Designing on an Airplane

My work sent me to Pittsburgh last week. It was a wonderful trip and on the way there I pulled out my laptop, plugged in my headphones and started working on creating typographic designs from my favorite song lyrics.

Three Avett Brother's lyrics and the last one is a New Pornographer's song.

Some of my prints are available for sale at Society6.

Spring in Sacramento and a sad story

Wow, it's been awhile and I don't have much to show for it.

I picked up archery. So that's awesome.

Oh yeah, and it's spring here! The plum trees are blossoming, in just a few months we'll have a plethora of juicy sweet plums. Luke and his brother built me three new raised beds, so I'll be filling them with veggie starts tomorrow and we're hoping to finally get chickens this year. 

In other news my beautiful old blue bike was stolen a couple months ago. I was devastated. After the the appropriate mourning period I set about finding a new bike. John at Edible Pedal drew my attention to a darling little blue Schwinn very similar to my stolen bike.

Isn't she pretty?

But here's a note on bike theft, I had let a friend borrow my bike, this friend left the bike locked up overnight in a public place - never ever ever ever do this. Also, always use a u-lock and lock the frame and front wheel. Ok? Everyone got that? Let's work together to decrease bike theft.

Also, if you read this blog for the tid bits about cycling - I highly recommend following my new blog, www.velodious.com on which I cover Sacramento cycling culture and events.

O Captain! My Captains

As a geek I love a lot of captains. I got to thinking about all the Captains I look up to, Malcolm Reynolds, Han Solo, America, Jack Harkness... I decided it would be funny to make a compilation of those serious geek icons paired with another captain familiar to geeks, Crunch. After all, geeks love cereal (hooray for gross generalizations).

I ended up editing out Harkness because I decided he wasn't main stream enough for t-shirts. I posted the picture up on my facebook and got some feedback and here's the final image.

As you can see I added some other captains to round out the roster, Jack Sparrow and Kirk.
The t-shirt is available from my Redbubble Shop along with my Firefly Series.

If art prints and tote bags are more your style - check out my Society 6 shop.

Firefly Portraits: The Crew of Serenity

I've been heard at work making this fun posters featuring the crew of Serenity with memorable quotes.
I've done everyone except Simon, mostly because I haven't found a compelling quote from him yet.
So here's a long graphic of all the posters, perfect for pinning! (hint hint).
Right now you can get $5 off any of these great prints, t-shirts or tote bags in my Society6 shop.
If you like this, don't hesitate to share it amongst your sci-fi loving friends.

Which quote/illustration combo is your favorite?

You can't take the sky from me.

I've recently been re-watching episodes of Firefly, the incredible space-cowboy TV show from 2002-2003. The show was unfairly cut down in its prime with nothing but a movie to satisfy the fans.

I decided to do a poster series for each crew member of Serenity (the ship from Firefly). I started with Zoe, the second in command. I illustrated each character in a minimalistic style and paired them with a memorable quote. The whole collection will be for sale on my Society6 store, but right now I only have four finished.

 

Mal: "Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. Whaddya suppose that makes us?"

Zoe: "Big damn heroes, sir."

Mal: "Ain't we just!"

Book: Folks like a man of God.

Mal: No, they don't. Men of God make everyone feel guilty and judged.

 

Mal: "No, but in case you hadn't noticed, her voice kinda carries. We're two miles above ground and they can probably hear her down there. Soon as we unload, she can holler until our ears bleed." (to River) "Although I would take it as a kindness if she didn't."

River: "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems."

Mal:  (to Simon) "See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."

Kaylee: Oh, gosh, I - I-I knew she took female clients, I just... They look so glamourous together.

Jayne: I'll be in my bunk.

Next up is Kaylee, Wash, Malcolm and Simon. I'm taking suggestions for quotes, even if you have a better quote for one of the characters I've already done. I'm going to do another one for Jayne because he's so fully of good quotes and I want to draw his funny hat. 

The picture of free, untrammeled womanhood

"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood."
~Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906, abolitionist and leader of the American women's suffrage movement.

I exercised my legs and my freedom this weekend at the Sac Tweed Ride. Here's some photographic evidence.

 Nothing like a spot of fancy tea in a cemetery with a fallen angel.

Restarting the Sacramento Ad Club

Over the past few weeks I've had the privilege of working with my very talented web designer friend, Nichole Payne, to get the Sacramento Ad Club refreshed, restarted and their website relaunched. The website launch should take place in a few days. I just finished writing the last of the web-copy, but I wanted to share this graphic I did and alert you to a great event for this coming Tuesday!

There will be a ReStart mixer for the Ad Club on Tuesday the 23rd at Red Rabbit. It's free, and you should probably go, especially if you have any interest in the advertising, PR or design industries.

So what's an ad club? Is it for you? Well I made this graphic to help explain what this club is all about.

So there ya go! It's a club for people looking to raise the bar in the advertising and PR industry in Sacramento - so come on out and meet some cool people, drink some delicious drinks and munch on yummy appetizers! It's gonna be a delightful evening.

Doggie Portraits for a Friend

My friend Lindsey commissioned a couple portraits of her puppies!

I like how they turned out.

I'm now accepting commissions for portraits of loved ones, dogs, kids, kittens... whatever you want - shoot me an e-mail with a picture or two of your desired subject to mstone@melodystonemedia.com to talk projects. Substantial discounts for friends, family members and blog readers!

Photoshop Project - Rethinking Digital Imaging

For those of you comfortable with Illustrator you'll understand how uncomfortable Photoshop can be. I'm trying to get more comfortable with the program. Here are a few projects I've done for my Advanced Photoshop class. All our projects are centered around a social/political theme, mine is a bike to the polls campaign entitled Bike the Vote.

A brochure cover.

Here's a cute patriotic pin up on a bike. Doesn't it make you want to pedal to the polls?

Dr. Who Portrait

I've been watching a lot of Dr. Who recently. I've really fallen in love with the show, especially the 11th Doctor played by Matt Smith.

Faithful readers will know my love of drawing portraits in illustrator and find this no different. Except maybe the nifty tweed effect I put on his coat (i'm pretty proud of that).

However I've been trying to learn photoshop more, so I pulled all the layers into photoshop and played with filters and color to give it more depth.

What do you think? Which do you like better? I got mixed reviews on Facebook. I'm pleased with both and it was a good experiment in photoshop.