not only do I get to be apart of such a wonderful group of people, I also get to make art for the sport I've loved my entire life. It doesn't get any better than this, I will tell you that.

Below is my design I had made for Charlotte. I hope you all have at least one of these stickers by now, but if you do not, be sure to send a message to AIR on Facebook. Each sticker is a $3 donation and all of the money goes to Charlotte's family. It's the same deal for Kyle's stickers as well. I hope you represent these stickers with nothing but pride. 

Above is the initial sketch. The 35L was made in Illustrator and printed. I sketched both sides of the wing in pencil and used microns to complete the right side. I only did one side in pen, planning to vectorize that and mirror it on the other side.

Above are the final designs. The one with her name was the one that got printed and sold by AIR. I'm so happy with how it came out, and I hope everyone else is too. RIP 35L & 99A.

"You will always be remembered, you will be celebrated. You will never be forgotten, these tears still haven't faded" - Flatliners - Eulogy 

#TeamBurrito

Now and then I get to do some goofy side projects for fun. It doesn't get much goofier than a #TeamBurrito logo that a few motocross racers wanted for some hoodies.

The logo above started out as a sketch on paper. If I find the original doodle, I'll be sure to add it to the post. I scanned the sharpie sketch into Adobe Illustrator and vectorized it. I kept it one color thinking it would be for screen printed apparel. The moto guys took it to the next level-and got leather patches made for their gear. The person who made the patches added color and they turned out pretty killer.

In order to get some hoodies made, I'm going to add some color to the Illustrator file and do direct to garment printing (DTG), so we can do one-off printing and get as many colors as the guys would like. It's definitely been a fun little project that will soon hit the race tracks! Best of luck to any Team Burrito members racing this weekend at the Loretta Lynn Qualifier at Baja Acres.

Vector Transition

I've been working on a project that includes some vector work and I thought the transition from the photo to vector was visually interesting. See it below.

AmericanMuscle Pet Accessories

A few months ago I designed a few items for a new AmericanMuscle Pet Accessories line. There was a need for a few items that included a bandana (sizes small and large), a pet leash, and a folding pet bowl. The bandana and bowl lead to some unique creative, whereas the leash was much more simpler with just using the brand's logo. All were vector designs in Adobe Illustrator. The bandana originated as a sketch that I scanned and tossed into Illustrator to vectorize and adjust to get the final design. Below are the final products available for purchase at AmericanMuscle.com.

^ AmericanMuscle Pet Bandana

^ AmericanMuscle Pet Leash

^ AmericanMuscle Folding Pet Bowl

The Brintlinger Foundation

About a month ago or so Throttle Down Speed Co. was asked to create something special for The Brintlinger Foundation. The Brintlinger Foundation was created to honor the lives of two very important people within the Flat Track community, Dave and Tyler Brintlinger. Without any hesitation, we took on this project to design a t-shirt that the Foundation could sell as an additional way to raise money. Despite the fact that the Brintlinger Foundation is fairly new, it has made great strides to raise money and pump that money back into the racer's pockets in the Flat Track racing scene. It's proving to be a truly great organization that is focusing its efforts into supporting riders of the sport that has been a love of mine for a lifetime. Needless to say, I wanted this design to be spot on. I wanted it to be something I would be extremely proud of, so I put a lot of time into the concept phase to get it right.

I began with a design of a vectorized colored image of two hands fist bumping based on the initial design direction from the Foundation. At first, I particularly liked it, however, when we received additional design direction to have one of the hands be wearing a glove, I knew the initial design did not quite hit the mark. I let the idea "simmer" as I tend to say, for a few days to visualize a strong design that could be easily transferred to a screen printed design. Eventually that idea was turned into a sketch on paper:

From there I took the drawing into Illustrator to convert the line work into vector shapes and paired it with the initial hand drawn text, "forever remember", that I had written when working on the first version of the idea. When adding the text I realized the image would be better flipped horizontally since the glove hand was larger than the bare hand as shown below.

Once it was all placed together I was happily surprised to see how it worked as a whole. The design was ready to be shown to the Brintlinger Foundation to see the response and if any additional revisions were to be made. The design was well received to say the least and is now currently being screen printed in brite blue like shown below.

I'm really looking forward to seeing these shirts help raise money for this positive organization that is benefitting the Flat Track community. It's an honor to be a small component of their fundraising efforts, and I look forward to seeing what else the organization brings to the dirt track world. Be sure to check out their Facebook and Instagram accounts to stay up to date with what the Brintlinger Foundation is up to next. And be sure to order your shirt either online or at the race track.