Malanity villain cartoon character

Here’s one of the downright dastardly characters I created for Brian’s skimboard company. Yeah, you wouldn’t want to run into this dude down a dark back alley, now wouldja?

Cartoon characters for Poise Skimboards

Hey folks,

I’ve been creating some cartoon characters for my friend Brian Riffe’s skimboarding company, called Poise Skimboards.

Check out his website and my (fantastic as usual) illustrations here!

Story and Art published in Oregon Quarterly!

I wrote a story and drew some artwork for the 2011 Fall issue of Oregon Quarterly (the University of Oregon’s alumni magazine)!

The story is a short profile piece about a dude who draws awesome designs on shoes for money. Check it out here! (Or merely read the story below the images of the shoes, either one)

My tarot card artwork originally appeared in a special section of the Oregon Daily Emerald, but it was reprinted in Oregon Quarterly. Check it out here!

Fashion-Forward Footwear

Evan Schultz ’10 straps a respirator over his face, selects a permanent fine-point Sharpie pen, and attacks a new pair of white Vans with a flurry of strokes. Welcome to “Art Kicks.”

Schultz, twenty-two, is the owner and founder of Art Kicks, a custom shoe-art business that started in Eugene.

The first inklings of Art Kicks came in March 2009. Schultz was near broke when a friend suggested he use his illustration skills to draw on shoes for money.

Schultz’s first customers were friends and the art was free. “It was great because it generated buzz and simultaneously created content” for his website, Schultz says. In just two weeks, he was able to begin charging for personalized kicks. Soon, his clientele spread from the UO campus to the greater Eugene community and beyond.

After creating forty pairs, Schultz saw the opportunity to expand his business. He teamed up with Cam Giblin ’11, a freelance illustrator and fellow advertising major. Each artist specializes in a different style. Giblin’s shoes echo the vibe of his splashy watercolor illustrations, while Schultz creates shoes saturated with intense color and emblazoned graphic-novel-type images.

It takes between six and twenty hours to complete a pair of Art Kicks. Clients contact Schultz with an idea that he turns into sketches. After receiving approval, Schultz lightly pencils the design on the Vans. Next, he carefully adds color with one of his 600 markers. He waits for each colored section to dry, then outlines, shades, and crosshatches with thin black lines. Sometimes he lets colors bleed, producing a painting-like effect. Schultz finishes with two coats of water-repellent.

A pair of Art Kicks goes for $200. And while Schultz finds himself increasingly busy—working days at a large advertising agency in San Francisco—he still finds time for creating masterpieces on canvas. Shoe canvas, that is.

—Edwin Ouellette ’11

New Portfolio site

I’m in the process of shifting my portfolio over from a simple WordPress site, to a site on CargoCollective.com.

I’ve yet to make it all pretty and sparkly and glowy yet, but you can check out what I have thus far at cargocollective.com/edwin1

Japanese anime duck

Here’s an anime duck mascot I created in Illustrator for the Japanese Global Scholars Program at the University of Oregon. I’ve been told, by several Japanese girls, that it’s pretty frickin’ cute.

Urban Foraging Video

Check out this video I made with Blaire Ryan and Timothy Belrose for FLUX magazine last year. It just went viral on YouTube. Woohoo!!!!

 

Drawing cute japanese anime, for a change

Although I’ve never really tried it before, I’m finally learning how to draw cutsy Japanese anime. For my Graphic Designer job at the UO’s Japanese Global Scholars Department, I’ve been assigned to come up with a cute anime duck mascot. I’m still ironing out the design, but I’ll post the design once it’s finalized in the next few days.

After drawing recently drawing soldiers (for Ethos Magazine), and beer-drinking bikers (for 1859 Magazine), it will be refreshing to illustrate something completely and totally different. Like cute anime ducks.

On a side note, now that I’m not working for Ethos or the Oregon Daily Emerald, I’ll be posting different types of cartoons, illustrations, and stories here. Prepare for some crazy stuff!

And thank you dear anonymous reader, for stumbling across this humble blog of mine. Check back for more blog posts in the next few days!

50 things every Graphic Designer should know…

Just ran across this list of the top 50 things every graphic designer should know. Even if you’re not a graphic designer, it’s a great list for life in general.

Check it out here.

Biker illustration for 1859 Magazine

Here’s one of the several illustrations I did for the Summer 2011 issue of 1859 Magazine, which just came out yesterday. For the past several months, I’ve been working as an intern for 1859 Magazine, doing stories and graphic elements. I also wrote an article about how to build your own outdoor kitchen, which appears in the issue as well.

 

Ethos Magazine Summer 2011: Ryan Deto Caricature

Here’s a caricature of writer Ryan Deto, for a story about his less-than-stellar adventures in the land of spaghetti and pasta. Check out the story here.