Heavily Inked

NOFX posters are done

2012-01-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite poster I've done so far. Simple and clean 5 color screen print. Edition of 77 signed and numbered.

Fury 66- back for one night only!

2011-10-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-31T23:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-02-26T23:12:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

Christmas Stuff 2010

2011-01-04T23:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a few things I made for Christmas gifts. My brother is a huge Lebowski fan...much like myself, so I painted this for him. It's called "I need my fucking Johnson, Man."

My take on the Lebowski scissors

There's a painting very similar to this in the background of the art studio scene. It shapes Lebowski's nightmare later in the movie. The director makes sure you notice it, but it's not really in your face. That's why I like it.

There's a commercial on the Disney channel where a girl is wearing a cupcake shirt. My daughter flips out whenever she sees it, so I thought I would make her one. One became 2.

And finally, the Jelly Belly shirt. I would have just bought one, but the only graphic the company does for little kids is a cartoon jelly bean man that Tavi finds scary. She loves Jelly Bellys so I knew a logo shirt would be a hit. This was an easy 3 color print. Found a vector version of the logo online and broke it apart in about 5 minutes. She can wear it to the factory when we go next month.

Slightly Stoopid Poster

2010-11-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

This was a fun print to do for a couple of reasons. First off, the artwork is fairly loose. Second, it's of good size so registration was no problem at all. This was my first time using Cougar paper (this is printed on 100# matte Cougar cover) and it was another big help in registering each color. This stock dries very flat and that makes all the difference when it's time to get that sheet back on the press for the next color. If it's flat you can slide it right into place. If the edges are curling even a little it's a lot more time spent making sure there's good contact with the registration tabs. I use cut up slices of credit cards taped to the bottom and left side of the print surface. A lifted edge will pass right over the tab and will take a good deal of adjusting before ink can be pulled. It went well enough that I was sad to finish this run. Anyway, this is a signed and numbered edition of 60. 25"X17" inches,6 colors- yellow was thinned down a lot and printed on top of blue in a couple of spots to make a 7th color (green) Show was sold out. Prints can be ordered here: http://www.kentdesigns.com/poster_gallery.htm

And notice the deal for 2010: order any 2 prints and get a T-shirt of your choice for $1

Devil's Daughter logo

2010-11-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

Well, back from a 2 week vacation and right into a week (possibly longer) of jury duty. Leave it to the American legal system to make what could have been a very interesting case a long boring pile of unnecessary facts. In the evenings I have been working on this logo:

I've also designed and set up a poster for Slightly Stoopid. I should be able to start pulling ink this weekend. I'll post photos soon after if I can fix my camera.

One Dollar T Shirts In 2010

2010-10-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to thin out the boxes of shirts and prints in the shop, so here's the plan- buy any 2 prints and get a T shirt of your choice for $1. Men's or Woman's shirts...whatever you like. Holidays are almost here and this could be a fine gift for that special someone. This offer is limited to what I have in stock, and these shirts will not be printed again- at least, not these colors. New designs are in the works (in my head) but I doubt anything will be printed until Jan/Feb.

One Dollar Kent Designs T Shirts

Pacific Coast Pinball Sci-Fi Design

2010-10-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

8 color back

Pocket logo

Finished the back a while ago but just got around to doing the front. The alien will probably be a 4 color print? My instructions for this graphic were pretty simple: hot girl, outer space and pinball machine. This is what I came up with. These will be printed on black shirts only, that way the red in the foreground will have a white under base while the red background will be a fine halftone printed directly on the black giving it a darker tone. All the shadows will be pulled at once with a 305 mesh screen, then the black lines and solids on a 230.

Pin-up T shirts available

2010-09-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have added 2 new men's T shirts to the Kent Designs website:

Pin-up back

Pin-up front

Pin-up design is 5 color back/ 1 color front printed on white only. (Sizes S-XXL) I did a few long sleeves for this design too. Sleeve design will read: The "K" stands for quality. That part still needs to be printed.

