Only One EP

My best friend in Kindergarten John Yuen approached me about doing a project with him. He wanted an album cover for the rapper Only One self titled album. I was more then happy to take up the project, I really enjoy getting to do album art and working with other creative people.
Logo
I started by making a logo for John in Illustrator he wanted the logo to look similar to the Alfred E. Newmen style logo from the Soundpeople Music, except he wanted it to look like him. I really like getting to make logos and working in Illustrator though the really cool part is he will probably keep using it and I think he has talked about making shirts with the design on it and I am a total sucker for that.Single
I probably should have posted this a couple of months ago when it came out but here is the single for the album. But it didn't really show off too many of my skills beyond some graphic design, figured it would be best to just wait until everything was going out.
Cover
Back
The back cover was a bit of a bastard for me. I had to make some revisions on it later and I had lost all of the original work files, my old computer died and then my back up hard drive fell off a table and doesn't work. So I had to take an old Jpeg and do some edits on the back titles. This led to me having to erase some of the back bridge, which turned out to look kinda cool so not the worst revision. Though it was just frustrating having to deal with the memory of all my lost data.
Check out the promotional video for Duet.
You can get the album here.

Christmas Card 2009

This year I ended up making two Christmas cards. My mom just asked for something funny. So in October I came up with theses sketches (previously seen on my sketch blog), they all had to do with global warming or the bad economy, things that are on my mind. Plus one about Santa being tattooed which was just fun. (If you are having trouble reading the dialogue on my sketch blog I wrote out the dialogue for clarification)










































My parents weren't too crazy about the ideas that I came up with but I guess it started my Dad's mind a turnin' and he came up with "Things may be a little tight this holiday season what with the recession and all. But there is a barrel of love and good wishes from the Royals." So with that in mind I just started working in Photoshop.























Here is what I came up with. I got it done pretty quickly for one of my Christmas cards (which usually take forever for one reason or another) I finished it in about a day. Yes I know "recession" is misspelled, I based it off of my Dad's spelling which is also not very good. My mom liked it when I showed it to her, but then I showed this to Laura and she didn't like it and thought I could do better. That the elves were ugly and they should be cute, so then I decided to show it to my friend Chris Vear, who felt that the back ground could be more detailed and that I could incorporate the text elements better. So I decided to just redo it to incorporate their suggestions.










Here are the new elf sketches that I did trying to keep them simple cute and homeless looking.













I compiled all of the sketches along with some of the roughs I had done fro the older version and I created a new back ground sketches adding more posters on the walls. This is the sketch that I took into illustrator and made into the card.






















Here is side A
I wanted to try and not do heavy black outlines and to not shade it so that they looked like little cut out characters. I took the finished Illustrator version into Photoshop and added paper texture to everything and added some blues to make the elves look more somber. Some of the lines got a little washed out; I should have paid a little more attention to my contrasts. There are a lot of things that I like about this piece and a lot of things that I think could have been better. I learned a couple of things and I think the second one definitely looks better then the first one. Though it took me way more time so we got off to a late start and I never got around to sending out my cards to my friends. Sorry guys, I still love you.


















Here is side B
We based the idea of doing a post card off of this weird troll post card my mom found, on the back of that post card there was an illustration of the troll kids just sitting there so I wanted to do a similar thing. So here is the back of the post card with my homeless elves dumpster diving.

Christmas Card 2008

Christmas Card 2008!
This years card my mom and me decided that we wanted to put my Grandpa on the cards.


















Here is the one of the many sketches that I did in October for my Daily Sketch Blog for my mom to pick what was going to be on the Christmas card. This was in fact the first Sketch that I did, the other ones were all "A Christmas Carol" based where my Grandpa was Scrooge, because he enjoyed saying "Bah, Humbug!" during the Christmas Seasons as well as he hung a sign in his front yard to that effect. In my rendition of "A Christmas Carol" my mom and dad were the ghosts of Christmas past, My brother was the giant ghost of Christmas present, and Laura and myself were the ghosts of Christmas Future. My mom and I both liked the concept, however some of my illustrations made my mom uncomfortable with the way i portrayed my grand father so she picked the first one I did where i had my Grandpa as father time and my new baby (second) cousin Reece as Baby New Year. This was very appropriate because my grandfather had passed away a couple of weeks before Reece was born, so it seemed like what happens with the changing of the year, the old pass one into our memories and the new is brought in with limit less possibilities.























I brought the sketch into Photoshop and completed the sketch to be a full body shot and then I added a clock and some texture for the back ground. For some reason every one kept thinking that my grandfather was death, instead of father time, I for some reason have references from the 30s in grained in my brain.

King Potato

I have an odd obsession with potatoes, I like eating them, talking about them, and drawing them. This is just one of my many odd obessions (which also include fezes, handlebar moustaches, and the color blue). This is one of my pieces about a potato. As my last name is Royal I decided to create King Potato.















I originally did this as part of my Steam ID as King Potato. I drew this rather quickly and when I did it I thought it was sufficent and I might have even liked it. However, I now feel I could do better so I did.





















Here is a doodle I did on a post-it.






















The final version after I created the image in Illustrator and then textured it in Photoshop. Long live King Potato!

