It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog here (I’ve been busy!), so here are a few pieces that didn’t make it here over the past few months. For more frequent posts you can always check my Tumblr! Did I mention I’m having a son next month? That’s happening. Theo 4 is on the way! Expect many photos.
These are pages for a small zine I put together to hand out at Small Press Expo. I had trouble coming up with ideas for a subject, but then I remembered how much I enjoyed drawing angry people. So I came up with a few angry, seemingly dangerous individuals which I’m pretty happy with. I’ll probably keep them around for later use.
It’s been a long time since I’ve illustrated comics. But with Small Press Expo as inspiration and more children’s books on the way, I feel it’s time to get my sequential imaging and storytelling chops down. These are the first two results of that practice. The first is an idea I’ve had for a while, not really a condemnation of smoking but more a manifestation of my affinity for drawing smoke and skulls. The second is inspired by my experiences of being black in high school, never being considered “black” enough. Somehow this comic has reached over 18,000 notes on Tumblr, which is insane, but I’m glad to see so many other people can identify with it. Expect more comics soon!
The Harrison Museum of African American Culture in my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia held their 4th Annual Jazz Brunch on Sunday, August 24th. I was asked to create artwork for the event’s program and submit a few pieces to be auctioned off. It was a great event! Elmer Coles, a local trumpet player who played with my father years ago, and his band The Funktet performed for the event along with singer singer Judi Jackson. I was also given a framed copy of the program which looks great. It was fun seeing a lot of old faces and to receive some appreciation from my home! I’ll be back soon…
This is a piece I created for “Monstrous Optimism“, a gallery show and fundraiser held for the family of my graphic essay professor at VCU, Kerry Talbott. Sadly, he died from cancer last October. He was a great teacher and artist, very much into aliens, robots, monsters and anything else sci-fi, which is the focus of the show. You can see some of his work artwork here. I decided to draw an astronaut coming into contact with a strange alien form in space because drawing astronauts and weird shapes is fun. The show opens on August 22nd at the Art Space Gallery in Richmond, VA.
Over the weekend I discovered that it was possible to screen-record directly from Quicktime, so I immediately made some time-lapsed illustration process videos, which you can see above and below. These pieces are a continuation of my series of hair drawings. The shapes have started to take on a Dr. Suess-like quality, which I like. Expect more process videos soon!
This is my first ever entry into Sketch Dailies, something I’ve been meaning to participate for a while. The theme was “The Black Knight”. Knights are cool, but samurai are even more cool. So I referenced a ukiyo-e print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and combined it with the knight of Monty Python fame. A gif of my process is below.
On June 18th we lost one of my favorite jazz pianists, Horace Silver. He’s responsible for one of my favorite jazz compositions, “Song for My Father” and one of my favorite jazz albums by the same name. A while ago I was tasked with create a jazz-inspired illustration for an event at the Harrison Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. So I felt this was the perfect opportunity to illustrate Horace.
There are actually two versions, the first with more vibrant colors and shapes meant to reflect the sound a piano makes, and a second toned-down version. I wanted to capture the energy he displayed when playing, which you can see in the video below. Hopefully I succeeded. I also tried some new techniques in this piece using Andy Brinkman’s amazing brush presets.
Over the past weekend I travelled out to Las Vegas to attend the American Library Association Conference to receive the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent award for my illustration work in “When The Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc & the Creation of Hip Hop”… That’s a mouthful.
Either way, it was a great experience. I met a lot of great people including librarians, authors, illustrators and publishers. Meeting fellow award winners Kadir Nelson, Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nikki Grimes, Rita Williams-Garcia, Bryan Collier and Patricia McKissack were highlights. I had a chance to sit on a panel with them which was a very new experience for me considering how little public speaking I’ve done in the past.
As you can see in this video filmed by my uncle, I also gave an acceptance speech; something I was nervous about for the entire previous week. But once I was up, I think it went fairly well. I even got some laughs!
I also had a chance to sit down with my publisher and talk about some new books ideas which will hopefully be materializing soon. I also got to meet some employees of the publisher of my new project, “Lil Shaq”, which will be done sometime next year.
I’ll post a few of the articles written about myself, the book and the award below.