Logo design back

Logo design front

Logo shirts are 3 color front/ 3color back printed on Irish Green shirts only. S-XXL
Either shirt can be ordered here for $17 (shipping included) http://www.kentdesigns.com/apparel/kent_pinup/kent_pin-up_shirt.htm

A portion of every sale will go to support The Kent Family Worm Farm, so please, be generous.

I Got Worms

2010-09-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been up late the last few nights studying up on worm composting. Yeah, I know that watching YouTube videos of worms at 2 AM is more than kind of sad…it’s extremely sad. The guy working at the pizza place where I eat lunch (often) has a degree in horticulture and got me going on the idea. (That’s totally Santa Cruz- everyone has a degree in something that can’t be used, and as a result, they work 2 jobs that are totally beneath them to survive.) All my searching of articles and forums gave me a real good idea how to build a continuous flow vermicomposting bin, so I sketched out a plan. Materials and time spent constructing this thing made the “Can-O-Worms” pre-built stacking bin seem quite sensible. I live in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County, and residents like me are offered a bin for only $25 delivered, so it’s hard to beat it. The same bin goes for around $125 plus shipping online. So the bin is on it's way, now I need to score a couple pounds of worms. My daughter is very excited about this and wants to go get them right now. Worms go for around $20 a pound, which, oddly enough is the same price as Fillet Mignon. How weird is that? My wife was absolutely correct when she said “you don’t have the free time to be fucking around with a worm farm.” I’ll find the time.

Red Wigglers

Guido Roofing Screen Print

2010-09-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Printed these up last night and cured them this morning. Black and Royal Blue shirts, polos and sweat shirts. This is a reprint order, but the first run was done only on blue shirts so the character’s blue hat and shirt and the blue of the sky was not printed…just a knock out. This was a way to cut costs for the first run. Black shirts require a blue screen to be added with a white under base under the entire circle. All that under base sucks up the white ink pretty quick. I was adding more ink every 4 shirts. I think this image looks real nice on black. Everything pops better on black.

7 color print still on press

Flipped for your viewing pleasure

Solar post hardening of screens

When I was setting up, the sun actually came out for a bit. This was the fourth time this happened all summer, so it was kind of a big deal. I was able to post harden my screens the fast and free way! Post hardening toughens up the emulsion after your initial exposure and washout. This second dose of UV rays makes the stencil hold up better for a long run, especially when you use a very thin coat of emulsion like I do. Thin emulsion=thin stencil=thin layer if ink laid down=soft final print. This was set up on all 110 mesh screens, except the black was my usual 230 mesh

The rise of Laundry-Bot 5000

2010-09-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

I was really in a so-so mood until I looked in the liquor cabinet. I was expecting to mix up a vodka something or other, but found that my mother-in-law left me a bottle of Jim Beam! Oh man, do I feel better now. Beam and Coke wins every time.

The second most exciting thing going is Laundry-Bot 5000. Laundry-Bot was delivered yesterday and has brightened our lives already. Let me give you a little back story:

5 or 6 years ago we bought a crappy washer and dryer when we moved to Aptos. The woman moving out of the house we were moving into was one of Melody’s co-workers, and if memory serves me correctly, she was moving to Mexico. She needs to sell, we need to buy, the machines are already in place…you get the picture. These junky machines work surprisingly well for about 3 years. Then clothes start getting burns on them in the dryer. We get it repaired but it happens again 6 months later. We buy the house we are in now and another crappy washer and dryer are already in the garage. We’ll call these set B. These suck less than our other ones (but not much) so we keep them. I wheel crappy set A to the curb where they are taken in literally 20 minutes. A couple weeks ago the timer gives out so the dryer won’t shut off by itself. I try to talk Melody down, but it’s no use. The first day we have off together without the kid becomes appliance shopping day. You can see who won that battle. This new rig has a stackable Voltron-like ability that opens up a couple more feet in the shop. As far as space goes, things are getting better and better out there. The hot water heater was originally right where Laundry-Bot stands now, with the old side by side units to the left of it. My father-in-law Vince owns McDonald Plumbing in Sacramento. He moved that hot water heater to the right corner and had it all strapped, plumbed and vented in like less than 2 hours. Amazing. Side note: Now, whenever he comes to visit us for a weekend trip the first question he asks us is “what tools do I need to bring?” It’s usually a long list. Next project: move that fluorescent light on the wall to the ceiling where it belongs.

