After seeing the 2016 Fantasy Disc Golf calendar with work of disc golf artists, John Dorn and Manuel Trujillo; I knew I had to inquire to see what it'd take to get on the 2017 team. the 2017 team of artists included John Dorn, Manuel Trujillo, Benjamin Hopwood, Duncan "Skulboy" Crawford, Steven Colatriano, Cooper Harkins and myself.
I was assigned the months of August and November. I've always wanted to do more themed disc golf illustrations. I appreciate John giving me the chance. August (Summer) got me interested in revisiting some Tiki artists I found while I was researching for a mural project years ago. Brad "Tiki Shark" Parker and Tom Thordarson really inspired this tiki piece. November early sessions had cornucopia themes in mind but as soon as I saw great fall reference, I switched to a forest scene with stirring foliage. I found these neat fire tornadoes while searching as well. One thing led to another. Really pleased with how both pieces turned out.
This is exciting and new for me. My prints are available here!!:
High Quality Archival Prints
More affordable option
3rd Red & White Showdown
Every year, the Disc Golf Club at NC State hosts fundraiser tournaments to gain funds to go to the Collegiate Championships. I was called up this year to do the stamp again and wanted to best my attempt from last year. Nash Stalling reached out to me and let me know that this year they had an exciting plan to host the tournament at Knight Play Golf Center in Apex, NC. It's in the top 100 practice facilities in the nation. This is a supreme spot with beautiful grounds for disc golf. The whole course is lit so hopefully disc golf can facilitate during the winter months.
Since Knights Play is a first, we wanted to play off the combination of a knight and wolf. My direction from the club was to combine the two. Right away my mind went to one of the most influential fantasy painters; Frank Frazetta and his piece called "Death Dealer". The painting frames the horses strong silhouette. He looks sinister with his eyes beaming out the shadows. It's personally one of the most iconic Frazetta images so I knew I couldn't reference it directly. My initial two sketches were enough to get me rolling. I wanted the Knight mounted upon his horse with the wolves flanking to his side.
In the end, we chose option 1. It doesn't capture the movement like the second option but I love that the leader of the pack is out in front. Which brings the importance of the Wolf pack and the whole reason I'm able to do this stamp for them. I hope the tournament is a hit and will definitely be out playing the temp course if it's available again. Here's where you can sign up and you only have till the end of the 28th to do so!
http://www.discgolfunited.com/disc-golf-tournaments/event-detail.cfm/tourn_id/4203
Axiom "Black Widow" Vanish
I've had the honor of working with MVP Disc Sports and Axiom Discs a lot this past year. They needed some reinforcements for this years Halloween themed stamp. Spider 2.0. Very first question I asked myself is how I'm going to stack up to the original design by hot stamp legend, ZAM.
Expanding on the iconic black widow that was on the first release was the focus. I had a lot of fun and it was a definitely a stamp I learned from. With the core being lighter in color than expected, I had to shift focus off of just lighting hints from the initial plan and add black contrast to the spider. The stippling technique and use of the natural disc color, played a huge roll at the end.
I want to thank Axiom Discs and MVP HQ this opportunity. During the rough phase, all the staff really helped to dial this in. Definitely was a group effort. It's a big release trying to follow up to their first Spider stamp.
2016 MVP Fan Page Stamp
A collaborative stamp between Skulboy, ZAM and I, that started brewing in a Facebook chat with Brad and Chad Richardson from MVP & the MVP Fan Page Facebook group leaders. Initial conversations started around November 11th 2014.
The initial idea I pitched when ZAM and I were brought on to the special project was to immediately ask Skulboy if he wanted in. ZAM has played a huge roll in MVP Disc Sports and Axiom Discs. He's created most of the artwork, website and creative work coming out of Marlette, Michigan. To bring in Skulboy would create a 3 piece. So right off the bat we came up with the pyramidal design. Fans of the page have been also combining the MVP and Axiom vinyl on their vehicle to create a pyramidal theme too. This HAD to be it.
We all decided we wanted to place things within the stamp that only die hard MVP fans would get. These are the kind of people around the world that make up the fan page. Displaying the sense of community within the design, essentially. Doc Volt, Aliens, Tesla, Einstein and other tie ins made the cut. ZAM said this about the stamp:
"Tesla brought his mother-ship to lift the pyramid and the brother saucers are delivering a 9-hole course of Portals. Einstein sinks a huge birdie while Madame Wrath and Doc Volt are like ".......this guy with his science"."
I'm really happy all 3 of us came together, found time and finished this.
