Dinosaur Jr Sketch + Video

A couple weeks ago I went down to Pomona, CA to see Dinosaur Jr. perform at The Glass House. I enjoyed the show very much and as a result decided to take a break from the projects I am currently working on to create a Dinosaur Jr. related sketch. It's not overly creative by any means as far as the concept goes. It's pretty much just J Mascis as a dinosaur. It was more or less an excuse to do something with real tools and real ink. The past few posters I've done have all been created digitally and I'd like to get back to doing stuff more traditionally. Supplies used: Kolinsky brushes, Deleter pen nib, Sumi ink and bleed proof white on 2-ply cold press illustration board. Actual Sketch took about 6 hours. I taped the progress on this one and edited the video along with the Dinosaur Jr. song "Let It Ride." (The video is under the sketch image below.)

OFF! Fonda Theatre Gig Poster

This last January I had the privilege of illustrating the gig poster for OFF!'s February show at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. The show was cancelled due to health reasons. From what I've heard, it sounds like things are better and everyone's getting back to a fighting stamina, which is most important. For those that liked the poster and weren't able to get one at the show, the poster is for sale at the official OFF! store: http://www.merchlackey.com/off/ . The rest of this content will show the process for creating this poster.

When I saw this last December that OFF! was playing a show at the Fonda, I immediately tried to reach out to anyone I could think of to do the poster for the show. I'm a huge fan of this group and have seen them a few times in L.A. A few days after their record release show at the Whiskey last May I saw this photo taken by Cla$ick Clothing ( http://clasickclothing.com/ ).

So this was definitely a case of a fan trying to work with a band he liked and not just some dude trying to pad his portfolio.

I got the green light to go and started roughing out concepts. I decided to combine the members of OFF! with one of my favorite flicks, A Clockwork Orange. Seemed to be a good fit. Four band members, four droogs. With that creative direction, I created a pretty loose thumbnail sketch.

I knew I wanted to depict the guys in the Moloko Vellocet Bar, but I didn't want to just copy a scene from the movie and replace the actors heads with OFF!s heads. So I did some research of the Bar set along with the statues of the girls to get an angle not seen in the movie. After that, I did photo research along with taking my own photos for reference.

I used myself and a co-worker as models to get the poses I needed. I also did a ton of research on the costumes the droogs wore. The faces of the band members was most difficult because I did not have them at my disposal to pose for me. I did a lot of research on the group and basically Frankensteined their faces from a number of sources. 

With reference collected, I started working on the figures first. I used to sketch everything in my sketchbook, but I now prefer to sketch stuff on a computer. It's easier to edit, in my opinion. When sketching, I usually start with a light grey or red color to lay down basic lines to get the proportions and form in place. After that, I go over the loose sketch with a blue color to tighten up my marks and to add some of the details. 

  This is how my final sketch looked for this piece.

At this point I would usually go on to do my final line work traditionally with Pen and Ink on bristol board, but for the sake of time and for the ease of editing, I did my final line work in Photoshop too. So this was a 24" X 18" piece at 300 dpi. 

While working on the final line worked, I joked that the next piece would not have as many wrinkles or as much hair. Below are some detailed shots of the final line work.  

With line work out of the way, the color pallet was next. Originally I was gonna have the OFF! members in grey tones to contrast with a blood red background, but I feel like this look has been kind of played out at this point, so I decided to add colors to the whole piece. The typeface used for the copy is the Moloko typeface used in the movie. Not a "hippie font" as thought by a few fans. 

Final colors where added and the image was sent off to the band for the purpose of advertising the show. When the image debuted on the social networks, the positive reactions from the fans was pretty overwhelming. I was glad they responded to the image and was glad to have a few more people checking out my work. 

When all was said and done, there was one last request by one of the band members. They were curious to know if the original art was up for grabs. I explained that I created all the work digitally, however, I would be glad to re-create the line work in a traditional manner. So I used sumi inks and microns on some nice Italian paper to recreate the final line work.

