To Live and Let Dieagram

Every which way but approved concept.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, "Agency work is fickle."

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it. It may be fickle, but it's always fun!


Circling the conceptional wagons.

A lot of agency work is exploritory. The project may never see the light of day in a real world use, but the agency in charge is exploring all graphic possibilities of what could be done.

I was hired to explore different ways a diagram graphic (think pie chart etc.) could be carried out to make it more interesting, be flexible enough so it had animation attributes, and reflect a more feminine target audience.

This post contains some of the ideas I created for this project.


Steps to no where concept.

I was provided with some very rough general directions and also asked to go beyond them as well and share what I think could work as well. Many of the ideas in this post I see animated in my mind. I was only providing static images but I think it was important to think through how they'd build out in motion as I created them as well.


This idea blossom was sprayed with creative Roundup.

Some of the ideas were pretty straight forward and probably not too practical. It's a balance of trying to be unique, but still retaining an element of graphic pragmatism. After all, there is a reason why the pie chart is used so much, it works well for it's purpose.


My personal favorite: Globulous Nodes.

How can you not like this when it's named "Globulous Nodes?" I'd animate this so when you moused over the fat ends of the nodes they would increase in size and everything else would scale back as the information populated the node end.

I've already recycled this motif into a new pattern for a bonus edition pattern set I'm creating.


A concept inspired by game show graphics.

Just search Google images for "The Dating Game" and you'll get an idea of my source of inspiration for this design.


Technicolor Rams horn concept.

The term "Technicolor" is one of those words that take a reality of life "Color" and turn it into a brand name. As far as I know reality has always been in color.


Rams horn extruded.

Follow the multi-colored brick road but watch your step, you may fall off into the alpha channel netherworld.


Animation centric concept.

Slowly spinning, transparent, pulsing, and when moused over scales up and text slides in.


Revised direction "Flat."

After taking in all my ideas the agency requests another specific direction playing off several of my ideas. Kind of like if Pantone created mag wheels I guess.


Revised direction "3D."

With the help of Google SketchUp I created this 3D version.


New Revised direction "Flat Perspective."

The agency asked me to work some of the other colors back into this new version and I also played with the perspective so it wasn't so flat as well. They also requested a version that took this same motif and extruded it into 3D. Oh yeah, they asked that I include a heart in the diagram too. (No I didn't ask why)


New Revised direction "3D" with spacing.

With all the colors and 3D applied I felt it was getting too busy. The more I looked at it the more it felt like a Fisher-Price™ version of Stonehenge.


New Revised direction "3D" without spacing.

I rendered out the detail a little more and removed the spacing which I felt added too much visual tension.

When it was all said and done the project was killed leaving me with a stink load of "Dieagrams."

Japanese dragon Tattoos - Dragon Art

Japanese Tattoos

Japanese Dragon Tattoos

Tattoo inspiration can come from anything, at any time. You might be sipping a cappuccino and enjoying some free Wi-Fi at the local Starbucks when somebody's crazy graphic tee sparks your interest. You could become captivated by a lush landscape scene while vacationing in Hawaii, or find yourself exceedingly intrigued by the ethereal beauty of a delicate geisha woman when traveling the streets of Japan.

Japanese Tattoos 123

Japanese Tattoos

Yakuza Tattoos

In loving memory tattoos

Gothic Tattoos

Phoenix Tattoos

In loving memory tattoos are used quite often in marking the passing of someone special. Their are huge gallery collections available online. They give options of combining, designing or just selecting from their collection.

Tattoos and Body Art on Hollywood Celebrities

Celebrity tattoos are becoming more and more visible and socially acceptable in mainstream pop culture these days. Angelina Jolie recently voted most sexy woman has plenty of tattoos and is probably the most famous and desirable celebrity with tattoos in Hollywood. Her tattoos to date consist of tribal dragons, a Thai tiger, and various Latin sayings across her shoulders and arms.

This surge in popularity of celebrity tattoos began in the 1960s. Lyle Tuttle the forefather of American tattooing tattooed Janis Joplin. Time was when tattoos were the preserve of those on the fringes of society but now it is not uncommon to see celebrity tattoos. Even super models such as Kate Moss and Sarah O'Hare strut around flashing their body art on the cover of glossy magazines or on the cat walk.

Actor Johnny Depp ranks as heavily tattooed for his caliber of talent and breadth of acting work. His tattooed arms are as often painted to be blank flesh as left with their own tattoos showing and incorporated into the character.

Vin Diesel is covered with a mix of modern tattoos styles, as befitting an underground government secret agent in the movie xXx. The character he plays agent X has one full sleeve, one partial sleeve, chest work and tattoos on his stomach.

