No Skulls this time....

I'm no gear head, but I've always wanted to do some car based designs. I finally got to do so this summer, a T-shirt design for the "Cache Valley Cruise-In", a big car show in Utah. The Beach Boys played there this year, which explains the surfin theme. The car itself is a 1936 3 door coupe, brush inked and colored in photoshop. By the way, this is the second ink design I've done since school ended. The other was a design for slash that I'll post later (it's up on the website if you want to take a look).

Notes from the Minister of Propaganda

It's been a busy year. Breaking the ice online and posting again has been tough, none the less: Here are the Three shirts I've done for Slayer in the past year. A big step up from the first I think.

It's been 2 years of brutal confrontational artwork and a serious desire to draw beautiful and funny things has taken hold. There's a few pieces in the pot right now. I'm convincing myself it's not portfolio work. By calling it personal work I'm hoping to chase off the twin demons of perfectionism and procrastination. In addition I've been going to Sketch night at the Society of Illustrators (note: this is me finally taking advantage of living on Manhattan). There's live drawing, (good) live music, and an open bar. (note: like many good things in NYC, the Society closes down in August)

Anyway here is my year with Slayer. Apocalypse (top one, and my personal favorite) and Altar of Sacrafice (2nd down) are on sale in Europe through the EMP catalog. Invasion is on tour with the band (3rd one). Don't worry, my desire to draw the pretty and humerous doesn't mean I'm softening up. It makes total sense that my first major break was depicting Blood and Guts. I just want my portfolio to make me eligible for work as something other than Satan's Minister of Propaganda.

SLAYER!

A shout of triumph echoed dramatically through the NYC streets when I learned that Hot Topic had selected my Slayer illustration for nationwide distribution. If you don't get to the mall all that often you can always check it out on their website. There's also a Rush tee that they picked up, but I couldn't find it on their site.

Now it's hard to imagine showing this piece to Bill Maughan, or my in-laws for that matter, but to me this is a big freakin deal!

Memory lane and a personal favorite from the Clinton Era...

Back in 1997 I had the day job and a couple of minor illustration gigs. There was, and still is, a magazine called lollipop that I used to illustrate articles for. Every month I'd make pictures for 2 columns, one was about horror movies, the other about booze.

You can guess which column the Minotaur drinking Malt Liquor is from. For some reason I still love this piece and it sits framed on a shelf in my living room. It's everything cool and everything infuriating about a drawing style that dominated my work for over a decade. Yes the cloud of spirits escaping from the bottle is too busy to make sense, the hatching has no real plan to it, and the anatomy is funky as hell even if it is stylized. Believe it or not Bryce Cook one advised me to throw it away! None the less, great love for it remains, and now share it with You!

Limited Edition Motorhead Poster!!!

The Motorhead piece I did back in January has been made into an 11x17 poster! It's available at their web store:
Check it out!
Come on Manar you know you want one!

In Progress... NuLich

The funny thing is, a year ago I'd consider this finished.
I have a fistful of unfinished pieces and roughs chosen to
bring to a finish as work proceeds on other stuff. Please
give your opinions and advice. I want this one to fulfill all
of it's potential and the old Chestnut St. studios crowd is
about as far removed as they can be in the continental US.

So I have to air my issues on the web, where process is recorded
for posterity. It's not very romantic, kind of kills the magic and
mystery, but it's what we have.

I have a grown up website now!

It was a long time coming, but the "under construction"
label can finally be removed from my website.

www.ericjohnsonillustration.com

It's not just about presentation, there's also some stuff
that I've never posted on my blog. This includes bandmerch
and two unfinished pieces I've never shared before.
Please check it out and come back often!

After long delay - DD image number 4

Some dark ritual!
With horror based images I like to depict the moment you walk
into a place and realize you shouldn't be there. There's a split second
between figuring out what you're seeing and the second the monster
sees you!

Number Three....Enter The Unknown

DevilDriver Tee number three...
This one is my personal favorite.
It's not among the Eurotourtees,
but will probably be used in the States...

