Even More Cars!!!

Two more Cars 2 posters were launched online the other day. The 'spy' poster, which probably has the most elements of the series, was the quickest one to complete. That's the complete opposite of how things usually go but it was the last I completed of the series and by that time I felt I had a better handle on the characters and the painting technique. It's inspiration came from looking at Bob Peak and Robert McGinnis posters. They had such a great style and design aesthetic to everything they did.

The London poster, like the Japan race poster in a previous post, are my favorites of the series. I tend to gravitate toward simple, bold graphics or the 'less is more' mantra of design. I also like the look of red on a white background too!

In the end, there were 11 posters we worked on in the series and it was definitely the most challenging yet because of the multiple characters, settings, and genres. The various paint styles were also something I had to really push myself to learn. Continuing to grow and progress is always a good thing and I'm very fortunate to be asked to work on as cool a project as this was. I already can't wait for the next one!

Get That Rascally Rabbit!

Here's my contribution to the 'Required Reading' show which opened last night at Gallery 1988. 40 artists were each given a literary classic to interpret in their own style. I was fortunate to get 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', a book that i remember reading over and over as a kid. Being one who suffers from A.D.D., it was always a tolerable read for me because it's one of those rare books where you can dive in at any point and not feel lost that you didn't read anything prior to that scene. The whole world within it was so rich and whacked out, and i could read a random part then put the book down and run down the street or sleep in the grass and feel completely fulfilled. I was a weird kid! The cast of unique and memorable characters and the amazing illustrations by John Tenniel would inspire me to break out the crayons and try to draw my own Cheshire cats and Tweedle Dees and Tweedle Dums. When it came to coming up with the concept for my poster, I knew i had to capture a world that was swirling out of control and highlight Alice's journey into this crazy abyss. The tea label idea for the book's title came about because I was also working on a freelance gig for a friend who just happens to sell her own line of teas. It seemed very fitting because the tea party was one of my favorite parts of the story.

The print, titled 'Follow Hobson: A Tribute to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is named after my coworker Carrie, whose last name is Hobson and who our team just happened to nickname the 'white rabbit' for her ability to quickly hop past everyone when they do their long runs (my team is a bit weird too). The blue version has a run of 100, signed and numbered, and the pink version has a run of 50. They are both 18" by 24" and were screen-printed by the fine folks at D&L Screenprinting.

....And More Cars!

Here's two more Cars 2 posters that were launched online a couple of days ago. These were a blast to conceptualize and work on because Japan is so rich with iconic imagery and a unique artistic style. The 1st one was influenced by a combination of Japanese film posters and manga while the 2nd poster used more of a minimalist, graphic approach. Special thanks to my friend Stephane Kardos who helped to render the awesome trio of racers.

Cars, Cars, and More Cars!

Cinemablend posted 3 more posters from the Cars 2 series. Of all the Pixar posters I've gotten the amazing opportunity to work on, the series for Cars 2 was definitely the most challenging. With The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-e, and Up, I was able to keep a consistent look throughout each series, so once the stylization of the characters was approved it was then easy enough to concentrate on the themes and layout for each. Cars 2 was an entirely different story. With its multiple settings, characters, and themes, we knew that one style would not suffice to capture the scope of the film. Everything from minimalist Japanese design - to vintage Italian racing posters - to spy film graphics, were used as inspiration to create the series. Pixar has always been amazing at compiling tons and tons of reference material for each film and it was a life-saver when it came to nailing down the 'authenticity' of these. For me, challenging = fun, and it was a blast to switch back and forth in design aesthetic and rendering style. I definitely learned a lot of new tips and tricks within Photoshop on this project. A special thanks to Harley Jessup and Jay Shuster for their sage-like advice in getting these to where they are.

Bloody Good Food!

Vanessa, one of my good friends at work, always keeps me up to date on the latest and greatest restaurants and dessert joints around town. She's a definite 'foodie' who gets irritable during the hours between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I tend to throw snacks on her desk before meetings just so she won't scream at everyone once the meeting begins. Her intense passion for food is only matched by her intense passion for picking at her fingers til they bleed. I have no idea what that behavior is about, but I do get a kick out of counting how many band-aids she uses in the span of a day. I love creating personal cards utilizing my sick sense of humor for my friends, so when it came to Vanessa's birthday, I wanted to capture her passion for food....and band-aids. The 1st one is inspired by French food posters and her addiction to sweets. The 2nd one involves her love for Korean tofu soup. I may have gone a little overboard on the bloody fingers featured in the cupcake poster. And I may have been too nice with just the one band-aid in the tofu poster. On an average day, Vanessa's fingers look somewhere in between the two. If you're lucky enough to meet her one day, I'd pass on the handshake and just give her the old 'fist bump'. Better safe than sorry! ;) Happy Birthday Vanessa!!!

