Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Man Of Steel

Published
by
grzych
on March 5, 2009
in Other Artwork
. 0 Comments

Faster than an speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound…is it a bird? Nah! Is it a plane? Nope! It’s Superman…sort of!

Several years ago I had an assignment back in college to illustrate any current affairs topic of my choosing…the stipulation…I had to us a pre-existing famous piece of artwork as the inspiration for my design. At the time, Christopher Reeve had just suffered the tragic spinal cord injury that put him in his wheelchair and left him paralyzed. With the time that followed, his perseverance to survive against all odds, I saw him more of a Superman than ever before…and I believe he did too. “Man Of Steel” is a 5.5″ x 7.5″ Gouache painting on Watercolor paper.

My inspiration was Pablo Picasso’s painting “Girl In The Mirror.” There was enough tenderness and…no pun intended, self-reflection, that it certainly fit the subject matter that I was trying to illustrate. I went for a more literal translation of the piece and switched out the Girl and here reflection for Christopher and his rather super mirror image.

Above is also my original Pencil Sketch for the painting that I drew on tracing paper then blew up to the appropriate size before transferring it to Watercolor paper and laying paint to paper.

This illustation is probably one of my favorite pieces that I’ve done. I was really proud of how it came out.

Retro Resort

Published
by
grzych
on March 4, 2009
in Other Artwork
. 0 Comments

Over the past ten years of working in the apparel industry I’ve designed numerous textile repeats. Below are two versions of a Retro Tabasco Hawaiian Resort shirt I designed called “Bottoms Up.” What inspired this repeat was the 60’s. That time period had such a great design aesthetic and with “Bottoms Up” I was trying to capture that Atomic feeling.

This was my First Version of the design that I completed. It contained many more fluid shapes as well as an Atomic Star element that my boss insist that I remove for the Final Version.

In the Final Version I was told to add a bit more color along with the removal of several elements. I feel the design still captures the look I was originally shooting for.

Drink Up!

Tattoo…Da Plane Boss, Da Plane

Published
by
grzych
on March 3, 2009
in Other Artwork
. 2 Comments

I’m a big fan on the the tattoo TV shows “Miami Ink” and “LA Ink,” not that I have any tattoos or plans on getting any inked on my skin, but I do appreciate the artwork that tattoo artist create. When I was coming up with new designs for our TYVEK Wallet line at my previous place of employment, I thought I’d present the concept of doing one based on tattoos.  Ed Hardy’s designs, which are tattoo related in nature, had not hit mainstream at that time so I thought that we’d be hitting the ground running with this popular trend. So with that in mind I sketched up the concept design below.

Like most of my sketches, I work pretty closely to my original concepts when it comes to working it up in the computer. I started by sketching out some pretty tight pencil drawings of the individual elements, scanned them in, and then colored them in Photoshop before laying out the wallet design.

The above were my initial color versions of the design. Like the “Rockin’ Guitar” design I posted yesterday, nothing gets by without some tweaking, changes, and alterations…and “Tattoo” was no exception. I won’t bore you with all of the incremental changes between the major ones, but I will share with you the significant ones. After a couple of nips and tucks to the artwork and layout, my boss decided that he wanted to take the design in a different direction, a more monochromatic direction. Below are the results of said demands.

I think that the above version works…it’s just different. However, since my original concept was tattoo art, I still prefer the first version which more strongly captures that feeling. The changes didn’t stop there…after reconsidering and some overt nudging on my part, my boss wanted to revisit the first version…but with some further…modifications.

On the Exterior Artwork, the Winged Heart was replaced with a Lion’s Shield, ribbons were removed, wording changed, etc. The major change was on the Interior Pocket Artwork where the Coy Fish and Lotus Flower were completely deleted and a large Flaming Dagger became the focus. Even though we returned to some of my original ideas, I still lean toward my first attempt.

The elements from this wallet were then worked into a Textile Repeat and placed into various apparel templates as potential future clothing concepts.

So there you go, my first attempt at being a tattoo artist…all-be-it in Photoshop, but a tattoo artist none-the-less.  Enjoy!

Rockin’ Guitar

Published
by
grzych
on March 2, 2009
in Other Artwork
. 0 Comments

It’s been a little while since my last post so I wanted to make sure that I got something up here for everyone to see and enjoy.

The last couple of days I’ve been organizing and backing up some of the artwork that I completed during my last few weeks at my previous job. I had done a series of different designs that were printed and were intended too be printed on TYVEK paper and fashioned into designer wallets. One such piece was titled “Rockin’ Guitar.” Like any design or illustration, it went through countless changes and alterations until it was completed and in the can. The more hands and opinions that deliberate over a design, the more likely it is to mutate from version to version. With “Rockin’ Guitar” the changes were more on the color side rather than the design. There were probably about a dozen different subtle versions, but instead of pasting them all up here I thought that I’d show you just a couple of the different color ways.

Above is the Original Thumbnail Sketch that I did to show my concept and how the design would lay into the wallet template. After the concept was approved I moved right on into the computer and began to execute and illustrate the piece. The powers that be requested that the design be multicolored and bright like a rainbow. I was also told to add several more guitars to flesh out the design. Below is the first colored version I completed.

This is the Full Design that wrapped around from the outside right into the interior of the wallet.

Above is the Exterior Artwork of the wallet as it would appear.

This is the Interior Artwork of the design as it would appear when you opened the wallet.

However, after countless changes in the details of the design and several major color alterations, I arrived at the version below.

I prefer the colors in the final version over those in my original coloration, but miss many of the details that my boss elected to remove. Such is the life of a Graphic Designer/Illustrator!

However, the design did not end there. We were working on new designs for our apparel line as well and since I had the elements already drawn and illustrated, I worked it up into a Textile Repeat to be used on both Lounge Pants and Boxers.

Besides the Textile Repeat, I also created the Lounge Pant and Boxer templates that I placed the artwork into. Click on the apparel above if you’d like to see them larger.

Enjoy and keep Rockin’!