The Brown Bookshelf: Day 14: Theodore Taylor III
Washington Post: D.C. artist wins honors for children’s book about DJ Kool Herc
NPR: When The Beat Was Born: Hip-Hop’s Big Bang Becomes A Kid’s Book
VCUArts Communication Arts: Alumni, Teddy Taylor III, wins the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award
Roanoke Times: Roanoke native wins Coretta Scott King award honoring new talent in children’s illustration
Publisher’s Weekly: When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
Teaching For Change: When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
Granite Media: When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
Kirkus: When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop
Booklist Online: When The Beat Was Born by Laban Carrick Hill
This is an album cover I illustrated for Javis Faux’s new album KAIZO, a collection of beats partly inspired by a notoriously difficult Mario ROM hack by the same name. For inspiration Javis shared some Dragon Ball Z and Taiyo Matsumoto images. With those as reference, I had very little trouble channeling my inner Akira Toriyama. You can see my sketches and hear one of the tracks below.
Over the past week I’ve been doing digital sketches of some musicians I enjoy before I head out to work in the morning. First is Taylor McFerrin, then Theo Parrish, Nai Palm and Alix Perez.
These were all done with some fantastic Photoshop brush presets created by artist Andy Brinkman, which you can find here. I included a video describing the brushes below.
Taylor Mcferrin, son of Bobby McFerrin has new album releasing on Flying Lotus’ label Brainfeeder in June. Theo Parrish also has a new album releasing this year. Nai Palm’s group Hiatus Kaiyote is in the process of creating a new album and Alix Perez released a new EP on Exit Records last week.
When The Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop is officially available today! Written by Laban Carrick Hill and illustrated by myself, this children’s book follows the life of DJ Kool Herc and the birth of hip-hop culture. This is my first children’s book so it’s exciting for me to see the product in its final form. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy, you can find it at various retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can also find more information about the book on MacMillan’s website.
Drawing on the Wii U gamepad has been one of my favorite features since I bought the console, posting ridiculous drawings to the MiiVerse to see peoples’ reactions. Last week Nintendo released Art Academy: Sketchbook, a drawing app that’s surprisingly good at simulating dry media and quite advanced compared to the default black and white drawing functionality. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it and these are four of the drawings I’ve created so far.
On March 23rd I finally got married to my wife(!) Sarah. After about a year of planning it feels great to see our family and friends enjoy the hard work Sarah, her father and many others put into making this event special. I personally had the chance to design a few things, including the save-the-date, website, invitation and program which you can see below. I also created an illustration (above) for the portrait art show which included artwork from our family and friends. It’s been an amazing few days. Certainly one of the highlights of my life.
This is an album cover I illustrated for Potholes In My Blog’s Robot Soup, a compilation featuring instrumental tracks from the likes of James Pants, Suzi Analog, Kidkanevil and others. Those who donate $5 (which goes to charity in support of music education) will receive the 11×17 poster below.
This is an album cover I illustrated for Potholes In My Blog’s Robot Soup, a compilation featuring instrumental tracks from the likes of James Pants, Suzi Analog, Kidkanevil and others. Those who donate $5 (which goes to charity in support of music education) will receive the 11×17 poster below.
I’m happy to announce that I recently completed work on When The Beat Was Born, a children’s book written by Laban Hill which tells the story of DJ Kool Herc and his part in birthing hip-hop culture. I’ve been working on this book for quite a while and it feels great to see a finished product. I’ll discuss it more when Roaring Brook Press publishes it around Spring of next year.
Here is an album cover I designed for Choongum’s first EP, Fantasy, on the recently-launched Potholes Music. Most of the inspiration for this piece came from the strange, alien landscapes that appear in René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, one of my favorite animated films.
You can read more about Choongum and Fantasy at Potholes In My Blog. And if you have about an hour to waste, why not watch Fantastic Planet in full on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwjPB-8BcaY
Here is the ridiculous Rayforce/Sega Saturn-inspired artwork that I created for Potholes’ latest beat compilation. Rayforce (aka Gunlock aka Layer Section aka Galactic Attack) has been one of my favorite schmups for years so I felt this was the appropriate time to show my appreciation. You can download the compilation here.
This week’s top weekly artist is Danny Brown, a rapper out of Detroit. He recently released a free mixtape that’s being touted as one of the best hip-hop releases this year.
For this piece I practiced some new techniques, specifically adding values with watercolors. I’m not sure how successful it was, but I like it overall.
