Friday, May 27, 2011

Slag Monkeys CC (shield, city, train, banner-empty, monkey-unfinished)

send you off into the holiday weekend with the latest Slag Monkeys Cycling Club logo

what we have is the bike chain lined shield, pittsburgh skyline, train engine, empty banner, & unfinished monkey. i'm REALLY lovin' how this is all coming together. i love the simple yet busy feel to it. and i'm already thinking of having 20 patches made up when complete!

check it out:


hope you all have a GREAT, safe holiday weekend!!! and for those of you overseas, throw a couple burgers on the grill for your buddies across the pond...

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Happy Towel Day 2011!!!

my brother Scott got me into the whole Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series when i was a kid and i've loved it ever since. in fact, it's the only book(s) i really read (i don't read all that often, so it puts me in la-la land on airplanes). anyway, today is Towel Day, "celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams (author)"


also:

"Any one who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

i know where my towel is today...

(Don't Panic!)

and, don't forget this guy:

("There's a frood who really knows where his towel is")

happy towel day, world!

from Wikipedia:

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)"

so long, Douglas Adams... and thanks for all the fish!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Invaders Ticket Stub...

i did some quick research thru my old calenders and estimated the FIRST EVER Invaders game was played on June 20th, 2009!

i have always saved my tickets stubs from sports events, movies, and whatever else had a cool piece of cardstock to preserve the memory. so i decided to draw up my own in AutoCAD! here's what would have got you in the door on the 20th... enjoy:


i wanted the result to look as "ticketmaster" official as i could (without all the added taxes and surcharges). note the fonts, and placement. also note that the "sec/row/seat" designations are all "off-kilter" as if these tickets were mass produced for the event, and lined up with no regard toward asthetics...

i pretty much collected jerseys up until i made my first Invaders jersey... wonder what this is gonna do to my ticket stub collection...

Friday, May 20, 2011

Dayton Invaders?

sorry for my absence, or lack of DIY posts. been a REALLY busy week for me. will have much more content, and yet ANOTHER fun project i can't wait to work on and post here soon (ticket stub, what?)!

until then, here are the images i sent to the Dayton Gems hockey team for their Beer League Night promotion (details here)

wish us luck when the contest starts... you'll know AS SOON as it starts! muah ha ha haaa (evil laugh)







Friday, May 13, 2011

letting the chips fall where they may...

and by "chips" i obviously mean all the pieces of the Slag Monkeys puzzle i've been drawing!

shield + bike chain + pittsburgh's beautiful skyline + a roarin' steam engine + a banner = a halfway finished logo:


hope you all have a great, safe weekend!!!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Koinobori by Chamuco's Studio...

Koinobori by Chamuco's Studio

my first ever guest DIY entry! from Efra Sanchez of Chamuco Studio

Efra and I constantly e-mail each other about DIYs, art ideas, and our love for all things "logo"... so when he told me he was in the middle of a DIY, naturally i had to see. what a great idea, and even better execution of said idea. i'll let Efra take it from here:

"Koinobori is Japanese for a flag that's shaped like a kind of fish called a carp. Every year on May 5th, Japanese families fly these flags in front of their homes to celebrate a holiday called Children's Day. That's when children thank their parents for the care they give them and parents celebrate the healthy growth of their children. The flags are shaped like carp because carp are very strong fish and can jump high out of the water. 

Japanese families fly Koinobori in front of their homes to make a wish that their children will be strong and healthy like the carp."

example:

 
sketching out the Koinobori:


translation into Illustrator (then later printed onto paper):


final .pdf... ready for print!:

(for a copy of the original .pdf, please e-mail either me (here) or, Efra (here))

supplies - print out of Koinobori, glue, scissors or X-Acto knife, ruler (optional):


cut out pieces:


look out for tabs on the right side of the fish:


fold fish "cut-out" long way but don't crease:


fold tabs:


and add glue:

press together and make sure glue is dry before continuing:


glue tail:


attach purple "string" by adding glue to the inside of the mouth:




glue the bottom of the mouth opening:


finished!


most important step... hang and enjoy:


RyCo here... now tell me THAT ain't a great DIY! and what a cool idea. an awesome conversation piece wherever it's hangin'... Efra, now we're going to have to get you in contact with some nylon shops... i'm thinking some 5 to 7 footers!!! haha. great work, and thanks for letting me share on the blog! also, thanks for the detailed pics and step by step... looking forward to the next one

hope you all enjoyed!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

welcome Puck Daddy...

thanks for checking out the site!

and thanks Greg for posting pics & links... love the blog, keep up the great work!


great team names and jerseys so far, really fun stuff!


&

Monday, May 9, 2011

Building a City...

and painting the town red...

took an image of Pittsburgh, traced it, & squeezed it together a bit, and came up with this. an element i'm going to hide in the background of my shield:


Building a Train Engine...

Slag Monkeys Shield detail. there will be a train involved within the logo. one of the rumors of the slag dump in Swisshelm Park is that there is a train engine burined deep within the mountain. either a rumor, urban legend, or something my dad told me for kicks... either way, a fun "legend" and an imiage i definitely wanted to tackle!

as always, work in progress:


Saturday, May 7, 2011

Building a Shield...

where will the "Slag Monkey" reside once finished? he's part of the overall logo, so he'll chill in this bike chain shield i've been working on:



Friday, May 6, 2011

Building a Character...

working on a logo for the Slag Monkeys CC, i decided to change my blog approach. in past projects, i took this blog through a step-by-step without giving too much away until the end. giving it an air of secrecy. but this time, i want to almost update in real time. already posted my initial sketches (and was pretty well satisfied as to where they were going):


now it's AutoCAD's turn. usually i'll do one of 2 things when transferring from sketch to digital. 1) i'll snap a pic of the sketch (as i did above), then e-mail it to myself (using a Motorola Droid). then i will copy the image, paste it into ACAD, then roughly trace over it (making the pasted image "unselectable" and "moving it to back" so the traced lines show thru)... OR... 2) i'll keep it at my side and glance at it for reference as i draw and shape polylines.

option "2" is currently what i'm doing:



perfectly happy with the jump off of this character. as you can see above the reference lines i use for the shoulders/shoulder angle, the length of the arms, and the general placement of the hands. everything from the chin down will eventually be repositioned and erased. in my best Capt. Barbosa imitation: "more like guidelines..."

any questions, just comment me!

hope you all have a great safe weekend! and a very happy mothers day to the women we love :-)

till next week...

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Slag Monkeys CC

sketching right along. not very good at drawing animals, eyes, facial expressions, or that sort of thing. i DO however have a "shield" drawn up in AutoCAD that is looking pretty good. should post that next week. until then, check out my early sketches, see what you think:

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

DIYPB&J

just sit back, and enjoy...


will be sketching out logos for the Slag Monkeys Cycling Club, and for a freezer paper shirt stencil. stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

and for my next logo...

need a logo for our cycling club! will start sketching pretty soon.

"slag monkeys" refers to the slag dumps in east pittsburgh... it's where we used to hang out in high school to get away from adults...


right off, i'm thinking green & white with yellow trim. should be a fun little project.

#40 of the day goes to...

posted by my friend Robert Marshall over at Uni Watch. back-to-back #40OTD posts, but i HAD to show it. you understand:


more to come this week!