It was explained to me that DevilDriver
refers to a bell used in Sicilian Witchcraft
to ward off evil spirits during rituals....

Gary

DevilDriver Tee#2 Gary...
The art director said
"I'm thinking about someting like a goat
mixed with a bear, holding a knife!"

Play along with me for a second here....

Let's say you're in Vienna tomorrow and you get the desire to hear
some Live METAL! Go to the Szene Wein and you can see DevilDriver.

Last month I did five shirts for these guys, all original paintings,
four of those shirts are being sold on their current European tour.
In August they'll be on the main stage at Ozzfest.

Four of those shirts are on sale with the tour in Europe now.
Now that the tour has started I can share them.
Not all at once of course, I'm gonna milk it.
Here's piece #1.

"Exorcism"

Website down!!!

So my website is out of order for the moment!
It needed upgrading anyway and definitely a domain name change.
A proper update will take some time, but I'll have something simple
up asap and will post any updates to here for now.

On another subject: I've come to realize the Art Director I've been
working with is right, I'm almost phobic about using color. I love a
restricted palette, but this has gotten absurd. Look at that Minotaur
piece, the Lich, the Talhoffer Deathknights and you'll see a distinct lack
of Chroma.

A change is already coming. It's happening in work I've been producing
for the past few weeks. As soon as it can be posted it will be! For some reason I've been able to take a step forward that just wouldn't occur while working on personal stuff. For me, complete artistic freedom is overrated. Creativity is alot like gasoline, properly contained and concentrated it's explosive, but a puddle of it left on the ground will evaporate in moments. Properly harnessed and given a structure to operate in, it can take you thousands of miles.

That's all for now.

Witchlady of the Spice Planet

Something new...

A quick iconographic piece inspired by Sergio Toppi, and the
David Lynch interpretation of Frank Herbert's classic tome.

Buffalo Minotaur!

Portfolio building is a constant process...
Gotta love them Minotaurs!

Original Painting for Motorhead.... part 2

This painting was also produced for Motorhead as a T-shirt design.
The band itself approved the image, which is a huge deal to me!

Too bad both didn't get picked up,
but I love this one and am proud to finally show it off!

Original Painting for Motorhead.... part 1.

First post in four months! I'm sorry for that. I've been busy designing shirts and other merchandising pieces for bands like Iron Maiden, Them Crooked Vultures, Sebastian Bach, and others, including Motorhead. This is one of two pieces of original art I produced for the band.

This was the piece that didn't get used:

Happy New Year Lich!

Liches are undead wizards! Unholy bastards that sacrifice their corporeal bodies for untold power! I've been working on a few lately, this is the first to be displayed:

Quicksketch.... Talhoffer Deathnights.

I've been working on Liches and various undead warriors. Talhoffer's fighting manual was an inspiration for this piece. Even Deathknight's have to practice their chops!

Season's Priorities...

First of all I'm not dead or anything and I haven't given up on posting. December was an incredibly busy month and some promises, like writing about IlluXcon, have had to fall by the wayside.

So I ask you: Is it better to write post after post about the incredible volume of original artwork, name drop the Dozens of Illustrators and Art Directors I got to meet, or yap about the demos and talks that peppered the convention; Or should one shut up and use the event as a jumping off point for the next body of work?

It's one of those situations where you have to define your priorities. I've prioritized working over discussing work and things are going extremely well. I'll brag a bit about the Music stuff when I confirm what's okay to brag about and post. Right now it's mostly design work, and I've been doing it full time lately. The new pieces are all fantasy oriented monsters, much like the work done in preparation for IlluXcon, which went over very well there.

More to come...

The Past in Prosthetics...

An illustration for Massdevice for an article about the history, and future of prosthetic arms. They're an online journal for medical technology under development in New England. I'm afraid some of their readers are going to link onto my website and be completely horrified. They wanted a DaVinci-esque flair and we're both happy with the results.

Yes, I realize I haven't posted regarding IlluXcon yet! Indeed it was amazing and I did have a blast. I'll be posting pictures and a little article about what went down soon.... Very soon!