In the end, While none of us could make the event, the live stream MVP posted on Facebook got us close enough. Definitely glad the stamp was a hit within the MVP Fan Page community.
2016 Innova Pumpkin Design
Every year since 1996, Innova Champion has put out an annual "Pumpkin" edition stamp for the Halloween season. Every year.. until this year, they've kept the theme consistent with the standard jack o' latern. After doing a first set of sketches and teasing a few skull designs toward the end of the thumbnails, Adrian Southern over at Innova mentioned the de los muertos theme and sugar skulls. So many possibilities and to give it a chance and see what comes out of the experiment.
I worked closely with Zeb Campbell and Adrian over the course of multiple revisions and options. The general consensus was the love of the bat wing basket. The challenge with this design was to incorporate the detail you see with common sugar skulls but keeping it simple enough where carving it could be believable.
Over the course of a few weeks, It led us down a few rough passes and we ended up Frankensteining parts of the final 4 to create one design. Here is 2016's Pumpkin Design. Thanks to Innova, Adrian and Zeb for having confidence in me to put something out against the grain. Hope you all like.
You can purchase them here: http://dgustore.com/index.php/specialty/holiday-discs.html
2016 USDGC "Paul McBeth Commemorative"
This stamp is a staple to every US Disc Golf Champion in years past. The following year an artist will be chosen to commemorate the champion on a Collector Roc disc. I was asked this year if I'd like to take a stab at designing Paul McBeth's 2015 win. There will be 700 of these discs made. 500 available to the USDGC Partners and 200 available at the USDGC in Rock Hill, SC. The few limited discs at the event will be an opportunity for McBeth to sign if the buyer chooses.
If you don't know who Paul is; He's the #1 Rated Player in the World, PDGA World Champion 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, 2015 Innova Team Captain, 2015 Grand Slam (All Majors), 3x Memorial Champion, 2x European Open Champion, 2014 European Masters Champion, 2013 Copenhagen Open Champion, 4X National Tour Champion.
Going into this design, I've never been more nervous. Busting out page after page of thumbnail ideas, a couple different directions with the rough phase and then tweaking the final until it was ripped from my hands. I felt that this design, more than anything, could be my biggest opportunity to show what I can do. At the beginning, the intent was to create a design encompassing Paul's Grand Slam achievement last year (5 Major tour wins). So going into it, I initially thought about 5 sided shapes, Paul himself, and something that encompasses the names of the events he won.
The end result doesn't feature what a lot of the thumbnails had in them. The idea to honor McBeth as the 2015 US Disc Golf Champion felt a bit more important and fit with past years winners. Innova previous produced a "Grand Slam" stamp so it seemed fitting to make this a nod to his win.
I want to thank Adrian Southern, Jonathan Poole, DGU, INNOVA and everyone involved in critiques for giving me these three shots at 2016 USDGC artwork. What a ride.
9/11/2001: What were you doing?
I've told this story before and will likely share it to my grandkids and great grandkids.
9/11/01: Where were you?- I was oblivious to anything happening that day. "The Crucible" is a last and final test of every Marine recruit. That's where I was. Marine Corps Recruit Depot-Parris Island. We were on the outskirts of somewhere, tired, cut off from anything in the world. I remember the next early morning after 9/11 we were woken up early like recruits before us. Dog tired, dragging ass.
We completed our morning obstacles and all the recruits were brought into one place to eat lunch. There was a silence among everyone. We were used to that. We were hardened at this point. Well disciplined & tired.
The Battalion Commanding Officer and Sergeant Major made a visit. I honestly thought this was part of this whole experience. The pep talk before the final push. The Sergeant Major simply held up the front page newspaper. You could hear a pin drop. You could tell they were distraught, tired, pissed off and confused like the rest of America. Not only were we told about the World Trade Center but also the Pentagon and Flight 93 events. I think everyone sitting near that old air strip thought we were going to be on a plane heading somewhere as soon as we graduated.
3076 and the rest of the graduating class carried on and finished the Crucible. America carried on but we will never forget. Thoughts always go out to the thousands, if not millions, of families affected by 9/11 and the aftermath.
2016 MVP Circuit Series-Raleigh
This design has been in the works since 2015. The goal was to get the new MVP Circuit established as a major hub in Raleigh, NC. Three known MVP artists would have the go ahead to create custom stamps for their events around the U.S. Skulboy out of California, ZAM in Texas and myself following up in the Carolina's. 2015 passed and honestly, I did more talking than action. Fast track to 2016 & I had this stamp kicking on the back burner. Disc Hunt rose to the challenge to make the circuit happen!