As vampire slayer BLADE, Wesley Snipes has tribal blackwork on his arms, chest and back, as well as the sides of his head and the back of his nect. Pamela Anderson had her arm tattooed for real with a barbed wire armband for her role in the movie BARBWIRE. Following her split from husband Tommy Lee, (who is heavily tattooed) she had the "Tommy" tattoo on her finger edited to read "Mommy" in reference to her two sons. She also has tribal tattoos on the small of her back and a tattoo on her ankle.

Musicians have traditionally enjoyed more freedom than actors when it comes to body art. For movie stars having to transform into a different character each time they shoot a movie can be limiting especially if they are playing historical figures. But that has not stopped a lot of actors from getting tattooed in very visible places.

Historically rock stars were renowned for getting tattoos. The band Red Hot Chili Peppers are an example where the band members have a well-developed collection of tattoos. Singer Henry Rollins began his tattoo collection as the lead singer of Black Flag. Eminem continues to add to his tattoo collection but some critics have claimed that it will inhibit him if he wants to play a bigger acting role. Eminem's tattoos are a combination of a style that is typical of Hip Hop and R&B artists such as Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent and Pharrel.

Sakura Japanese Tattoos

Sakura Japanese Tattoos

The Sakura Japanese tattoos is beautifully tattoos for your body

Rogues' Gallery

My original tribal face tattoo art.

Over the past eight months I've been collecting a rogues' gallery of assorted people who have used my art to either get a tattoo or create a tattoo for another person. None of the people in this post sought permission to use my art and a few even posted my art within their own online accounts, listing it with their own copyright notice.

Every time I post about this topic I get a swarm of people saying "If I were you I'd be flattered!" or "You should be happy people like your work!" etc. Well let me say before I get any further that of course I'm flattered that people like my art and want to get it permanently tattooed on their body. Who wouldn't be?

That said, neither of those two comments excuse anyone from the obligation of getting permission to use another persons artwork. It's my art period the end and if they want to use it they should ask first. A handful have done this and I've worked out very fair arrangements with them and they've received flash sheets from me to assist them in getting my art tattooed with precision. The people in this post didn't do that.


Derived art by Michel Schwarz.

Michel did ask permission to use my art, but it came after he already had the tattoo done. Personally I think he should have just drawn the whole thing out himself, he obviously has the chops. But over all it came out pretty good and he was nice enough to share the picture with me.


My tribal face poorly executed on Natas Filth. (Screen Name)

Some one had emailed me a link that had the photo of the shoulder. I did some connecting the dots and found it's home on Natas. Beautiful women, but an ugly tattoo job. Too bad.


My original tribal bat tattoo art.

This design is becoming my most popular tattoo design. It's showing up all over the place like walking portfolios.


My tribal bat perched on the back of TheDeadAmongUs. (Screen Name)

Originally I thought this tattoo was used by a goth girl celebrity from Transilvania, Romania named Razor Candi? But the real persona behind the costume visual branding seems to be quite normal and answered my email informing me she doesn't have a tattoo on her back.

So I did some more poking around on Deviantart.com and discovered it is on the back of "TheDeadAmongUs" AKA Lauren. (Who apparently is a fan of "Razor Candi)

Lauren values her privacy so she doesn't reveal her last name in her profile, but she does share the fact she loves classic cars, death rock, body modification, vintage corsets, latex fashion, dermal implants, hairless cats, b-rated movies, roller derby and one could argue my tribal tattoo art as well.


My tribal bat on "Hell Ya Buddy!" (Screen Name)

I get asked all the time "How do you find these?" well usually I don't. Most often it works like this:

- Receive email saying: "Hey is this your art?" (Link provided)
- Visit link and usually see a hostage quality photo showing my art
- Shake head, groan, and say "Weasel!"
- Ask person to remove the image showing my art
- Blog about it here

My tribal bat on the leg of Helen Norcross.

OK, so my preference is shown on the left and reality is shown on the right.

If it were up to me I'd make some kind of tattoo law that only allowed well proportioned young people to get them done. Tattoos look great on beautiful bodies but not so hot on the modus operandi of the greater populace. (That includes me BTW)

I have no idea what Helen Norcross looks like? Flickr.com had all kinds of pictures of her family and husband but she always seemed to be behind the camera.


My tribal bat tickling Sherri Langfords leg.

It looks like a guy by the name of Bull Snook is claiming copyright ownership of my work. Well that is a bunch of bull! (Pun intended) And Sherri should know better being a photographer herself.

At best it's a clear case of derivative work.


My tribal bat kickin' it on the calf of Ramsey1984's. (Screen Name)

Kind of a strange location to put a horizontally oriented design? But thankfully Ramsey1984's calf muscle is as meaty as a ham hock with enough real estate to suffice. The tattoo artist seems to have done a nice precise job too, so props for that.


My tribal bat hacked together on Zoro4me3's gut. (Screen Name)

The following is another example of derivative work.