In the end, this was an extreme pleasure for me. To quote OFF!, "I had a blast!" As noted earlier, this 24" X 18" poster is available at the OFF! store; http://www.merchlackey.com/off/

FLEETWOOD MAC TOUR 2013 RUMOURS

So, I go to the Creative Allies site and see they have this contest to create a Fleetwood Mac poster for their upcoming Rumours 2013 revisited tour. Whatever. Not a fan of their material, but on that same token I don't hate it. Just don't care to be honest. Not my thing. I had a free hour this past week so I decided to kick something out that I knew would not be a winner. Obviously, a poster of a bunch of musicians in their prime doing lines of blow probably won't go over to well... with the exception of maybe a FIDLAR poster. (By the way, FIDLAR's debut album is killer.) Anyways, I whipped this up, submitted it knowing it's not great work, (however compared to the rest of the shit on there that used stock decor as a design element, it wasn't the worst image) and waited. Sure enough, when I checked my emails the next day, my poster had been taken down due to, "obscene offensive behavior."  I don't get what's offensive about the image. Is it really a mystery that this group was WAY into coke? So now, my goal is to get this image circulating. Not because it's a great image, but more or less to be a prick. Every time some middle-aged couple looks up "Fleetwood Mac 2013 tour" on their "inter-webs" I want this image to pop up and I want them to question who this Jack C. Gregory fellow is. 

Avoid the Noid, Mutha Fucka!

This was a piece I illustrated for work during the summer of 2011. We developed an arcade style game for Domino's where the players shot an ice gun at flying tomatoes and pizza. My part of this was to create an image for our game console that had the look and feel of the early 90's. I pretty much had free reign on this one. I referenced early 90's X-men comics for the color palette and The Punisher for reference in regard to looking like a bad-ass with a big gun. The Noid and all of the flying pizzas and tomatoes started off as a pen and ink piece on bristol board. I scanned that in and colored my ink drawing in Photoshop. The title board and joystick area were also created the same way. After the images were approved on our end, I Photoshopped the arcade scene making sure to include the dirt and grime typically seen at a run down, dark, dirty arcade. 

Obama Re-Elected. The Underwear Does Nothing!

After the election was called, I saw Bill Maher post this comment about Mitt Romney on Facebook. I decided to sketch it out real quick. The magic underwear does nothing!

Henry Rollins and the Cereal Monsters

Two image posts in one hit. The first is a pen and ink sketch of Henry Rollins from his Black Flag years. I don't know who to credit for the original photo, but I saw it used as the cover of an old zine, and this was more or less just a test for some new pen nibs I bought. I think for a long time people have considered Hunt pen nibs the standard. I think they suck. They tear up any surface I work on so I looked elsewhere for a new solution. I read about Deleter comic pen nibs and bought a couple packs. Boy howdy, these things are incredible. The ink goes on the surface smooth, you can get real fine lines AND they don't tear up the surface. The Rollins test was created with a Deleter nib. 

Second image is the General Mills Cereal Monsters - Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry. I have a theory that the folks at General Mills should have created two other ghoulish themed cereals to complete the circle. The pentagram circle, that is, so that these five could get together to conduct spells after completing a Satanic circle jerk. After posting this image on my Facebook page, which you can "like" by clicking on the link below, it was brought to my attention that there used to be two other characters; Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy. So I guess at one point in history, the circle was complete. 

Follow my work on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jack-C-Gregory-Illustration/114438628621251?ref=hl

The Adventures of Tintin Illustrations

At this time last year I was elbow deep in working on designs for The Adventures of Tintin website. A lot of concepts were thrown out. Some stuck, some didn't. This was one of the concepts that almost went through but was eventually cut. Our clients had expressed an interest in having graphic illustrations incorporated into the site somehow. I came up with the concept of having illustrations that were similar to the different sections background images animate in and then fade out to reveal the final backgrounds. The illustrations I created were graphic and simple with the shape of the characters following Hergé's character models as apposed to the final ones used in the film. We did an animation test in our office with the desert scene and it went over really well with the client. In the end, the idea was axed. I don't really recall why other than maybe the client wanted the user experience to go faster. In the end, I have six Tintin illustrations no one has seen… until now.  The first set of images is the six different illustrations that would've been used. The second set of images is a storyboard of how the images would have loaded.