Teacher

Haven't done one of these in a while.

Motor-Bicycle?

1902 Steffey motorbike, like all early motorcycles, it is literally a motorized bicycle, what we might call today a moped. 250cc 2 stroke single-speed motor and pedals for human power. I came across this one at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, which is well worth a visit if you have any love for things that go vroom.

I love the look of these early motorcycles, they seem almost steampunk, but cooler because all those brass fittings and glass bulbs are there for a reason.

Cultivate

Ah springtime! The season of planting. Of cultivation.

I wanted to do something a little more, conventional shall we say? Plants or something like that. But this image appeared to me and I could not get it out of my mind. Oh well, conventional is boring anyway.

Swarm

Today's illo is based on true story!
Loosely. Very loosely.

Layer

A cross section reveals the hidden layers of this man.

Surrender

This weeks illofriday gets the crossover treatment with another project I'm working on. The topic just seemed like a natural fit.

Phenomenon

Giant

"I'll be a pharoah soon
Rule from some golden tomb
Things will be different then
The sun will rise from here
Then I'll be ten feet tall
And you'll be nothing at all"

Trail

Just a real quick one as I'm about to leave on vacation. I wouldn't have even bothered,  but this weeks Illustration Friday topic of "Trail" was too perfect to ignore.

I'm about to go motorcycling across the United States, following the trail of one C.K. Shepherd, who rode across the country on his motorcycle after he came back from World War One, back in 1919. He documented his journey with the book Across America By Motor-Cycle, which you can find, free of charge, on Archive.org. And as we follow his trail, our crossing will be documented by my good friend Chris, at acrossamericabymotorcycle.blogspot.com

I'll probably do some sketching on the journey, and I may update from the road, but for now, no promises.

Until next,
Rod

Equipment

The bottle opener is +1/+3 vs. Lagers. 

Ahead

Maybe it's because I was just reading something about Eric Chahi and the classic Amiga game Out Of This World (originally known as Another World, presumably the name was changed for America to avoid a flood of death threats from disappointed soap opera fans) but I did this one in simple vector style with Illustrator instead of freehand (again, freehand, not Freehand, and if you get that joke, give yourself a cookie).

I worked out the basic idea freehand in Sketchbook Pro before taking it into Illustrator, and you can see the original rough outline, if you're into that kind of thing, after the jump.

Detective

Going rough for this week's Illustration Friday, rough like the hard-boiled detectives of yesteryear's pulp ragazines.

Expired

So this Illustration Friday is Expired, which brings to mind all kinds of fun things. Took some inspiration from a novel I recently read. Bet you can't guess what it was!

Perspective

I'm crushing your head!

Propagata

I'm going to be honest, I had a hard time coming up with something work-safe for the Illustration Friday topic 'propagate'. Not that I'm in the habit of making dirty pictures or anything, it's just… propagate. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Adrift

Everyone always said I was a space cadet.

Muddy

It's muddy, it's a mudskipper. It's not the Muddy Mudskipper of course. Though it secretly wishes it was, as mudskippers are wont to do.

Focused

An unblinking electronic eye for each citizen, focused on your every move.

Clumsy

Wilderness

"Society is the place where people exist together. Yes sir. That is civilization. Yes sir.

The lone wolf belongs to the wilderness! Yes sir.

You must not grow up to be a lone wolf! No sir."