It's bad enough when people use my art without permission, but it's insult upon injury when nebulous screen names have hacked my art and produce a craptacular tattoo with it.

Of course this doesn't stop people from proudly displaying it to the world via the internet of course. So lets all hug one another and celebrate mediocrity!


My tribal bat gracing the wrist of Jakk636. (Screen Name)

Tattoos like this remind me of the old PeeChee folders everyone would doodle on in school. But in this case he chose to do it on his own body instead. So for the next 70 years or so he'll have to stare at this poorly executed art and cringe.


My tribal bat scrawled on EvilMuffinMan. (Screen Name)

Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man, that lives on Drury Lane, and apparently hires the blind to poorly trace my tattoo design on his back.


My original tribal lion tattoo art.

It's not just people wanting a tattoo it's also tattoo artists themselves who have no qualms about using other peoples art without permission. I know there are always exceptions and many good tattoo shops try to avoid this situation, but here is one artist who didn't.


My tribal lion on some persons body done by Pisopez. (Screen Name)

Well I've managed to figure out that the artists first name is Joel and apparently Joel is some what of a renaissance man. He's an artist who paints, plays the guitar, does tattoos (see image above) and even throws axes for fun?

Joel seems to be pretty accurate with those axes too, so I'll just say this:

"Next time axe me for permission Joel!"

VonsterTattoos.com Coming Soon
I've had so much interest in my tattoo art over the past four years I've decided to create my own official set of tattoo flash sheets that I'll be marketing through a new web presence called VonsterTattoos.com. It'll take me a good chunk of the summer to get all the art done but I hope to have it launched by Halloween at the latest.

This will give those who want to use my art for tattoos an easy way to do so legally and at a very fair and reasonable rate. If you subscribe to this sites RSS feed you'll be notified when this new site launches.

0-63 in 7 Seconds

Over the last 23 years I've worked on a lot of different type of illustrative design projects, but my favorite type of project is still logo designs. Sometimes it may be my own client, but most often it's for another agency or firm.

I always find logo designs challenging in that I have to discover that one concept that will be an appropriate, creative, and hopefully clever solution for my clients business or product.

Back in 2003 my friend Paul Howalt introduced me to Bill Gardner the author of "Logolounge I, II, III, IV and V." Bill invited me to submit for his second book and I've been addicted to his site Logolounge.com ever since.

The logo lounge books have become the most popular design publications in our industry and now they've started to put together a new series derived from the ever growing archive that is Logolounge.com and the first one out of the gate was "Logolounge: Master Library Vol. 1 - Crest Logos" which also featured "14" of my logo designs in it.

Logolounge Master Library 2 - Animals & Mythology
A few weeks back I was contacted by the publisher and notified that the next book in the series "Logolounge Master Library 2 - Animals & Mythology" would contain "63" of my logo designs. At first I thought someone made a typo, but was shocked to discover it was accurate.


Logolounge Master Library 2 - Animals & Mythology: 63 Logos in 7 seconds.

I'm so honored just to have any of my work in this wonderful collection. I didn't want to post all "63" so I figured the easiest way was to do a simple animation that loops through all of them. Kind of speed reading for bloggers I suppose?

Japanese Tattoos Koi

Japanese Tattoos Koi

Full back piece Japanese Tattoos

Full back piece Japanese Tattoos

Phoenix Tattoos

Phoenix Tattoos

Japanese Devil Tattoos

Japanese Devil Tattoos

Japanese Tattoos Picture

Japanese Tattoos Picture

Tattoos >> Japanese Traditional Tattoos

Tattoos Japanese Traditional Tattoos

Japanese Tattoos Full Body

Japanese Tattoos Full Body

Japanese Tattoos Photo

Japanese Tattoos Photo

Tattoo Parlours

Guidelines for Choosing the Best Tattoo Parlors
If you were going to invest in a piece of art, would you feel better about buying it from an accredited gallery which could prove it was authentic, or from someone selling it from the trunk of their car?

So think of the tattoo you are about to get as a piece of art, because that’s what it should be. Tattoos are one of the most ancient forms of body art, for which you will be providing the canvas. And because tattoos have soared in popularity over the past decade, there is no shortage of tattoo “studios” more than willing to practice their artistry on you. How do you separate the best tattoo parlors from the rest?

Let me confess. I have, for years, indulged in oil painting as a hobby. I have an easel, brushes, a palette, paints and mediums too numerous to count, palette knives, and even a smock. I have won a few awards in amateur competitions, and even sold a few pieces of my work. Does that make me a professional artist?

No more than owning inks, needles, designs, and renting a store space makes someone a professional tattoo artist. Before you decide to patronize a particular tattoo parlor, learn what a successful parlor should look like. If the one you are considering doesn’t measure up, take your money, and your canvas, elsewhere.