Vrrrrooom!

Here's a poster series for the upcoming 'Cars 2' that I had the cool opportunity to help out with. I think you pretty much know by now that I'm a HUGE fan of anything retro and travel, so when the idea came up of doing a series that combined both of those things, I jumped at the chance to contribute in any way possible. Working with the creatives at the Disney Studio and Pixar Animation is always an inspirational and creatively challenging experience. I definitely learn a ton from those guys and the collaboration produces really cool results. Hopefully, you'll start to see these out and about next month.

There goes Astronaut Jones!!!

This is a bit late, but Gallery 1988 had a show dedicated to comedy. Each artist was assigned a different comedian and it was up to us to translate them in our own unique style. I've been a fan of Tracy Morgan ever since he was 'Hustle Man' on the Martin show so I was pretty damn excited when i was paired up with him. One of the few times I've pissed my pants watching television was when Tracy busted out his 'Astronaut Jones' character on SNL. It's a really simple sketch but the endings were always killers. I think I knew immediately that I wanted to do an "Astronaut" piece. This was done old school style, with acrylic paint on a wood panel. It was fun to paint again after living life on the computer for so long. A HUGE thanks to whoever ended up purchasing the painting. Your contribution to the 'Eric Tan art supply & framing fund' is greatly appreciated!

Shoot the Duck!

Here's my entry for Gallery 1988's 'Multiplayer' video game-themed show at their new Venice location which opens Saturday, January 15th.

I think my passion for video games really sparked up again when the Nintendo Entertainment System was launched. My brother and I snatched up the system that came with ROB the robot and two games, Gyromite and Duck Hunt. As cool as the idea of a video game-playing robot and spinning gyros balancing on red and blue buttons seemed, we immediately came to the realization that Gyromite was damn near impossible to play. We ended up throwing the robot aside and pounded on the red and blue buttons with our fists in frustration. You can finish that game pretty fast that way!

Most of our time was then devoted to Duck Hunt. There's no better way to get kids into firearms by making shooting things fun with a game like Duck Hunt! We spent endless hours shooting green and pink ducks, white clay targets, and throwing the actual gun at the condescending dog when he'd laugh at you for missing. So when it came time to create a print for a video game that held fond memories for me, Duck Hunt was a no-brainer.

I always had the idea of creating a practice target featuring the duck from the game that I'd actually shoot at a range. Putting a bullet through your own art is kinda sacrilegious, but this is one case where i thought it was appropriate....and unique. My friend Danny let me use his 9MM handgun at a gun range and i went to town on about half of the prints. I hit a few bullseyes here and there but I found out that the real thing is way harder than the video game. Unlike the game, you can hit the ducks at point blank range by putting the gun directly on your TV.

Here's a video of me at the range. If you notice, I flinch after the first shot. That's a result of a scorching hot shell hitting me in the head. Yup, it definitely is a much different experience than that video game! Hope to see you at the show!

Happy Holidays!

Every Christmas, I design a card for all of my coworkers. What started out as a sweet and cheery idea 8 years ago has turned into a progressively sicker smorgasbord, year after year. The recent ones have all involved urine, a direct rip-off of my coworker George, who seems to plant every caricature he draws in a pool of their own pee. Here's to George and to all of you who follow my demented blog. Happy holidays!!

Zombies!!!

Sorry for the massive delay between posts. I haven't visited my own blog in so long that I forgot the password. My own blog kicked me off! The good thing is, The delay has everything to do with being hard at work on a number of cool film-related projects that you'll start to see here very soon.

I'm a HUGE fan of films that have a very 80's feel to them. I just have a thing for crazy 'full-can-of-hairspray' hairdos, super-tight acid-washed jeans, blinding neon checker patterns, and soundtracks featuring Huey Lewis and the News. 'Return of the Living Dead' is a horror pic that fits perfectly into that 80's aesthetic, minus Huey Lewis. It actually feels more like a comedy sometimes which is why I probably like it even more. If you're looking for an entertaining, laugh-your-ass-off zombie film that wreaks of the 80's, definitely check this little doozy out.

Here's a poster for 'ROTLD' that I did for Mondo in which I tried my best to channel loud 80's rock gig posters. It's available in both regular and glow-in-the-dark versions. Check 'em out here!

