Illustration – Page 5 – when art is fine

w37 2021 – Spreadshirt Shop

Following last weeks post, a friend of mine surprised/shocked me by setting up a spreadshirt-shop for me and then forcing/encouraging me into uploading artworks.
I’ll make a habit out of uploading my weekly illustrations to the shop, at least if it makes a somewhat decent design for that purpose.

Go to https://smilesandgiggles.myspreadshop.net/ if you want to buy a piece of clothing with an illustration from me on it. Spreadshirt is a german print-service, so if they ship internationally then I guess it will not be cheap.

Dino Trocknungen – construction

Lets’s close the first month of freelance with a set of illustrations I did for Dino Trocknungen GmbH and in collaboration with Kassel based design agency Lockruf.
Dino Trocknungen was going to brand a set of construction waste containers and wanted to utilize their mascot for this purpose. They were acquiring a new truck as well, which was potentially gonna get a print on the door(s). So they were looking for poses/actions of their mascot which would suit the theme but also needed to fit onto the containers.
With this info and some temporary design layouts from Andreas Bollerhey (of lockruf) I had a lot of fun just sketching proposals.
The client selected his favorite sketches, Andreas gave me some additional info on how he’d like the files to be set up so he could make adjustments for the final layouts, and off I went to create the illustrations.

design layouts with illo adjustments by Andreas Bollerhey of lockruf.com

Beer brewer mascot

I had the opportunity to design a mascot for a private beer brewer and illustrate one small vignette that can be used on a label, sticker, card, etc..
Initially, the goal was to cartoonify the client into the mascot, and I briefly explored some options based on some of the cartoons/comics the client grew up with. The last option I threw in because in our conversation I had learned that there’s a family crest that features a bull and an axe.
He liked the bull and so that’s the option we went with for the final illustration.

Arestia – It’s about loss

Shortly after announcing my return to freelance, I got an e-mail from a musician who had seen and liked some of my various explorations from the past years. The musician was looking for someone to create an album cover for him. The music wasn’t going to be published, instead, it is only for his own private use.
For a briefing, I received a spotify-playlist of music from other musicians, a short description of the theme of the music that he wants to collect into an album, and a budget.
From there I listened to the playlist on repeat and did a couple of sketches. I’m happy to say he liked all of them, but he decided on only commissioning me to finalize one for now.

The band name and album title I made up myself from the description that I was given.

I’m really happy with this project, I had a lot of fun listening to the playlist and letting my own imagination & emotions guide me through the process of making those comps/sketches. I’m also happy that I got to work on the one sketch that I threw in as an “out there”-suggestion.

Harry Mack – Omegle Bars Tribute

I don’t know when exactly I discovered Harry Mack. It wasn’t too long ago but before the pandemic. I saw one of his Guerilla Bars videos and followed his channel on youtube. But it was only when the pandemic hit and he started a series called “Omegle Bars” that I became a big fan of him. The concept of the show is that Harry chats up random people on a chat-roulette site called “Omegle”. He offers to do a freestyle for his chat partner based on random words they provide.
Harry is marvelous in his freestyle performance. But the series really shines because you can see and feel Harry lifting the spirits of the people he encounters. And that positive energy is so strong that with every episode I can’t help myself but be happy myself, for Harry, his chat partners, everyone.
I had the opportunity to join his HappyHour stream a few months ago. Here’s the time-stamped link to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HViiFqbGD2g&t=2523s
I think you can easily see just how happy I was!

A couple of days ago I was feeling anxious. There’s time-sensitive bureaucracy I have to deal with so I can freelance again. A job that would have been beneficial for the aforementioned bureaucracy just fell through and I was putting myself under pressure to produce portfolio artwork that I didn’t really want to do but which would make it easy to get some quick jobs.
I wasn’t in the best mood or mindset and I was spiraling down fast.
So I stopped my “work performance”, turned on a Harry Mack video, and let myself be uplifted. This then turned into me being motivated to draw something Harry Mack related. It turned into a sketch and the sketch turned into an illustration.