Fury 66- back for one night only!

I was sooo happy to be a part of this event. Fury broke up about 10+ years ago but got back together for one night in Santa Cruz. Fantastic performance and energy. Poster went well too. This is a 6 color screen print on 100# matte cover. Yellow was printed last to overlay several of the other colors and add some extra tones and depth.

Poster Process- RX Bandits

Besides being an amazing band, both in the studio and live, the Bandits are swell guys and have been friends of mine for a long time. We had been talking about doing a poster for months. All of a sudden it's announced that this is the farewell tour, so I needed to move on it or the opportunity would be gone for good. Here's how the poster came together.

Process of Tonights Show Poster

Here's the break down of the 6 colors used for the Slow Gherkin poster. This was kind of a tough one to design because I had inside knowledge of all the bands history, likes and dislikes. I scrapped 3 designs before I settled on this one. I wanted the image to be kid friendly, have a simple clean text layout, have something to do with Santa Cruz and something to do with us growing older. So dinosaur was pretty obvious. I added the old school head phones just for fun. The building behind the dinosaur is the Santa Cruz town clock. His head covers the face of the clock, but if you are from Santa Cruz then this is an easy one to spot. Show should be sold out and prints can be bought at the show for a reduced price. I will have some prints reserved for my website, those will be for sale as soon as I can get to it.

Slow Gherkin- Creating the Group Photo

I'm playing a couple of shows this month with Slow Gherkin- a ska band I started back in high school. Wow, that's a long time ago. Because we are all over the country now a group press shot would be impossible. Here is the solution. Start with a good clean photo of the 5 of us that could be there (by Rudy Ramos) and add in the rest. Time was an issue, and as a result Achilles didn't make it into the final pic due to his low-res submission.


original



Peter's pic was pretty clean, but shot at a much higher level than the original...the feet give it away

Ross' pic was low quality, but large enough to work with- same foot problem

James' boss snapped this and masked it saving me some time- hey look, bad angle again!



Final was cropped low to hide the different camera angles

 I had spliced more background into the final on the left side to make room for Achilles, but then cropped it off anyways.

Getting Back To It

I managed to get into the studio for a bit to draw this up for a friend. Screen printed it on a few jerseys and t shirts for the race. It felt good to clean up the shop and get back to work. I got a new stack of poster paper last week for my next project. Hope to start prepping screens for it in a day or 2.

The boy is here

Bryton James Kent

Me and the little dude

We settled on the name Bryton, a variation of Brighton. Born on the 4th of March- 8lb 4oz Office was finished a day late...not too bad!

More Studio

I'm getting pretty close to wrapping this thing up. Getting power to the new building was lame. The breaker box is in the front of my house, so I ran conduit from there, under the length of the house, out the back into a trench, under all kinds of irrigation pipes up into the new building and into a sub panel. Way more work than you would think. I got all bruised up. Everything was attached and glued up just in time for the rain. All the outlets and switched were placed, then wired to the sub panel. Insulation added, then sheet rock. Walls have been taped and texture will go up tomorrow. I have less than 2 weeks to get it done...should be just enough time.

40 foot trench- 18" deep

sub panel wired up

insulation

sheet rock is up

New Baby = New Studio

We decided a long while back that the new baby would need his own room. The question was where to put my office. There were a few options, but the best was to build a new studio out behind the house. I checked with the county and learned that a structure 120 square feet or less qualifies as an auxiliary building or "shed".  This "shed" could be fully insulated, livable and built without permits. I can work within these rules.  We pulled up a photo of my lot and Dude told me everything looked good as long as it is 3 feet from the property line.

Just before starting

Slab by A.C. Bentley Concrete

Concrete was left alone for about a week

It was some work, but with Dad's help we got the walls up

Walls in place

Roof framed in before being covered with osb

Roof covered with felt before comp roofing put down

I didn't photograph a few steps- frame was wrapped with a moisture barrier, window nailed in, siding hung with trim and vents. Now I need to prime and paint before the next rain. If weather looks to be good for a while I will jump right to electrical.

A large cabinet will go on the outside of this wall



Once the cabinet is finished on the outside wall I will empty out the old metal shed and remove it. I am planning a sandbox for the kids in it's place. I hope to do all this before the summer is over.

Zombie Repellent Logo

My friend Stephanie was having a hard time getting her son Nico to go to sleep. His fear- zombies. A totally rational fear for a 6 year old. Her solution? A quick spray around the room with rose water before bedtime. She told Nico it was zombie repellent and he would be safe all night. Worked like a charm. She will be trying to sell it online soon. Here's to sketches and final I worked up.

first sketch- brain and exposed skull "too scary"

second sketch- worms added

final with text

Fu Manchu Poster

Film positives made

Screens exposed

Screens washed out

Black positive taped to paper- all screens will align to this

First ink pulled- flesh tone

Second color- light green

Third color- brown halftone

Fourth color- dark green

Tavi "helps me" by doing some crazy dance



Fifth color- black

 And that's how it goes. Three very cold nights of printing out in the shop, about 1 hour per color. Posters are 25"X17" printed on 100# matte cover stock. Signed and numbered prints go on sale Saturday Jan 22nd here: http://www.kentdesigns.com/poster_gallery.htm

Logo Progression

I thought it would be fun to post the series of sketches and revisions that go into a logo. Sometimes a client needs to see some changes to realise that it's right the first time. Sometimes I do too.

first sketch based on phone discussion

clothing added and pose altered

back to original pose, tail added to girl, fire added to an altered DD

corset changed to cocktail dress

final black and white version



airbrushed final version- tattoos added





airbrushed fire with back shadows added- this is the final final