Lil' Loompa

For an upcoming custom vinyl show at Gallery 1988's San Francisco location, we were once again asked to create something based on a favorite cult film of ours. As you can tell from the Oompa Loompa, I was a HUGE fan of 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.' I must've seen that film as a kid 30 times. Everything about it was so unique - from the insanely vibrant visuals, to the catchy but creepy songs, to the 'a little dark for kids' storyline. Something about that film worked so well back then and still holds up to this day. My favorite characters were the Oomps Loompas cuz they were cool-lookin', they worked their asses off in that factory, and they took us through the story in an entertaining way through their songs. Here's my tribute to those little devils.

I started with a blank vinyl called a 'Symbiote', created the facial features, hair, and 'mint' base with resin, and then painted the little guy with a combination of acrylic and aerosol paint. I would've liked to create an entire army of Oompas but unfortunately there's only one available at the show. It opens September 4th for all the folks who live up in the Bay Area. You can also see the show online after the opening here.

Ooooh!!

Here's the 2nd Customizable vinyl I just finished for Mindstyle. This time around, we got the opportunity to sculpt and paint over our very own blank Alien from the Toy Story series. To be honest, I didn't have a very clever angle here, I just wanted something that could hang out with the Tiki Stitch I created about a year ago. Stitch seemed a bit lonely on my coffee table so I created a friend for him, Hula Alien.

Hula Alien's eyes and torches are resin, and his 'skirt' is actually a real hula skirt that I chopped down to size. ALOOOOOOO-HAAAAA!!!!!

Crazy 4 Cult!

Game Reviews - E3 2011

The fine folks at G4 were nice enough to cover the 'Crazy4Cult' show and interview me about the 'Welcome to Hill Valley' print. It's kinda cool to have this captured on video cuz quite frankly, I barely remembered being interviewed. My cousin and I got smashed before the opening and stumbled upon an open bar next door at Golden Apple Comics before this interview took place. Enjoy the clip, there's a lot of cool art and interviews in it, even Mr. Mallrats himself, Kevin Smith. Oh yeah, there's also a drunk Filipino guy in it, wearing an SD hat who struggles to put two words together. (That would be me!)

Remixing the Magic

Here's something you may remember from a past post that's now available as a print, both on paper and on stretched canvas. Originally, my Sleeping Beauty poster was created for the "Disney's Art of Princess" book which came out last year. Although my daily duties as a designer have everything to do with boy's driven properties like Cars and Toy Story, I was stoked to get to work on something like this. Growing up on a steady diet of classic Disney animation will tend to do that to you. I definitely have fond memories of films like Peter Pan, Snow White, Jungle Book, and all the rest of them. Sleeping Beauty struck me as a kid, not so much for the story per se, but because I dug the design and look of the film, especially Maleficent - as a human and as a dragon, the castle, and all the amazing backgrounds. Eyvind Earle is a mad genius and it really stands out as one of the most beautiful animated films to look at. I hope you dig my tribute to this artistic classic! You can check out the print info at Acme Archives.

Are you telling me, that my mom, has got the hots for me???

It's been a loooong time since I've posted anything. Completely changing up your art style for a project will do that. This is the piece where I attempted a different style than I'm used to. It's a bit subtle, but it's a tribute poster for one of my favorite films of all time, Back to the Future. Being a huge fan of Mad Men-type retro advertising, I thought it'd be fun to create my very own magazine ad promoting the town of Hill Valley, circa 1955. I wanted to make it as convincing as possible while still hinting at the influence of Marty's visit to his future home town of the past. I'm not sure that even makes sense, but you kinda get the picture. The Delorean is pretty obvious sign, but there's also one subtle hint that Marty was there. Can anyone guess what it is?

Having collected a bunch of ads from that era, the only way I could really sell the idea was to paint the scene just like they did way back then. Since I'm used to vectors, and pen tools, and pathfinders, it really was a challenge to get this to look the way I wanted. I haven't painted anything like this since high school so I definitely was rusty and it took about 5 times as long than the usual poster takes me. But I'm glad I went through it. Although it was an arduous experience with tons of mistakes, it really became a relaxing process and a new challenge.

When my friends saw this laying on my desk, their initial reaction was "where the heck did you find that?", which was exactly the reaction I was looking for. It was good to try something new and not to rely on all the things that are automatic or predictable. As a great man once said: If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything! I hope you dig it as much as I enjoyed making it!

The poster is limited to 150, signed and numbered, is 24" wide by 18" high, and will be available at the Crazy for Cult show starting July 9th at Gallery1988.