"no ship should go down without her captain" UPDATE!

Warning, slight spoilers if you read on!

Well, last night my most widely available print ever was released. It was an honor to be involved with the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness and i can't thank the folks at Gallery 1988, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures, IMAX enough for letting me participate.

When I first got the gig and did my initial sketch, I was tasked with doing a glow in the dark image on a film that I hadn't seen and was veiled by secrecy. SO, in an attempt to shake some information loose, I submitted the above image for the glow in the dark reveal... that of John Harrison, floating in space, in a stand off with the Enterprise.

Needless to say, it didn't get approved. Shortly thereafter, a phone meeting was setup and some key points were described to me. I latched onto a moment in the film that was described to me as the Enterprise facing down a larger version of herself. So, I thought it would be clever to have it revealed that the "hero" Enterprise was actually the "evil" Enterprise when you saw the GID.

That idea was also rejected, but I was told a look at the "evil" Enterprise, the Vengeance, was coming very soon and I figured I would just hide that ship in the glow in the dark. I also got to attend a screening of the movie the night before the file was due, and I managed to take some notes... for those of you who have seen the flick, look carefully for the two small specks hurtling through space toward the Vengeance :)

I hope everyone enjoyed and enjoys the movie as much as I did. I loved every minute and can't wait to see it again!

"world's best boss"

My latest print is probably my most obscure yet... it's also my first giclee. I had a sample copy printed before I gave the go ahead and it looks gorgeous in person! It's 18x24, run of 100 and will be on sale this Thursday, the 16th at 12 noon EST over at the Bottleneck Gallery website. 

Thursday night, we say goodbye to one of the most consistently funny sitcoms on the air, The Office. I've been there since the beginning, as scoffed at the idea just like any else who was a fan of the original British version... I was very happy to be proven wrong.

One of my favorite things about the series is that it wasn't afraid of a happy ending... Jim and Pam's relationship being a great example. When Michael Scott left Dunder Mifflin, it was a sad, but ultimately happy occasion. He went through a lot to be with Holly and those characters went off to live happily ever after.

The print is my attempt to show Michael and Holly, about to go and live their lives together... while acknowledging that Michael will always be part of the Scranton branch of Dundler Mifflin. I based my poster on a poster that is actually in the manager's office. I eyeballed the basic shapes from this jpeg, which resulted in this:

From there, I drew the rest without looking at anything... well, except for the silhouettes of the figures. This will be the third print in a row, following "the ancient one" and "no ship should go down without her captain" that I've painted from scratch, using no photos at all in the final product. It's an exciting push forward for me and I'm looking forward to pushing it even further.

That's what she said.

***UPDATE!***

Here are some pictures of the actual printed piece, so you can get a sense of how my stuff looks when printed as a giclee. Although, the lighting in my office isn't ideal for picture taking:

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The detail is astounding and the colors are very vibrant.

" no ship should go down without her captain"

My newest print is a doozy, in conjunction with Gallery 1988, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures, IMAX (to debut their FANFIX program) I created a poster for Star Trek Into Darkness.

12x36, lithograph with glow in the dark ink... Click here to find out how to get one! It's an absolute honor and a pleasure to be involved with the release of Star Trek Into Darkness. When Jensen from Gallery 1988 emailed me asking if I liked Star Trek...

The first movie I ever attended, when I was only a few months old, was Star Trek The Motion Picture. I've been a lifelong Trek fan, watched every film and television incarnation of the franchise and was blown away by the JJ Abrams helmed relaunch in 2009.

I immediately jumped in and started sketching the Enterprise. Not having any idea what happens in the movie, I knew for sure there'd be the Enterprise in space and that no time would be wasted drawing that. I quickly redrew the sketch in Photoshop and roughed up something to send out for approval to move forward.

From the trailers, I knew that Earth was featured prominently in the movie and that it was facing a serious threat. So, I decided to have the Enterprise in Earth's orbit and figure out some way to imply the danger with color.

This was the longest step in my process... because there isn't much going on in the image, composition was going to be vitally important. So, I endlessly moved around and tinkered with the major shapes until I arrived at something I found pleasing and decided to move forward.

To keep things looking consistent with the rest of my work, I approached this as if it was going to be a screen print. If it was printed on black paper, it would be a 5 color screen print. I chose a red color for the star field to pop the Enterprise and the Earth forward, but also to give the sense of impending doom for both of the foreground elements.

