Monster PSA: Alfonso Bedoya

I didn't have any intention of doing a new Monster PSA poster, but then a fan of my work (who has graciously bought prints of my stuff in the past to decorate his "Man Cave") asked if I would consider doing a PSA of Alfonso Bedoya.

Bedoya's claim to fame is his appearance in the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where he gets to utter the immortal line "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" (He actually doesn't say those exact words, but that doesn't matter anymore). I considered the request, figuring I'd get to it at some point.

Then the other night I found myself not ready to go to sleep, and simultaneously not wanting to work on other projects I had going, so I tore into this and within a few hours it was finished! It turned out being one of my favorites of the last few PSAs I've done--the portrait, the colors, and the modified tagline all seemed to hang together fairly well.

My patron felt the same, and as you read this the poster is on its way to him. Sometimes things just work out!

Comedy Film Nerds

Last Christmas, I ordered an item called a "Chillpak" (a pad that keeps your laptop cool) from the online store of Comedy Film Nerds, a movie/comedy podcast hosted by Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini that I subscribe to.

When the package arrived, it came with a promo postcard for the show, and for whatever reason I got in my head that I wanted to redesign it. I got the overall concept in my head (such as it is), and finally just got around to putting it together over the weekend. The loose idea I hung the design on was that Graham and Chris both featured the same nerdriffic quote (which they end every show with) in their HS yearbooks, meaning they were destined to come together years later and do a show.

As I do with all these graphic design-only pieces, I had a ton of fun putting this together, and I was so happy with it I sent it to Graham and Chris. I don't expect them to do anything with it, I just figured they'd get a kick out of seeing it.

Han shot first!

Orange Sketch

I basically just tried my hand at another glamour-y illustration, the like the one I did yesterday. I added and subtracted various elements until I somehow determined this piece was "finished." I have no idea what any of it means, either!

Purple Sketch

This is another instance of me fooling around, trying to get a rougher, looser look for my style. I'm actually pretty happy with how this turned out, it looks pretty close to what I saw in my head!

Callaway Golf Clubs Storyboards

This was a series of storyboard panels I did for Callaway Golf Clubs, via the Concept Farm agency.

I don't get the chance to do storyboards very much (the last time I did them was back in 2010, for Estee Lauder), so I really sank my teeth into this job--I love doing storyboards, figuring out how to pace and frame the "story" as effectively as possible.

These boards are for a thirty-second spot, where a bunch of golfers are shocked to see a Big Time Golf Pro walk by, who shows them some new Callaway-brand clubs. The guys ooh and ah, with the spot ending with all of them using the clubs and having lots of fun.

When I do storyboards, I use a sort of hybrid of my standard illustrating style mixed with freehand penciling; they're not necessarily all that pretty to look at but they tell the story, and that's ultimately the most important thing.

Both Callaway and Concept Farm were happy with the panels, as was I--I had a lot of fun. I hope it won't be another year and a half before someone asks me to do a job like this again!

The Girl With The Dragon Jacket

This is just me fooling around with a fashion-y, brightly colored-type thing.

Waking Up With The Lord/Brown Bag Logos

These are two logos I was commissioned to create from my friend, the Reverend Mac Schafer. Mac hosts several different community groups dealing with faith-based topics and whatever else is on people's minds. He had ideas of what he wanted, and then asked me to put them together.

I don't get to do this kind of work much, but I really enjoy it. They require a bit more finesse and clarity than my portraits, so it was a nice change of pace!

The Skull Awaits

I have absolutely no idea the hows or whys of this image, it simply popped into my head one day and so I got it down as best I could. I knew I wanted a spooky guy sitting in the dark, with the outline (inline?) of a skull superimposed over him. So that's what I did.

I also have no idea what "The Skull Awaits" is--a book, a movie? Your guess is as good as mine!

Saul Bass' F For Fake

For better or for worse, I'm still in my Saul Bass phase, and Orson Welles' F For Fake--which is all about trickery and deception--seemed an appropriate subject for this approach. After all, that looks like Orson Welles, but maybe it isn't? And the poster tells us he's in it, but then it says he's not...what's going on here?

Vincent Price

Sometimes I just like to doodle...

Saul Bass' Charley Varrick

I meant to get around this Saul Bass-inspired poster for one of my favorite underrated films, Charley Varrick, but the holidays ate up so much of my time I didn't get to until the first of the new year.

I'm not totally in love with how I executed my final idea, but that's how it goes sometimes. I am totally in love with the overall concept--two men standing by a bag full of money. The blood dripping from it signifies the heap of trouble they find themselves in when they realize they've stolen mob money.

If you've never seen Charley Varrick, I recommend you do so. Its a tough, gritty crime thriller, with a great central performance by Walter Matthau, who could hardly do no wrong in the 1970s.

Saul Bass' Strait Jacket

I have no idea how or why I got the idea to a Saul Bass-inspired poster for the Joan Crawford/William Castle B-horror movie Strait Jacket, of all things--but I did, so here it is!

The original image that popped into my head was an all-white poster with criss-crossed black lines to suggest the tied-up sleeves. But since no one actually wears a strait-jacket in the movie, a giant axe seemed more of a "grabber", so I went with that. The lines came in back in at the end, suggesting even more that things are seriously off-kilter.

Monster PSA: Ornella Muti

As soon as I saw that Netflix Watch Instantly added Flash Gordon to its list of streaming movies, I added it to my queue and hit Play. As a kid, I was totally smitten with Ornella Muti as Ming's daughter, one in a long line of babes from genre movies I saw as a kid that interested me for reasons I couldn't at the time quite comprehend.

So what advice would Ms. Muti give? Well, considering how much trouble she got everyone into by falling in love Flash...

Saul Bass' Before Sunrise

There's a new book out about the work of Saul Bass, one of my all-time favorite movie poster designers, so I got inspired to do my own Bass-esque movie posters. Hardly an original idea, but it really seemed like fun and I wanted to try it!

My first idea was to do a Saul Bass take on Before Sunrise, my all-time favorite movie. While the end result didn't come out quite the way I hoped, I had a lot of fun doing this and I think I want to try some more of these...