Vinyl Kid ends TODAY

Heads up - today is the last day that my t-shirt design Vinyl Kid will be available to order. After that, it's gone! Hurry! Hurry! (No pressure, but HURRY.) For show & tell, here's the rough sketch of Vinyl Kid:    

After that, I did final pencil lines using regular graphite pencil and a Prismacolor black pencil, which has a thicker, blacker line:



And here's the final with color added:

 

End of day today! Go and get it!

Vinyl Kid T-shirt Design

Oh yay! My very first t-shirt design for Shirt.Woot is now available! Titled, Vinyl Kid, it's part of a special sale on the site called Jukebox Heroes, featuring all music-related designs. The shirt will be available for ONE WEEK ONLY! Sale ends Sunday, May 20th.

If you love vinyl (and I know you do, since you're reading this blog), then go and buy a shirt (or 2, or 3) for yourself - or for your favorite crate-digger.

Cool 45 covers

When Andrea & I vacationed in Italy back in 1999, we checked out this cool flea market in Rome with lots of fun old stuff. Found this 45 record (above) in a record bin. Love the design. I've always cherished it. One of these days I'm gonna listen to this record. It's imperative that I do.

Summer Vinyl Fun

Summer is in full swish here in the great NW! I know that most of the country is getting cooked right now, but here in Portland it's been hanging around the mid-70s to low 80s. Very nice. Anyway, let's put on some cool, fun records, shall we? Yes, let's.


The Firehouse Five plus Two: Good Time Jazz (sometimes listed as "Part Two"). Illustrator listed as "Le Goullon." Even though liner notes say: "During 1950 (when the eight numbers on this LP were recorded)...", I've been told that the LP was probably packaged and released in 1953.


Musicians listed:
Danny Alguire: coronet
Harper Goff: banjo
Ward Kimball: trombone
Clarke Mallery: clarinet
Monte Mountjoy: drums
Ed Penner: tuba
Frank Thomas: piano

The Firehouse Five plus Two was a dixieland jazz band that played around the LA area (and beyond) from the late 40s on into the 70s. The band is of particular interest to us animators mainly because most of the members worked at Disney at the same time - most particularly, Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas, two of Disney's "Nine Old Men." Clark Mallery and Ed Penner also worked there, while Harper Goff was an art designer for several movies (for instance, THE THING).


Big Moments LP, 1955. Cover illustrated by the awesome Gerry Gersten.

The dude is still alive at 84! Did caricatures for MAD Magazine, NY Times, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, you name it. You can always tell if illustrations like this are done by serious artists or not. Here, I can tell by the way he draws the arms, faces, the details in the clothing, dresses, etc. Very intricate linework that can't be duplicated by anyone with lesser talent. Believe me, I've seen some illustrations (like in vintage cook books) that look pretty pathetic. Here, though, Gerry does some wonderful work that's upbeat and lively.


Stars and Stripes Forever (1954). I know I'm a little late on the July 4th thing, but it's better late than never, right? Very Jim Flora-ish, it's illustrated by Ed Sorel. Interesting to see such a different style than what Ed's usually known for.

And now, to end this post on a good note, an ACTUAL Jim Flora cover! Checkit:


Memorable Music From the Movies (1956). Illustrated by the one, the only Jim Flora.

Sometimes you just never know with these covers, since I've seen many who would rip-off of Flora's work (see this one for example). However, just found out that this is, indeed, a genuine Flora cover. Here's a list of his covers, in case you might have one in your collection. You never know!

Fat & Happy

My wife, she knows me so well. This was one of my gifts.

Yes, it's the post-Christmas fallout. I ate so much yesterday I felt like I could nap for over a year. The holiday was a good one here, although, it wasn't truly Christmas without some drama thanks to a missed delivery by a certain package delivery service that incorporates brown into their identity logo. It was not a happy evening for Andrea & I on Christmas Eve when we realized that Ava's BIG GIFT - you know, the ONE she talked about for weeks; the one she would look at over and over in the Playmobil catalog, noting all the fine details; the one she made quite certain Santa hear when visiting him at the department store downtown a week ago; the one we had infused into our brains - wasn't going to be delivered that night. So, we did some last-minute thinking and came up with Plan B: I wrote out a letter from Santa saying that sometimes during the course of Christmas Eve, he's bound to lose a package or two, and Ava's Playmobil Hospital playset was one of the unfortunate ones that fell out of his sack. He had his best elves working on locating the present and when they find it, they'll deliver it right away. It seemed to work. Ava seemed happy even though she wasn't going to have the BIG GIFT on the BIG DAY. There were enough gifts to take her mind off of the situation, which was nice. Ezra, he was happy as long as he had his Star Wars Legos and Hot Wheels.

We are missing our family from back east, so it's been nice to have Andrea's brother from New York, Von, here to hang out with us during the holidays. The kids, they love Uncle Von.

Here's wishing you had a great and wonderful Christmas.