“Vamp”

I felt like doing something a little flatter and more graphic than my typical stuff, and this was the result. I sketched it out by hand fairly quickly first, and then scanned and re-traced it in Illustrator. After I was done I noticed some faint similarity to Shepherd Fairey’s iconic “Obey Giant” sticker.

People routinely ask me if I do my work in Illustrator, I suppose since a lot of the shapes and designs seem almost vector-based (which I take as a compliment). Aside from color retouching and additions in Photoshop, my work is usually almost entirely done by hand. There’s something about the tactility of drawing on paper with pencils and pens that I enjoy and probably couldn’t ever give up. On the other hand, vector graphics are so perfect. Mathematically perfect. And it’s very clean and graphic by nature. These are qualities that I also prize and endeavor to reach in my artwork.