The design inspiration roots from multiple sources. I grew up watching "Short Circuit" and the star of the movie, Johnny 5. His actions in the film when discovering new life outside of the escaped NOVA laboratory, is what I remember most. Goro Fujita also draws a huge inspiration to this design with his famous robot characters. His ability to strip away the baggage and create simple, beautiful and bold illustrations made a lasting impression. I wanted to start this series with the "City of Oaks" acorn correlation.
Below is the scratchy sketches to final draft. I want to thank Disc Hunt, Jay Pontier and everyone else that stepped up to get the MVP Circuit Series started in Raleigh.
2016 Solitude Open presented by MVP Disc Sports
Tournament Director, Brian Usher and MVP Disc Sports joined forces to present a PDGA Pro A-Tier and Amateur B-Tier event called the 2016 Solitude Open presented by MVP Disc Sports just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The event is hosted at Solitude Mountain Resort and features 18 holes down this beautiful mountainside. One, if not the best, mountain disc golf course in the country. Players will have to travel to the top using the ski lift and the tournament is a must for many top tier disc golfers in the region. While looking up reference of this mountain course, what instantly struck me were the beautiful aspen trees. Their texture, contrast and unique trunk lines allowed me to play around with shapes within the viewer. By using a simple two point perspective, it keeps the design simple and centers on the player's path, landscape and event logo.
Brian came to me in full trust to illustrate everything and anything that spoke to me about Solitude and what the course offers. We worked closely together to explore a few ideas. A sense of vastness, trees & wind vs. player, clash vs. harmony. After a few thumbnailing sessions we landed on the idea of just how massive the Solitude disc golf course is in relation to the competitor. You will see in the development sketches that we explored the idea of having multiple figures in the stamp but it ultimately came down to the "you and the course ahead" mentality and I think it worked perfectly within the composition. I really enjoyed working on this design and was honored Brian and MVP teamed up to get these produced in a 2 foil set up. Black being the base color while an accent color is used for the Solitude Open event logo. It allows a good choice of variety to the event and player's packs.
If you are interested in scoring one of these fundraiser discs for the 2016 Solitude Open, please get up with Brian Usher at brian@brianusher.com
https://youtu.be/eMdJqFPiSVo
The 18th Annual Great 8
This year's Great 8 presented by Cary Area Disc League didn't feature fighting Octopus or an anchor. It showed a unique twist on Fibonacci numbers and the "Golden Spiral." The popular sequence by both mathematicians and artist alike, features a spiral that grows or shrinks with every quarter turn. In non-mathematics vocabulary, it's an interesting equation that had the Freemasons absolutely obsessed and people scouring Google maps to find anything relating to the golden rule. It's fascinating and something you should dive down the rabbit hole while listening to Tool's "Lateralus".
Tournament Director of the event, Jay Pontier, had an idea in mind and it was my job to execute the "Disconacci Sequence". My initial thought was that of a nautilus shell to keep with the ocean theme of last years event. I quickly realized a more simple approach was the way to go. The spiral in itself speaks the intent.
1 tournament 8 courses 144 holes.
I want to thank Jay Pontier and the Cary Area Disc League for giving me these opportunities over the past few years.
2016 Champion Roc+
When the opportunity comes along, you don't pass it up. Innova gave me that chance by reaching out after the success of the first Collector Roc release just a month ago.
Going into this design, the window was pretty open. The must-have items were "USDGC 2016/ Champion Roc+" I was able to come up with a few ideas on an initial thumbnail sheet that sparked a bit more exploration. Below is the entire beginning to end phase of design, implementation and cleanup.
Thanks to Innova Champion Discs for reaching out and giving me another opportunity to contribute to this year's United Disc Golf Championship Roc releases. The Roc+ art will be available to all Innova wholesale dealers worldwide!
2016 Basket Bashers
Soon after I finished the Jen Sawyer "JSaww" stamp, I received a buzz from Jerry Pectol, owner of Basket Bashers Disc Golf. Jerry just wanted something that was going to spark interest within his community of clientele. Didn't matter what, but he mentioned the previous artwork that I've done and just had to stay tasteful, as his demographic stretched a wide variety.
Going into this stamp, I wanted to improve upon his Basket Bashers logo immediately. I was lucky enough to hit it on the first go and it was smooth sailing from there. I want to thank Jerry for giving me the creative liberties few actually get. If you're interested in getting a disc with this image on it, please hit up Jerry at basketbashersdiscgolf@aol.com
33rd Dogwood Crosstown Classic
This year marks 33 YEARS! that the Dogwood Crosstown Classic would be up and running. That's just absolutely ridiculous. Since 1984. Not the longest run tournament in the country but certainly up there with the World Championships.
