9.30.2009

2 new comissions

Hey! Remember when I said I would do comissions?! That's still happening! If you want me to paint/draw/make something for you, hit me up! Let's talk about it: xadamdx@gmail.com
Here's my two most recent comissions...



This robot with a heart of gold was a commission for my friend Rijel. She wanted to have it sent to her friend on the east coast, who actually builds robots. Nothing as nerve wracking as painting a robot for someone who actually builds the damn things! The background of this painting is metallic green, and the majority of the robot is shiny metallic silver. I painted this right before I started the 100 ROBOTS, so it was a good warm-up.



Shut Up Tim: A Podcast By Robby had us (Break This City) on as guests for their 13th Episode. Tim asked if I would paint him something, so I had it done in time to hand over during the episode. You can listen to the thrill of seeing a new painting for the first time... yea. I figured something that looked sort of 'tattoo flash art' would be good since Robby has a bunch of traditional looking tattoos. Obviously, I was switching between this painting and the robot above, as they both have the same silver-and-gold paint.



9.29.2009

Give and ye shall Receive!


My friend Nnekay moved recently. It's those times in our lives when we actually have to pack up everything in the space that we've been occupying that we realize, "Geeze, where did all this stuff come from!?" Nnekay found all of these old art supplies from college that had gone untouched for years, and offered them to me. Aside from a few tubes of paint having gone bad, there was a bunch of stuff that I could use (she also gave me a bunch of canvas boards that I've been using, and which also gave me the idea to use canvas panels for the 100 Robots project). In return I said I'd paint her something. Since most people are crappy at keeping these sort of promises, I think she figured I'd never get around to it. Well, I made good on my promise and painted over a painting I'd started a few years back, turning a human heart into an owl! Here's a better look at the painting:


"Nnekay likes Owls" - 18" x 18"

The scrolls were in the original painting of the heart, and I turned the whole thing upside down to make it into an owl. This'll probably be the first in a series: "Tamar like Kittens", "Renee likes Unicorns", "AJ likes Coffee", "Stephanie likes Points"... man, I'm gonna be busy!
Oh, and here's a picture of Nnekay enjoying the painting:



JUMP PHOTO FTW!!

9.28.2009

100 ROBOTS - 005/100

(From 100 ROBOTS)
The first five robots are complete! Here they are for you to meet:

 
Name: GENE R1CK
Serial #: X320204AD77-00001

Function: PUBLIC SPEAKING, CHILDREN’S BIRTHDAY PARTIES


Name: SPR0CKETT
Serial #: X320204AD77-00002

Function: SCOUT, EXPLORATION


Name: OLEDB
Serial #: X320204AD77-00003
Function: DATA, CHARTS, SPREADSHEETS




Name: HASH TACH
Serial #: X320204AD77-00004
Function: METALWORKING, BALLOON ANIMALS



Name: MELV1N
Serial #: X320204AD77-00005
Function: EXCAVATION, TRASH SORTING

These robots are in the mail and on their way to their owners. Want one of these paintings?! They're only TEN DOLLARS, postage paid. Check to see which numbers are still available on by checking the chart on the right hand side of this site and shoot me an email: xadamdx@gmail.com 

9.22.2009

PUNK ROCK ART!!

My friend Rich asked me if I could make a flyer for a show he was putting on last month. I was pretty busy working on some other stuff that day but I was still able to whip this out in about half an hour. It reminded me how much I enjoy making flyers, and how I haven't made any in a while:



It also got me thinking: No one really makes flyers for shows anymore. Sure, they might make some graphic that they can post up all over the internet, but gone are the days of stapling and taping physical paper copies of these things to street poles. I mean, it's a lot of work with pretty limited results, as far as I can tell. Still, I've always enjoyed making flyers so I thought I'd share a few that I've made over the years. Most of them are for my old band DESA (yea, in case you are reading this and didn't notice, we're inactive. Go eat a sandwich or something...) but I'd be into making some of these for other bands out there.



I think that people who only make flyers in photoshop need to turn off the computer sometimes, break out the glue stick and scissors and go to town! As much as I like being able to use the shortcuts a computer has to offer, there's nothing like laying something out by hand.




While this flyer IS photoshop, the red layer is actually from a weird old-school copy machine that had a seperate red toner built into it! I had a lot of fun making flyers with that copier, I felt like the flyers were a little more special with that touch. We used this same weird anatomy mishap for a t-shirt design, although the swear word near the lower hand was changed to something slightly less offensive: OAKLAND.



Hey look, it's one of my robots! Oh no, he's been shot! I don't know why I bothered putting this flyer together in photoshop other than I wanted a chance to color this poor dead robot. I'll probably wind up using the illustration for something else at some point. Anybody want this robot on a t-shirt?



Originally I wanted to draw the entire band for this flyer, but I had a hard time finding good reference photos for the rest of the band. I also ran out of time. I still had a bunch of these flyers about an hour before the show, so I walked up and down Telegraph avenue taping them to poles and handing them to people.




