Drawing skulls don’t pay bills

but they are fun to draw with a sharpie on unpaid bills.

Nothing new out in a while that I can recall that I worked on.

Currently finishing up Blasphemophagher “The III Command of the Absolute Chaos” layout. LP approval is going on right now and CD is about to be sent off. Pictures of that when it comes out. Awesome paintings by Paolo “Madman” Girardi.

Ghoul “Transmission Zero” is at the press right now and is out due Nov. 8 on Tankcrimes. Great artwork by Bill Hauser! The band and label were thrilled with the artwork but not exactly happy with the coloring so Bill was nice enough to send us a layered version. They had me change it to their desire and match the color scheme they had in mind. Here’s a before:

And after:

Night Fever LP CASSETTE / Obsessor CASSETTE / Cannabis…

Probably the highest profile job that has most recently come out that I was a part of in the layout / design was the Cannabis Corpse Beneath the Grow Lights Thou Shalt Rise LP/CD on Tankcrimes. Crazy concept from the band with art by Andrei Bouzikov, logo by Barf. Check it out:

Listen to a track here.

Some other cool new stuff going on at Tankcrimes that I had the pleasure to work on was the screen printed jacket for Night Fever, here is the mock up:

And then the actual screen print photo, printed on chipboard, 3 up, uncut:

Insert here, pretty much exactly as they sent it with a minor text addition and some pre-press work:

The cassette version of the Night Fever folded out, pretty much just reiterated the LP insert to fit in a cassette J-card; along with the Obsessor tape cover, (logo by Sean McGrath art by Andrei Bouzikov):

Night Fever tape and tape case:

Obsessor cassette:

To order Night Fever from Tankcrimes click here.

To order Obsessor from Tankcrimes click here.

Another amazing project that recently came out that was awesome to work on was the Conqueror box set. The packaging here is insane, definitely first time for a metal box made in china for me. They are a brutal Black Metal band from Canada, this amazing release is on Nuclear War Now! productions:

I also helped out with the layout of the regular version of this and the CD. To check out more pictures of this awesome project click here.

To order it from NWN click here.

Another recent project which is totally killer with Nuclear War Now was the Abigail LP / CD The Lord Satan.

This should be out now too so check out the NWN store to purchase it soon too, cheers!

Pirates Press Record of the Week

Record of The Week is a blog that mentions releases over at Pirates Press. Skimming through the first page I found a few gems on Tankcrimes, Nuclear War Now Productions, and Buried by Time and Dust that I helped design or prepare files for print.

Okay back to cranking the finishing touches on Short Fast and Loud #24, 10 year anniversary issue!

http://piratespress.com/rotw/

Tankcrimes Box Set design

This is a Box Set that came out almost a year ago on Tankcrimes. Some of the bands featured in this box-set are Population Reduction, Vitamin X, Cannabis Corpse, Voetsek and ANS. It shows one of my favorite own illustrations. A chicken where the neck folds around the box.

Here it is on template all folded out:

For more pictures of the screen printed process and finished product:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=149774&id=207044605752&ref=mf

A limited edition poster was printed of just the chicken with out the lines.

Promo video for Direct Control “Bucktown Hardcore” LP on…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLihx2CF_ac

“Finally available on vinyl, this is a collection of some of DIRECT CONTROL’s finest work. Classic 1980s style hardcore punk done correctly. This LP includes the cult 2003 demo, the “Public Safety” session from 2006 (Maximum Rock N’ Roll named their 2006 hardcore compilation after this song) and the original War All the Time demo from 2002.” –Record description from Tankcrimes.

Available on splatter vinyl and black.

The print ad to appear in the next Maximum Rocknroll and Razorcake Magazine, also used as a web ad on the front page of Tankcrimes:

The splatter vinyl:

All artwork was drawn by hand drawn by the Brandon Ferrell. I was in charge of the layout / pre-press.

Bunch of layouts

This is the Born Against ‘Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure’ LP jacket reissue on Prank Records. The technical print problem with the original Prank Records version of this LP was that the halftone dots weren’t big enough and the overprint wasn’t set properly. This reissue looks much better than the first reissue on Prank and also looks more like the original release put out on Vermiform Records.

Layout for the Municipal Waste LP/CD on Earache:

Conqueror/Black Witchery split LP on Nuclear War Now! Productions:

I have done many many more awesome LP layouts for Nuclear War Now! Productions, and I am excited to be including those soon.

Now for some fantastic stuff on Tankcrimes:

The Abscess/Population Reduction split LP:

Some various LP Layouts:

Toxic Holocaust/Inepsy split LP jacket cover:

Shadow Kingdom Records layouts - Iron Man LP jacket cover:

Various Shadow Kingdom records CD layouts:

Oakland Brainsqueeze Advertisement Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awRfAg8ca_w

This is a promotional video for the Tankcrimes Oakland Brainsqueeze—the American version of the Japanese punk/thrash festival, Yokohama Brainsqueeze, which is happening in about a month. Ross Sewage did an excellent job with the pro-wrestling/Monster Truck ad announcer voices. This was a very fun project to do; it’s not every day that you get to come up with a crazy motion graphics piece for such a wild event.

Voetsek – Bay Area Fast

I read Sean Clivers’ ‘Disposable‘, a skateboard art history book a while back when it first came out. He mentions how M. C. Escher was a huge influence on Vernon Courtlandt Johnson. If you look at MCE’s ‘Dragon‘ and then look at VCJ’s Powell Peralta 1980 Steve Caballero deck, the influence is especially noticeable. However, VCJ ran with it. That style of line really art lends itself to screen-printing on skateboard decks with a clean yet very edgy esthetic.

I’m not sure if Durer was ever mentioned in the book, but one day I stared at Durers’ ‘Revelation Four Riders’ for a long time and then went on to play World of Warcraft. As I was playing I was inspired and doodled on a piece of paper thinking of this style of line art and how cool it was.

Then Voetsek had to go on their 2008 tour and they needed a new shirt design. Scotty walked in my room and saw one of the doodles. He liked it so much he said, “That one! That’s the shirt”. They went ahead and had the shirts made and it was the best seller on that tour. It sold out before the tour was even over!

Since the shirt did so well on tour they decided to have it available through Warlord Clothing. You can order it here.

Brainsqueeze Advertizing

Ad we made for Decibel Magazine. When the art isn’t ready yet, scan something else and pull out a typewriter.

The 11×17, this is for an offset 2 color print. There will be a 2 color screen print version much bigger, but not sure what size yet, and will be printed at Monolith Press. Illustration by Andrei Bouzikov.

2 sided handbills. Very old-school use of Futura Bold on the back.