I got the call to do this years Crosstown from Assistant TD and Cary Area Disc League founder, Jay Pontier. He had an "X-Town/ comic" idea in mind. With the recent boom of Marvel and various comic movies out in theatres the initial idea was of an X-Men theme, some sort of battle between good vs evil. I did one idea on a sheet with a bunch of Dogwood ideas while waiting in the Jury Duty room at the courthouse. With something as unique as the dogwood tree, I just had to stick with the common theme. Maybe next year I can explore a bit more outside the box. This was my first time designing for this tournament and I appreciate Bobby Henn and Jay Pontier for letting this year's Crosstown stamp be in my hands.
Below shows the steps we took from thumbnail to finished stamp. You'll see my first take on the initial idea. As soon as I started tree thumbnails sketches, it was the experimentation of asymmetrical versus centered tree and also circular and rectangular shaped stamps. The final stamp has 33 dogwood flowers spread on the ground, with the center Dogwood being one that's been used in past stamps.
Thanks for taking a look!
UFO Glow creation
Tim Robbins and Will Davis of Disc Hunt approached me for a product they were getting ready to market called UFO Glow. They loved the art I used for a disc golf doubles event last year called "Crazy Chain". I love creating that type of style and was happy to be aboard to help them all out.
After seeing early product prototypes, What instantly came to mind was something dealing with UFO's. There were also some other ideas to play around with like the Nuclear Power plant since we're based and live rather close to the Harris Nuclear Plant. Not saying I've been abducted by aliens in the past but many of my family members can attest to my infatuation with Aliens. I knew this is what we had to do.
I had to overcome a few obstacles after seeing that the low camera angle would not have shown off the UFO Glow tape like I was planning to. A friend of mine really helped me get it back to what really mattered. The product itself. I had too much going on in the first initial roughs. Your eye focused more on the disc golf basket, and UFO while the intended focal point was left to be picked up as a secondary or third read. I took the idea into Google Sketchup, nailed the camera placement and took off from there. I needed to forced the field of view more and get the product and contrast working in the foreground.
In the end, mixing the crazy chain style of illustration with that classic B movie/ Mars Attacks! influence was the right way to go. The customer couldn't have been any happier.
2016 USDGC Roc Contest Winner
My friend, Alec Falzone tipped me off to the United States Disc Golf Championship (USDGC) design contest this year. I would have never known about it. So for that, Thank you Alec. I don't typically do online contests. It's a huge gamble of your time but the flip side is if you're successful, you get your artwork seen by probably the biggest event in disc golf.
The USDGC Collector Roc series craze began in 2001 when Jonathan Poole found that people went nuts over their first Zone Driven Roc that began as a fundraiser for the Southeastern Classic in Charlotte. Jonathan mentions that they "were an overnight sensation, so to speak, and ultimately this paved the way for Innova's CFR program which is still kicking today."
The Roc is one of Innova Champion's most popular discs in its series. They sell these discs for fundraising the tournament each year. A few artists have been a staple to the Collector Roc series. This year, Innova wanted to run a contest to scope out upcoming artist to mix things up a bit.
When you flip through the process shots of the "Air Raid" stamp, you'll understand that this design rooted from another option that I thought was going to stick. The original design felt too confined and awkward. I corrected the anatomy, created a black/white signal effect and tilted the head down 45 degrees. I drew a lot of inspiration from Judas Priests' iconic "Screaming For Vengeance" album cover. It was created by the talented graphic artist Doug Johnson
After talking with Adrian Southern, from Innova, we pointed out the strengths of each initial idea and I worked over the next week to take that head style and place into a new direction. I hope you all enjoy. I want to thank all my friends who've helped critique the design from the ground up. I always appreciate it.
Jennifer Sawyer 2016 Tour Stamp
Team MVP Women's Pro: Jennifer "JSaww" Sawyer reached out to me for her first fundraising tour stamp. My first booked stamp of 2016!! The exploration process was fun! Her professional occupation is in construction so immediately our idea was to create some sort of saw graphic. The images below show the different stages of development.
After a few saw iterations, my mind jumped to Jennifer, as a human being. I've never met her so I asked questions about what she did in construction, her favorite movies, era's that she enjoyed. 1930's & 40's, vintage fashion, construction, & graphics from that era. I wanted this stamp to be enjoyed by everyone but most importantly, reflect the person's name that's on the stamp.