Next up for my weekly top artist series is Samiyam, a beat maker associated with the Brainfeeder crew who recently released an album called The Sam Baker Album. A number of his beats include video game samples, so I imagined what a Samiyam NES game would look like. The giant fireball was inspired by an older interview with him. Thanks to Mykola for helping me identify Sam’s hat and shoes…
This is the first piece in a series of portraits I plan to do, inspired by artists that reach the #1 spot in my weekly Last.FM charts. I’ve been keeping track for a few weeks. The first artist is Dego, one-half of the famous broken-beat duo 4Hero, part of Silhouette Brown, along with several other collaborations and aliases. This particular piece was inspired by his new album A Wha’ Him Deh Pon’? which I’ve really been enjoying for the past week or so. The pattern was inspired by the album cover designed by Nancy Jimenez. See sketches and a sample of Dego’s music below.
Download: ♪ Sega Saturn Megamix
[audio: http://www.theodore3.com/files/sega_saturn_megamix.mp3]I think I’ve wanted to put together a mix like this since middle school. During that time, 90% of the music I listened to came from a Sega Saturn game. I was pretty excited to discover that most Saturn games could play audio tracks in a regular CD player. It was like getting a free soundtrack with every game! I loved it. At one point I started recording tracks onto cassettes, probably before my family’s computer could burn CDs.
I still remember the day I got my Saturn. My father had gotten a raise and said I could go to Toys ‘R’ Us and buy whatever I wanted. I glanced over the Playstation and Nintendo 64 and decided on a Saturn. Even then I was a Sega fan. It came with Nights Into Dreams, Virtua Fighter II, Virtua Cop and Daytona USA, some of the best games I’ve played. I also bought Space Jam, which was pretty terrible but I loved it anyway. After playing Sega Genesis for years, playing Cyber Speedway on the sampler disc (remember those?) with CD-quality sound was pretty amazing.
Saturn games actually introduced me to a lot of music that I still listen to today. Wipeout’s soundtrack by Cold Storage stands out as one of my first introductions to electronic music. After hearing it I headed out to the local FYE, browsed the “Dance” section and bought Roni Size & Reprazent’s album Newforms based solely on the cover art. It was the first album I’d ever bought with my own money. I’ve been hooked on drum breaks of all forms ever since, all thanks to a game about racing flying vehicles that shoot each other with rockets.
That is why I decided to make an ode to my Sega Saturn in the form of this mix. I’m still nostalgic for the days when Sega was a strong first party company, the days when Babbages sold Japanese import games, the days before the local arcade was converted into a hair salon and, well, the days when game discs had music on them. I’m not sure if others will connect with this mix as much as I do, since nobody I know ever owned a Saturn. But hopefully some of these will still be familiar. I may even make a part two since I had to cut some tracks to keep the mix around an hour. I also want another chance to draw Sonic The Hedgehog… You can check out my sketches of angry Sonic below.
Tracklist
1. Intro (Virtua Cop)
2. Warning (Burning Rangers)
3. Richard Jacques – Start of Race (Sonic R)
4. Bygone Dogs – I Will Not Take It (Cyber Speedway)
5. Zuntata – Penetration 〜Mind Bomb〜 (Layer Section)
6. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Black Cat Moon (Virtua Fighter II)
7. Hyakutaro Tsukumo – Legendary Wings (Thunder Force IV)
8. Richard Jacques – Gene Gadget, Act Two (Sonic 3D Blast)
9. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Sky High (Daytona USA)
10. Justin Scharvona – Fight Night With Flibby (Croc)
11. Channel X – The Fantom Voltage (Steep Slope Sliders)
12. Channel X – So High (Sega Touring Car Championship)
13. Hiroaki Yoshida – High Scores (Winter Heat)
14. David Leytze – Beginning (Fighting Vipers)
15. Shusaku Uchiyama – Liliane Theme (Mega Man 8)
16. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Jeffrey’s Stage (Virtua Fighter Kids)
17. Shun Nishigaki – Sakura’s Theme (Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo)
18. Richard Jacques – Living In The City (Sonic R)
19. CoLD SToRAGE – Brickbat (WipeOut)
20. Naofumi Hataya – We Are Burning Rangers (Featuring Dennis St. James) (Burning Rangers)
21. Marlon Saunders, Gabriel Morris & Issa Clemon – Dreams, Dreams (Christmas NiGHTS)
22. Richard Jacques – Level Complete (Sonic 3D Blast)
23. ??? (ManX TT Superbike)
This is an album cover I created for Potholes In My Blog and Prefix Magazine’s new mixtape “Summer Sampler”. It’s pretty self explanatory, I think. Summer is hot and things melt in the heat. I was planning to use linework on the boombox (which you can see below), but I decided to do something different and render it in Illustrator. I learned a few tricks along the way that I may use later. Anyway, you can download the entire mixtape here and here.