The last steps were mainly rendering more clouds on the earth, adding white stars, giving the stars a bit of of motion blur to add some drama and pop the Enterprise forward a bit more, then going ahead and rendering out the Enterprise with as much detail as I could to draw attention to it even though it is the smallest of the foreground elements.

I was fortunate enough to see the 2009 Star Trek at the Arclight where they had a scale model of the new Enterprise on display. I snapped some pictures of it and wound up using those as reference to get all of the little details right.

Thanks again to Gallery 1988, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures, IMAX for somehow making May 15th even more exciting for me!

"i've asked god for a sign of forgiveness"

I get about 2 emails a week asking if I have, or will have any more prints I did for the Fringe Benefits Project. It wasn't up to me that only 100 got printed, so I lobbied  whined, cajoled, bribed and begged for a chance to do a variant... I managed to get it all approved and it only took 4 months!

It's white ink screen printed on black french paper, 12x36 and will be sold at Gallery 1988 for $50 a pop. The run is 75, I have a couple for myself but I'm not sure I'll sell any in my store just yet.

 I was a bit limited with what I could do, but I am very happy with the end result...  It's nice to have a variant option like this for people who want to see the GID in total clarity all of the time. Also, a large portion of people who email about the Fringe benefits Project print worked in, knew people who worked in or were people who helped at ground zero of the World Trade Center. So, I hope they are able to get their hands on one of these.

"the battle at blackwater" AP sale

This Friday, between 11-12pm PST, I'll be selling 40 AP copies of my latest print, "the battle at blackwater" in my store. 20 of them will be just the print, for $50 plus $13 shipping US, $15 to Canada and Mexico, $23 international. All prints are signed and numbered by me.

I'll also have 20 copies of my April Fools day handbill to include as a set with "the battle at blackwater". A set will cost $70 plus shipping. I'll also have 5 handbills to sell on their own, for $20 each.

I wanted to get these up for sale asap so I can combine shipping for those of you who have "it's a dinosaur" or "the ancient one" coming. There are still some copies of the "the ancient one" up for sale, grab it while you can!

Best of luck to everyone on the drop!

"close your eyes, baby"

About a year ago(sorry for the wait, guys), I was approached by a group with the intent of commissioning a poster from me. Not being all that busy at the time, I agreed, not knowing the flurry of activity I was about to step into.

So, whenever I had some free time, or a less busy time, I would chip away at this, send the group some updates and then promptly disappear for 3 months. So, if i ever agree to do a commission for you, know you are in for a long wait :)

Here are the previous entries in this blog detailing some of my process:

http://www.tacobelvedere.com/2012/10/private-commission-process.html

http://www.tacobelvedere.com/2012/10/private-commission-process-2.html

The group also wanted a variant, it was a late in the game decision and I hadn't planned for anything clever. I normally don't like any "swap out colors" variants, but I decided that a DVD variant would please the ALIENS super fans out there and it made me chuckle, so:

I'm really happy with the final results, they both have a metallic ink, green on the regular and gold on the variant, which really pops off the black paper.

The group at large and I wanted to give others a shot at owning one. So we cooked up a plan to put 1/1 AP editions up on Ebay and donate the proceeds.

The first auction is for the regular, and all proceeds go to the Boston Red Cross, to aid in relief of the current atrocity: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151029043499?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

The second auction is for the variant, with all proceeds going to Expressobeans.com. I got my start there, and am pleased as punch to give back: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151029039723?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

The third auction, is for the original drawing above. All proceeds from that will go right into paying off the debt accrued while fixing up my house: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151029046589?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

I'm so glad to finally have this print wrapped, to show it off and to give to some back to worthy causes.

Not bad, for a human.

april fools!

On April Fools day, I thought it would be fun to join in the fun and make it look like the print I had been obviously teasing, "the battle at blackwater" was something else entirely.

So, I worked up something quick and threw it up on instagram:

The response was surprisingly positive, and my silly prank made me realize that folks wanted the joke to be a reality. I e-mailed the guys at the Bottleneck Gallery and they were up to printing up a few 4x6 handbills if I could get them done in time.

April fools prank no more! Some will be randomly included with "the battle at blackwater" and a handful are being sold on Ebay with 100% of the proceeds going directly to the Make a Wish Foundation! Also, if you win the Ebay auction, you get a Golden Ticket, which entitles you to any future prints at Bottleneck!

Also, for anyone who missed out on the preview sale for "the battle at blackwater", you will have another shot this Saturday the 13th at 12pm EST over at http://www.bottleneckgallery.com/