Monkey with Symbols

Here is something I did as part of my daily sketch series Friday Fez-tivities . I thought that it was a nice and simple drawing that I could elaborate on as an illustration in a few hours, and when I wanted to get something done that day I decided to work on this. Here is the drawing that I did back on May 1st 2009.

Here is the version I produced in Illustrator.

After I finished the drawing in Illustrator I took the illustration into Photoshop and added some texture. The texture blows out some of the details, like his little elbow hairs, but I think I like that. I'm also pleased with how the texturing softened up the primary color palette I used.

James and Catey's Wedding Invite

Last week my friends Catey and James asked if I would create a wedding invitation for them with them fighting zombies. This meant an opportunity two work with two of my favourite subjects ; my friends, and zombies.


First I did a series of sketches for them. The only instructions Catey gave me was to have them in Las Vegas, where their wedding is being held, and to have them fighting zombies. James said to do something along the lines of Conan the Barbarian standing on top of his fallen enemies; Catey didn't know what he was talking about so she said to ignore him. I did the sketches that were based off of Conan and they felt rather sexist, so I did several other sketches where the couple was fighting zombies and they preferred them to the more Conan-esque designs.


















Here is the sketch that they liked best. The only thing that they wanted different was to have their positions changed where james was in the back holding a shot gun and a machette and that Catey would have the chainsaw.


















Here is the pencilled version that I drew on some bristol paper I cut down to fit in my scanner. I made sure to position them so that I had plenty of room for the all of the text elements.




















Here is the inked version with blood spray.























This is the final version (I removed all the info on when and where and all that jazz). They are printing their wedding invites like flyers and they found out that it is the same price to have them either black and white or color, but they left it up to me if it was going to be colored. I decided to color it with mute tones and texture it digitally to make it look gritty and pleasantly post-apocalyptic.

Aside from the chain saw blade getting lost in the blood spatter, I'm really happy with how it turned out and most importantly, so were Catey and James. Congratulations you two – see you in Vegas!

Dictionary of Written Words

I recently did some album art for a friend of mine from elementary school, Jason Harris who goes by the name JaNetix. The work for his new album, Dictionary of Written Words. Check it out!

The Bust of Skull Face

Here is a doodle I did while I was watching Dexter (that show is amazing I can't wait until season 4 premiers in September).
Laura really liked the sketch of skeleton guy on the left and asked if I would finish it as well as do a piece of a woman who has the same kind of face paint (coming soon). I got the idea for the face paint from Dia De Los Muertos and Mardi Gras costumes. I have seen some witch doctors with the same face paint and who could forget the bad guys from Karate Kid, come on. I always thought it was an interesting aesthetic.
















Here is the first version that I created where I outlined it, colored it and added some texture.

















After drawing this I asked Laura what she thought of it. She said it felt incomplete and that it needed something, she suggested that I should maybe make it look like a sculpted bust. I liked the idea so I ran with it and came up with this. I added some details to the face, redid the shading and changed the background textures. This is the end result.

The Truth About Atlas

I did this sketch for my daily sketch blog as part of my Moustache Monday series (all two of them). Being a big fan of moustaches and knowing their mighty power I decided that they could in fact hold up the world at the point of a handlebar moustache much in the way Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology. So I drew what I knew to be the truth that Atlas did not hold the world up with his arms but instead at the point of his giant handle bar moustache.

















I wanted to create this piece in Illustrator and make it look like a cut out.
I tried my hand at a technique illustrated in Steph Laberis’ blog, and am pleased with the outcome.


















Here is the final version; I changed his eyes to make his face look stronger and I changed his nose to be read because I though it ,might be an interesting contrast and add some more color to his face.

Smoking Lady

I was recently sitting around with some free time on my hands, and decided to finish an old drawing or two. I looked through all the sketches on my computer and came across this. I'd always liked it, and it seemed to get a good response from others as well.

Here is a sketch that I did two years ago.


















Here is the finished version after I outlined it, colored it, and added textures.

Lady Skull Face

I was sitting around one day watching too much Dexter, and I got to thinking of morbid stuff to paint. This was one of the ideas that came to mind. I originally wanted to do it as an acrylic painting and I still might, but at the time I felt like creating the image in Photoshop and trying to make the image look more like a painting (similar to concept art that I've seen other artists do).
Here is a sketch I came up with.

I went about this differently then I have with other drawings. Usually I out line drawings, then color and shade them then add texture if that is what I think will compliment the work. This one I wanted to look a little more painterly so I blocked out big groups of color and worked with very few layers. Final product below :

Art Jumble X-Men (WOLVERINE!)

Sketch done for my sketch blog on February 10th 2009






















Here is what I submitted to the Art Jumble week 127: X-men

BERSERKER!

Life Goals 1

Chris "Stink Lines" Vear

This is Chris Vear, a good friend of mine who shares the same birthday as I do (the exact same day, same year, similar time) and in many ways is very similar to me. With the exception that he stinks. Seriously dude, take a shower.


Actually Chris doesn't stink (much) - this is an old joke from college that he decided to bring back with my link on his blog being Eric "Stink Lines" Royal, so I decided I would remind him who was the original stink lines. Him, he was!
This was one of my first attempts at adding layers of texture to the piece and Chris was a big help with helping me refine and improve the piece. Thanks dude.