I submitted this to Facing New York when they had a t-shirt design contest. I submitted it late, which works out for me because they never used it, so I can still use the graphic someday! My wife really likes this design.



This was the original index page image for Break This City, before it was a podcast. I wanted to start a site similar to Buddyhead, but realized I wasn't as mean-spirited as them or motivated enough to update the site on a regular basis. I drew this with a black ball point pen on some really thin crappy paper.

So! Just putting it out there! Do you have a band? Need a new shirt design? A cool flyer/poster design for an awesome show? Hit me up, maybe I can help you out: xadamdx@gmail.com

9.18.2009

*ONE HUNDRED ROBOTS! UPDATE!*

I T !   H A S !   B E G U N ! ! !




All one hundred 6" x 6" canvas boards were waiting at the front door when I came home from work today! ROBOT PRODUCTION BEGINS NOW!!!!
Want one of these robot paintings? They're only $10, postage paid! Reserve your number now! Email me at xadamdx@gmail.com


My old paintings are scary

My wife asserts that I stopped drawing scary stuff once we moved out of the AK Press warehouse in the less-than-stellar neighborhood of West Oakland. While this is true, I think I just get more enjoyment out of painting silly things that everyone can enjoy rather than creepy stuff that only goths and metalheads gravitate toward. Plus, I'm never going to be the next HR Giger, I just don't have the patience/desire/OCD to do it!
These are paintings that I did a long while ago that I gave to my friend AJ to put up in his house. I took the pictures with my iPhone camera. Let's give them a look:

"For Everyone A Last Re: Gard" - 9" x 12"
AJ came up with the words on the banners. I told him I needed to fill in the blanks, showed him the amount of space I had to work with, and about a minute later he had it for me. I based this on a sketch I did, but didn't do a very good job plotting it out. It's really lop-sided.

"Zombie Clown" - 11" x 14"
I'm not really sure how I wound up painting this, but of the three I like this one the best. It reminds me of a clown painting Grandma Davis had in her house in Fresno. As creepy as this painting is, that painting was way creepier. I really like the lines radiating out from the clown.
"Evil of two Lessers" - 24" x 36"

I think this was the first painting I did, and I painted it not in the warehouse but while I was living in midtown Sacramento. The weird lines of text are from a rubber stamp. I'm pretty embarrassed of this painting, but AJ actually asked me if he could have it.
So there they are! Aside from plans to do some zombie paintings soon, I don't think I'll be returning to painting Skinny Puppy-inspired paintings again anytime soon.

9.17.2009

Fill in the Blank (Space)

I just cleaned out an old binder to re-use and found all these doodles I did during my Anthropology class last spring. I'm posting them up here as an example that you can draw in class and still be a good student...
(Click to enlarge)





9.15.2009

*Drawing Challenge #2 Update* & the Winner is...

"A jellyfish eating a PB&J sammich (and realizing it's cannibalism!)" - Property of Jen Rexy (9" x 12")


Here's the winning painting birthed by Drawing Challenge #2. I took a little longer to get started on this guy than I had originally planned, but once I started the whole thing came together really fast. I'll be mailing this off to Omaha as soon as I finish with this post. I'll do Drawing Challenge #3 once I've started the One Hundred Robots project (which will begin as soon as I get my order of canvas panels in).


9.09.2009

Fat Kid Falls Down

"Timmy Doesn't Know Anyone At This Party" - 12" x 12" - SOLD

Let me give you an example of how easy it is to commission a painting from me: My friend Chris Walters Dot Com was over at my house, probably shoving hot dogs in his mouth or looking up disgusting things on the internet. At one point, he was looking through my sketch book and saw this post-it note drawing:



He said, "Hey, if you do a painting of that I'll buy it."

So I did.

Easy, huh?

And check it out, it's not a robot OR a dinosaur OR a zombie OR a skull! It's a sad little turtle at someone's birthday party!! (...ok, fine, he could have descended from dinosaurs, thanks jerk... that's a nice brain you've got there...)
Want me to paint something for you!? Shoot me an email and we'll talk about it: xadamdx@gmail.com
Chris, AJ & Roman have been hard at work, and they want you to see this:



If Chris had changed his mind during the time that it took me to paint this, I probably would have just sent it to this kid:


9.03.2009

"With great copycat comes great copycat-ibility!"

My friend Karl Frey unearthed this drawing of mine from circa 1991:

Yup, those are some superheroes we came up with back in junior high school.

What the heck is that thing on the scarecrow guy's shoulder?

Why is claw guy giving us the Forearm Jerk (basically The Finger in France) while throwing some dice?

What did that weird little anime girl eat to make her fart out electricity!?

How is that flying guy's anatomy even possible?!!?

Pure geniuses, us.

Click on Karl's name back up there at the top to check out his astute observations about our comic book influences. I would write my own but I'm laughing too hard.