After a few ideas and conversations, the decision for a universal stamp was the ultimate winner and a full saw blade stamp would solidify and fit within the budget and timeframe. We were able to get a double stamp option in time, so breaking the stamp up into two different foil choices was the way to go. During the process of showing Jennifer the design update, I will quickly mock up what it would look like with two different types of foil. I think it's always important to see how the hot stamp looks in both a negative and positive form. I'm very happy with how the stamp came out and look forward to more opportunities down the road. Thanks, Jen!
To support her 2016 tour, you message her at:
jsawyer0211@yahoo.com
Mighty Kind logo creation
Mighty Kind is a quartet out of Brooklyn, NY who play a 90's Rock/ Alternative range of music. I had the opportunity to help a friend create a logo for his band. Our first brainstorming session started with what is tall and mighty but serine? Mountains. So I ran with it initially. I used the Lakota symbol and tried to incorporate where possible because of Sam Combs connection to the tribe. The ending logo outcome doesn't feature that idea but there could easily be other options the band will use in future shirts and graphics.
Major props to my buddy for sending me inspiration as we went through this creation process. I'm happy with the outcome and can't wait to see what's next for them.
You can check out their webpage here:
http://www.mightykindmusic.com/
2015 In Review
The end of 2015 is near and it's been an adventure. After Christmas when all the stress is out the door, I like to think backward to January, 1 and think about all the projects I've been a part of. Did I truly maximize my output? I know the answer is going to be no. Every artist is going to tell themselves that. They'll try to build on lessons they've learned and continue pushing onward.
I'm fortunate that I had a full-time position for a good 75% of this year. Freelance is tough. You won't ever realize until you're in the thick of it with no other assurance underneath you. It makes me want to thank all of those who gave me a kick in the ass this year. My friends who've stopped what they were doing to give me a fresh take on a 3rd logo attempt and pushing you to go forward instead of stalling out.
I wouldn't be where I am today without them, without my wife's patience for all the late nights up in the office because of a quick deadline. To all the people who had faith in me to help them with a project, or an idea they needed me to see through. Thank you. Here's to a more productive 2016!
2015 MVP Disc Sports Winter Stamp
MVP Disc Sports contacted me to produce their first limited edition Winter Stamp. The idea was explained as a special release to thank all of MVP's supporters this year. This would be an open ended project focusing on a Christmas theme or simple go the Winter/Snow route. Anything winter disc golf would be welcome.
After seeing the new available foils to my disposal, and the confirmation that there would be sparkle/glitter in the pastic, I chatted with MVP Disc Sports Art Director/ Sales Manager, Zach Kelbaugh about a snow globe idea. Toward the end of our conversation, he brings up "Chemical structure snowflakes!" I fed off our conversation and knew what I was aiming for. A snowglobe with a winter wonderland theme. Snowflakes of some sort/ possible chemical structured. MVP Disc Sports uses a process where they use chemical bonding to fuse a weighted overmold to a plastic core. I needed to keep in mind that two different foils would be in play.
I'm really happy with how the final product turned out and want to thank them for having faith in me to create this stamp. It was ran in 3 main colors of Red Sparkle, Green and Blue with a few experimental effects. Below shows the process from small thumbnail ideas to a rough draft. An improvement and suggestions based on the first pass to a final stage. I've also included exclusive pictures of the test run discs that MVP stamped up before production began. While scrolling through the images, there will be brief descriptions on what point of the process I was at. I want to thank everyone involved that helped me with input and feedback. Here's to 2016! Have a safe holiday.
2015 Tupelo Bay Open Hot Stamp
I received a call from Phil Lawrence, Tournament Director of most disc golf events up in Greensboro/ High Point area. He had an idea, but needed me to pull it off. Working with a 5 inch radius, some of those ideas didn't make the cut. I fit in what I could, to make sure the stamp resemble the overall story.
The annual Tupelo Bay Disc Golf tournament is set up on a professional golf course located at Tupelo Bay Golf Center in Garden City, South Carolina. 9 holes I believe, are permanent all year round. The rest of the course is set up with mobile baskets. It's one of the few events with an area so large, that participants are able to use golf carts. At the end of the tournament there is a little competition to see who can grab the most baskets with their golf carts.
The main idea was to have some of these items:
The name of the event/ golf cart/ baskets being transported/ a resemblance to the Tupelo Bay course/ and the Tournament Director, Kirk Yoo in the fairway with a measuring wheel. You will see on some of the less successful attempts I try to cram all the ideas in the design but they always feel too busy.
I appreciate Kirk Yoo, Chris MacLeod, Mike Norris and Phil Lawrence for giving me trust in this tournament hot stamp design.