Art Checks

2010-09-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

First item: Bad Brains posters will be on sale this Saturday morning (September 4th) at 8 AM Pacific time. These are 4 color prints hand printed on 100# matte ultrawhite cover stock, signed and numbered edition of 70. Orders will ship out starting with #1/70 on a first come first serve basis, so move quick.
http://www.kentdesigns.com/poster_gallery.htm

Second item: I need new checks made because I’ve been using the old ones with the wrong address for over a year now. So my wife and I start looking online at various designs. There are literally thousands of designs to choose from and they all suck. I was about to go with the Marvel super villains when I found an option to upload your own photos as check art. Hmmmm…I like that idea. I threw together these designs from old stuff I had done, and I got to say, they look pretty cool. Here they are, you can do the same. First person to pay me with one of these checks gets a bunch of free crap. That’s a promise.

Sample off the website

Make sure to open each up full size before you save it.

Newest Art Prints (Bite Fight)

2010-08-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

This box of prints has been moved around my office for months now. It is now time to do something with them. These are leftover prints from the sports themed poster show Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles put on in March 2010. The show was called “The Greatest Moments In Sports History” and the intent was to capture and/or commemorate a great sporting moment. This was weird for me being I don’t follow sports at all. I mean, other than competitive eating that is. First thing I thought of was Tyson biting off Holyfield’s ear.

Lots of ways I could illustrate this but I opted for a subtle route and did a pin-up style ring card girl. This is a 7 color hand pulled screen print on 100# stock. Edition is only 35 signed and numbered pieces. Price is $35 each, postage paid. It is called “Bite Fight”. Only 50 artists were invited to participate in this show and I was quite honored to make the cut. Prints can be ordered on my site.

http://www.kentdesigns.com/originals/bite_fight.htm

Final Bad Brains prints are done

2010-08-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Here’s how I spent my last couple evenings.

I haven’t counted how may prints in this edition, but my guess is 75 will be signed and numbered. This wound up being only a 4 color print. My original plan was way more complex but once I saw it with the background in place I realized it had a lot more style as a simple cartoon snake rather than one with several colors and fully shaded. I never do this, but it looked really good, so I scrapped the extra layers and changed the halftones. These are a nice size too- 25”X9.5” inches. The black halftones on the background printed super clean and have now changed my opinion of how halftones should be used. I will probably use them much more now. These will be for sale after the show.

This is the usual stacking method

Could it get any better than MST3K?

2010-08-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

So Tuesday night Colt and I drove up to San Francisco to see Cinematic Titanic. This is basically an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 done live in front of about 2000 crazed fans in the Castro theater.

If you don't know anything about SF, let me bring you up to speed...The "Castro" area of San Francisco is quite possibly the gayest area in the world. I'm talkin 2-for-1 cockrings gay. Parking is a nightmare, short shorts are in, skull and cross cocks carved into the sidewalk in front of the theater. That being said- awesome night. I've been a fan of MST3K since I was in a Junior in High School and it was a real treat to see Joel and TV's Frank work their magic live. The movie was "War Of The Insects", a Japanese B-movie that did not disapoint. If you get a chance to go...GO!
http://www.cinematictitanic.com/
The 3 Amigos jumbo pastor on the way back to SC wasn't too bad either. Love that place.

Opening Post/ Bad Brains Gig Poster

2010-08-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is. The first post in my first ever blog. Still not to sure what a blog is, but I guess I'll figure it out as I go. Just got the thumbs up for a Bad Brains poster. One of my favorite bands EVER! I'm pretty excited about it. Sketch is simple...we'll see how close I stick to it.

These will print on 25" X 9.5" stock that was cut special for me by the guys at Sentinal Printers in Santa Cruz. While the paper was being cut, we talked about doing an offset print/ screen print team up. Sounds like a good thing to me.