MidwestLove Art & Design

The guys in Uprising Records band Gloria asked me to draw up a little shirt called “Ball Pit Shark”. It was pretty self explanatory. Here’s what I came up with. I’ll be sure to get pictures of this one when it gets printed.

5 Colors on Teal.

-marky

Here’s a tshirt illustration that I put together for my band Venna. It was an attempt at mixing my own interpretations of traditional Norwegian folk art and 50′s kitch. It was done with pencil then inked and scanned and cleaned up in Illustrator. I’ve recently discovered these “Identipens” at Michaels that are cheap and seem to work really well for inking the more detailed illustrations. I know that’s probably not what I should be using to ink illustrations, but most of what you see up here is trail and error. Any suggestions on good inking pens? I have a $50 gift card to Hobby Lobby that I’ve been saving for some new art supplies.

And here’s what it looks like in print-

Beautifully printed, 1 color on chocolate brown by the always top notch RedWall Prints.  Just look at how the detail came out. Every line is perfect. Big thanks to Jeff at RedWall.

PURCHASE HERE on ETSY – $12

-marky

There aren’t very many straight up, rock-your-face-off-without-being-cute-or-ironic bands out there anymore. Most bands are trying so hard to be liked that they forget that rock n roll is supposed to be dangerous. A Dance Between Giants is one of the rare bastians of that old school mentality of rock that says that it’s ok play your songs loud and hard, yell when you can’t quite hit the notes, look like you just rolled out of bed from a hangover, and still take what you do seriously (and expect everyone else too as well). Personally, I miss that in rock n roll music. I wish more young bands weren’t so image conscious, didn’t worry about the mass-accessibility of their songs, wrote what they wanted to, and just plain kept the cute out of the “rock”. There’s nothing dangerous about watching a bunch of guys with straightened hair bounce around stage for half an hour in matching neon hightops. That being said, I made A Dance Between Giants a shirt with fairy tale characters dancing under big pink letters. Oh well.

It was drawn in Illustrator, and it looks like this in print-

Printed 2 colors on Charcoal Grey by RedWall Prints

-marky

Another one off Tshirt along the lines of animals destroying cities. Apparently this is my new thing. This one is for the new Rockford, IL pop rock band Action Madison!. They were VERY specific with what they wanted to see in the illustration, down to the details and facial expressions. Apparently I was able to get close enough to their artistic vision, because they liked it. Anyway, it was goofy enough that I figured I should post it.

Any other bands requiring illustrations of animals destroying cities, feel free to contact me.
-marky

Here are some fairly decent pictures of the physical copy of Kid, You’ll Move Mountains “Loomings”. Thanks to Jim from KYMM for getting me a few copies as soon as they came in. I must say I’m pleased to death with how this project came together. All in all, from the concept, to the final print, to the music contained within, this is a great piece.

I’ll start posting more physical pics of the projects as I get them in.  I always mean to, but I don’t always get samples back from bands in a timely fashion… hint to any of my bands reading this who haven’t yet sent me my samples! As always, feel free to leave comments. Also, go get your hands on the new P.O.S. album “Never Better”. You won’t be sorry.

-marky