The UMBRELLA ACADEMY “APOCALYPSE SUITE “portfolios are now up in the shop!
MORE INFO HERE
The portfolio includes 8.5" x 11" ea (Set of 3)
1 exclusive FOIL sticker
Giclee Print Artist Edition of 50
Illustrated Envelope
Signed & Numbered
I also made a new enamel pin, sticker, and art for the envelope. I wanted this to look as fancy as possible.
PLATE 1
I remember having a little over a week to design this and two other full-page ills for the original project. Normally it takes me at least a week to design ONE illo. ONE! So I had to take a few days off from tattooing and not sleep that whole week. Since it was a weekly magazine the deadline was INSANE! My brain still hurts thinking about it. But I did it and I’m very proud of how it turned out.
Kerrang had wanted me to illustrate Gerard Way from the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge days. I originally thought it would be fun to draw him in one of the Umbrella Academy schoolboy-uniform and looking kinda bratty. Similar to the character he plays in the I’m Not Okay video. And to signal that he had a life outside of being a musician. But that got nixed. So I drew him in a suit - similar to the outfit he wore during the Taste Of Chaos tour. (I was on that tour as well so I saw them play every night. Tons of fun!)
This was originally meant to be the cover of the magazine. But at the last minute, they used it for the back cover instead. Ah well…it’s still a cover!!!
The other idea was that they wanted me to do a skeleton over Gerard - similar to the style I had started using in my poster work. We all felt that it was too busy and (not deadline-friendly) and nixed that. Whew!
I used a dry brush technique on his hair since he wore it messy. It was weird to use minimal line work on this. But…I had a deadline #DeadlinesRuleEverythingAroundMe and I wanted to build up the illustration with shading and coloring.
The thing is, I really didn’t know how to use photoshop. I used it to make jpegs!!! (I worked mostly in illustrator.) So I had to learn on the spot. Since then I’ve made sure to improve on every project involving photoshop! My poor brain…
So yeah, that’s how this piece came together.
