This past weekend, I produced a movie during the 48 hour film project in Milwaukee. This is what our team threw together. Go to Vimeo to see it in HD.

Starring:
Laura Klein as Rose Lanvin
Petey Boy as Roger Lanvin
Ryan Trattles as Jake

The concept for the story was brainstormed by the whole team.
Writer: Ryan Trattles
Director: Mark Röethke
Director of Photography: Michael G Buck
Assistant Director: Greg Ritter
Assistant Camera: Jess Ader
Whole Sound Deparment: Max Grill
2nd Camera, Location Manager, all-around best boy: Ryan Erdmann
Production Assistant: Kelsey Abernethy

Ada Lovelace

Today is Ada Lovelace Day; a celebration of women and technology. I have to say the first person I thought of when I heard about this day is LadyAda. Maybe it is because of the namesake, but probably because LadyAda is featured a bunch on my favorite blog, Make:

Lady Ada is a tinkerer, inventor, and all around creator. I discovered hear reading a post about a miniPOV kit that looked super cool (I even asked my mom to get me one for christmas that year [she said she could find them anywhere]). The idea is that you program a message into the Persistance of Vision toy and then when you wave it, it displays the message via LEDs. I went to her website and found a bunch of awesome gadgets and kits. Of particular interest to me back then were, the gamegrrl; a gameboy sized NES emulator and the Mini MintyMP3; an mp3 player that fit into a mint tin.

Since then, LadyAda has started a website to sell her and other kits (today they are giving 10% off in order celebrate). I don’t know for sure, but I think she may work for (at least contributes to) Make: magazine and blog. She is definitely an inspiration to me. I wish I could put the right parts together to make sweet gizmos.

Enjoy the day and checkout other Ada Lovelace Day blog posts and articles.

Bob modeling Splitting Bears

So, I was on a making shirt kick and I wanted to do a big animal stencil. My power animal is obviously a large brown bear, so I found a picture that made a good silhouette and turned into a large stencil. So large in fact that it took up two pages of standard letter sized card stock. While I was deciding exactly where to position the stencil, I thought, “what if I split up the stencil and put them on different parts of the shirt?” I ran it by Abby (she’s my creative adviser) and she thought it would be cool, so I gave it a go.

I am immensely pleased with the way this shirt turned out. It was an instant favorite. It also was a favorite among everyone that saw it. One day an acquaintance of mine commented on how much he enjoyed the shirt. I asked him right there if he’d like to own it. He was apprehensive about taking such a great shirt from my collection. I insisted. I would give all my shirt away for other people to enjoy, but not a lot of people are close to the right size. After some persuading he accepted and now a bunch people I don’t even know get to enjoy seeing the shirt… and Bob gets the joy of wearing it.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

I was visiting some friends and they were talking about how they desperately needed a coat hanger. They always had people coming over and had no where to put coats. Usually they were just tossed across the back of the couch. I decided that I would find some old materials and make a coat hanger for them.

Shortly after, these same friends came to me and asked if they could commision a coat rack from me. They offered to pay me, but I felt like I couldn’t take money for something I was about to do for free. I let them know I was planning on making one for them anyway and offered my services as a gift.

The new hanger mounted and in use.

Only a little bit of time after that, The very same friends came to me with some hookah hoses. They explained that their hookah busted and were wondering if I could reuse the hoses for anything. Well, up until this point, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make a coat hanger for them. I thought about tearing apart old hard drives and using their arms and platters. But, when they offered me the hoses, I knew in an instant that I was going to make the coat hanger out of them. I mean, it is a great flexible piece of material to use, it is sentimental to the owners, and it was going to be trash if I didn’t do something with it. Win-Win-Win you might say.

So, I found some wood from my basement and figured out how everything would go together. The hose was too flimsy to hold up anything, so I thought if I folded it into a loop it might have more strength. I tried it and felt like it still wasn’t enough. Then I desided to use hanger wire and put it through the length of the hose. That idea worked brilliantly and the hookah hanger was assembled.

There are nine places to hang stuff with room for expansion. If any more was needed I would put wire s hooks on the bottom for maybe hats or mittens.

Treeheart

One of the only shirts that I’ve done that has a completely original design or isn’t modeled after something else.

I’m not sure if there was reason for making this shirt or not. But I made it and I’m glad that I did. I’m extremely happy with the way it turned out.

The design is drawn freehand using sharpie markers.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

Scorpion Clan. Bonzai!

From 10/2007 to 08/2008, I play Legend of Five Rings CCG. The game is super awesome and I’d still be playing, but the person I played with the most moved. Anyway, one of the best facets of the game is the community and story that is tied in with everything else. Every deck was from a specific clan. Mine was the Scorpion Clan. So, I made this stencil of that emblem.  Pretty sweet, huh? Even though I don’t play anymore, I still dig the hoodie.

I painted this one kind of funny. That is the order in which I put the layers down. At first glance, it looks like I just put the stencil down and painted black over it. But, I actually made the black circle and then a layer of red. Followed by the stencil. I was trying to get a different color red. I’m not sure that it worked.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

Filmed in its Entirety

Schizopolis is my favorite movie.

When I say that this is the most important motion picture you will ever attend my motivation is not financial gain but a firm belief that the delicate fabric that holds all of us together will be ripped apart unless every man, woman and child in this country sees this film and pays full ticket price not some bargain matinee, cut-rate deal.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

Neat Shirt

This is one of the very fist shirts I designed. In actuality, it is less of a design and more of an experiment. It was craft night and therefore time to make something. I had this hoodie, so I decided to make something… neat. It has been mistaken to say “HEAT”, but that is just not the case.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love novelty effects. That is, I love 3-D, I love blacklights, and I love anything that is glow-in-the-dark. This shirt is made with mostly glow-in-the-dark fabric paint. You probably recognize the color in the letters. But the orane and green also glow.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

Megaman

Megaman II is one of the best NES games of all time and no one can argue against the awesomeness of the man that is Megaman. So, making a shirt to show off my love is obvious.

This design has 4 colors and 3 layers; making it the hardest shirt I’ve ever put together. I thought it would be really easy, seeing that it is just a bunch of big pixels. I was wrong. It was extremely difficult making sure everything lined up. This is my first attempt and if you look close you can tell. I hid it in my drawer for a bunch of months because of my unsatisfaction. I pulled it out a couple of weeks ago and decided that I don’t mind the mistakes. It gives it that grungy look that is partially in right now.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.

Green Giraffe on Pink

In the summer of 08, I decided it was time to update my wardrobe. Therefore, I need to make a bunch of new stencils and new shirts. I’m not sure what lead to animal prints, but I love having the siloutte of friendly creatures on my shirts.

The green giraffe instantly became my favorite along with the splittings bears shirt I did at the same time. Not only did I love them, but everyone that saw me with these shirts had questions and comments. People really like animal prints. I can’t explain it. I just know it to be true.It also probably helps that the shirt is pink.

I make stencils by printing a design on cardstock and then cutting it out with an exacto knife. This is the first shirt I made where I had to print onto two pages of cardstock and then line them up in order to get my design. It was important to me to have a large print though. I wanted it to take up a big part of the shirt.

If you like any of the art or designs you see on the site and would like an original for yourself, please contact me and I’ll help make your dreams come true.