Cowboy costume for a party back in February. Fun night ; )

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Original photos by Phil

I’ve found a quantum of  solace in playing dressup at costume themed parties of late. Keeping up with my own fascination for medieval/fantasy personalities, I decided to go with Robin Hood. Not just any Robin Hood, but the ‘Men in Tights‘ version of Robin Hood.

Thankfully, despite the new Riddley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood‘ being a terrible flick it was enough to remind people (including me) of the legend. So half of my job of convincing the people was already done, ya know?

The biggest fear I had with this whole get-up were the tights. Without the tights, there would be no punch line…

So with a big fat gulp,
I donned my bow and quiver.
Slapped on my fresh green tights,
And braved the cold with a shiver.

LOL

I’ve always been a fan of costume parties. They’re a window of oppurtunity for us escapists to step into the world under another guise. And one of my favourite guises is Frodo Baggins – or just about any old hobbit.

On the night of the soirée, one of the Catwomen (there were at least 6) asked me a profound question along the lines of, “Why Frodo, Johnny why?”

To which I wanted to quip, “Idiot. Why not? No one would ever dress as Frodo. This is a Hero & Villian’s themed le partay. Who would ever think of dressing up as a poor, helpless little hobbit? Everyone would be dressing up as a generic hero, like Batman or Spiderman. And I think too highly of myself to think of such a literal interpretation of this party’s theme. Coming as someone as understated as a hobbit would be pure GENIUS.”

But in truth, I uttered, “Well, um. I look more like a hobbit than an elf.”

Frodo’s apparel was easy to put together. A dark green cape, a brown jacket and 3/4 pants are enough to fool the passerby into thinking you’re from Middle Earth. But what you need to escalate the essence of Frodo, or any hobbit for that matter, is the feet.  Hairy feet my friends, is the punch line.

Here were some possible ‘hairy feet’ options.

Option 1:  Shoes
C’mon. I’ve invested all this time putting my costume together. My cape was home made! (Read: mum made it). Wearing shoes would’ve just ruined the whole look and feel of the costume. It’s like watching a really good film that has a great lead up to the climax, only having it fall short of a bang at the end. This was not an option.

Option 2: Thongs (aka flip flops for you Americans)
Putting hair on your feet would be the most authentic, but it’s not practical. Why? Let’s think about this carefully.  The arena of play was a nightclub-esque venue packed full of people. People dancing. And all those people would be wearing shoes. Some in particular, like the females, would be wearing heels. Now imagine all those shoes stomping on your heavily-exposed-yet-really-authentic-to-middle-earth-feet. This also was not an option.

Solution: Skin-coloured shoes with feet detailing
This was a win-win. You get the rugged protection of foot apparel as well as the “natural” look of hobbit feet. It’s half-arsed, but hey, it worked. It worked so well that people actually started talking to me for once.

Before

After

‘The Chronicles of Ballard’ is my little experiment where I try to tell a story through Twitter. It’s been in the back of my mind for the past 3-4 months and so decided to give it a shot. Basically, I made up a character named Ballard who goes on an adventure in some fantasy land and records his tales through Twitter.

No idea how long I’ll keep this up. It could go on for months or could end in a few days. haha.

Anyhow, follow Ballard on Twitter. If you don’t have Twitter, you can follow him through his RSS feed. Otherwise, more info about the whole thing here.

A t-shirt one day, perhaps.

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New splash page.

Art direction and animation for an 8 sec Jam TV ID

I think I thought of this idea when I was in bed.

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Art direction and animation for an online 17 sec ad for The Design Crowd.

Completed in 2.5 days.

The Design Crowd is a new online design community, set to launch very soon!

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The bedroom eyes influenced by Audrey Kawasaki and the artwork you can find on the Hed Kandi CDs.

For me, the time between visits to stores like General Pants is long – more than 12 months even. Why? I just feel awkward going into them because 90% of the time they’re filled with twats and douche-bags getting the latest gear to fit in with or to impress they’re twat-like friends. Most of them even have this superiority complex against those who are unfashionable.

Twats.

(Don’t forgot I said 90% of them are twats. Not all. The other 10% are good people who just want good looking clothes. Much respect.)

I remember one time my mate and I went into the G-Star store on George St. When we walked in the guy at the counter gave us the old look-down because of our peasant-like clothes or something. Douchetard, if I indeed were a peasant, I’d stab you with a pitchfork already.

Anyhow I realised my wardrobe needed an upgrade in the t-shirt department and I’ve been worshiping the God that is Steve Jobs. What better way to combine the two? He’s the creator and saviour of Apple computers. With his enchanting wizardry he transformed fugly beige computers into beautiful objects that belong in art galleries. Oh, and he also invented the friggin’ iPod. Have you heard of it?

I’m thinking of printing up some Steve Jobs shirts. Haven’t settled on the final graphic yet, but that’s the image I’m using. I’m also thinking of putting my other heroes on shirts like Pharrel and Buble. See how it goes.

This iz all for fun, so if you iz interested, let me knowz if yaz want one – I’ll just bill you for the printing cost.

Made this back in 2004. It’s one of my favourites and possibly best thing I’ve ever made.

Bear on a Wave

Skateboards are a gimmick, but they’re so cool to put stuff on! I’ve had this naked board for about a year and a half before I decided to put some koi on it.

Feels nice to draw again.

You can’t really see it here, but the koi have a slight grey tinge. This was achieved by colouring them in with a pencil them rubbing them out with an eraser.

I don’t plan on going back to work on this project anytime soon. So I figured I’d put up some old videos that were lying around.