I've had this as a sketch for about 5 months and I decided to finally bring it to life. To steal a line from Joe Lisener who said it in a Wizard "How-To" article: "Sometimes a piece in my sketch book is so perfect, all the power and energy is in that. Thank God for a photo copier!"

I took the piece, blew it up, and traced my sketch. After spending some time refining the piece and using my circle and oval templates (Something I RARELY do when I draw or ink), I inked the piece and scanned it in. I had considered "inking" it in Adobe Illustrator for the benefit of having cleaner lines. I decided against it since I had already experimented the night before doing just that... with less than pleasing results for me. I can ink traditionally a lot cleaner than with a computer.

I already knew what all the colors were going to be, another rarity, but I wasn't sure of the background. Well, at least, not entirely. I knew I wanted something simple to go with the pop-art look and feel of the original piece. I decided on a radial using a style I'm using in my current website.

I've posted a lot of more design-based pieces on this site, and aside from the "Punk Skull" I did earlier this year, this is actually the first illustration I've been proud to post in a long time.

ENJOY!

EDIT: I also have this as a skateboard deck, which is actually part of the reason why I did this. You can get it here: [link]