Download: ♪ Potholes x PrefixMag Summer Sampler
This is an illustration I did for Advertising Week. A group of students from the VCU Brandcenter, including my friend Hope Jordan, were tasked with creating an ad campaign for the conference which is starting on September 27th in New York City. They asked several artists to create an illustration around the theme “Get Out Of Your Head!”. If you visit the website you can see my illustration animated, which I wasn’t expecting. But whoever animated it did a great job! I think my illustration will also be appearing in a few magazines to advertise the event. Sketches below.
Update: My illustration’s in Fast Company Magazine!
Here are four new posters I illustrated for Theatre IV’s 2010-2011 season. This is my third set of posters for the children’s theater. My favorite parts? The rabbit, the matador, the girl in the giant’s palm and the angry cats in the background of Honk. Sketches below! You can see my older posters on Flickr.
Here’s two more panels from my Owl Boy comic in the Fragments Comic Book Anthology. I’ve had this character in my head for a while, but this is the first time I’ve created a story around him that made any sense. He’s a kid who thinks he’s an owl, basically. Owls are cool. A few sketches and old drawings of Owl Boy below.
Fragments is a charitable 44-page comic book anthology released by fellow artist and designer Tyler Sticka (with an epic cover by Tony Papesh). I had the honor of putting together a three page comic about my character Owl Boy for it. I thought it turned out okay, but the other comics included look excellent. Some info on the purpose of Fragments…
Fragments is a print-on-demand comic book born of the combined efforts of several passionate artists, organized by Tyler Sticka and inspired by your generosity.
Proceeds from the sale of this volume will be donated to Save the Children, an amazing organization dedicated to ensuring children grow up protected and safe, educated, healthy and well-nourished, and able to thrive in economically secure households.
You can purchase a copy for $3.99 here! It’s for a good cause!
And here’s one panel from my exciting Owl Boy comic!
The Emay, Karen & The Kids EP is a set of beats created by producer Emay, made from samples from the Where The Wild Things Are movie soundtrack. Of course, I jumped on the chance to do the cover art. Beats, Karen O, Maurice Sendak… You can’t go wrong. Link to the download and a sample track below.
Download: ♪ Emay – Emay, Karen O & The Kids
The Emay, Karen & The Kids EP is a set of beats created by producer Emay, made from samples from the Where The Wild Things Are movie soundtrack. Of course, I jumped on the chance to do the cover art. Beats, Karen O, Maurice Sendak… You can’t go wrong. Link to the download and a sample track below.
Download: ♪ Emay – Emay, Karen O & The Kids
This piece was created for this weekend’s Velo Sanaa Bicycle Art Show, a fundraiser for the Nianjema Secondary School in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. It’s an illustration of Marshall “Major” Taylor, the first African American athlete to achieve the level of world championship and second to win a world championship. Sketches below.
This is artwork I created for Cold Legistics’ beat album Northern Star. I struggled a bit finishing this, not being happy with the results until I made a lot of adjustments. In the end I’m pretty happy with it. You can download a track from the album over at Potholes In My Blog.
Today Potholes in My Blog released a mixtape of exclusive and unreleased hip-hop tracks mixed by DJ Traumatix. I was asked to do the cover art, which I think turned out pretty well. The first cover I did is at the bottom, but we decided to go with something simpler and more readable, which is the cover at the top. You can download the mix here or below.
The Theatre IV children’s theater gave me the opportunity to illustrate the posters for the 2009-2010 season. I did several posters for the previous season and was happy to do more. I’m happy with the way these turned out. It’s nice to see how my work has changed since the last posters I did. The Mulan poster is probably my favorite! You can see all the posters I’ve done here
An illustration done for the relaunch of Beyondjazz.net, a site focused on “future jazz”, for an article about Summer music festivals. Having a guy sitting on a huge stack of speakers was one of my concepts. Luckily, at the Caribbean Carnival I saw exactly that. I guy on top of a huge stack of speakers. Perfect for reference!
For the past week or so I’ve almost exclusively been listening to 60’s/70’s era post-bop and hard-bop jazz. Many of the happen to be pianists, so I drew this for for fun.
Top: McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal
Bottom: Andrew Hill, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver
Above is a remix my friend Mykola did of this piece, which I enjoy thoroughly. Another Tedikola collaboration!