Michael Endres aka Painted Steel: Illustration

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Illustration for Udo's Bamberg Run 2015

For the final Illustration, we decided on a sketch I did for the 2014 Bamberg Run already.
Just beefed it up a little in Manga Studio and added some lettering & a frame to hold it together when printed on a shirt. Next time, I will use colors. Promised.

Choppawood 2013: Party Invitation Illustration done with Manga Studio 5

My friends from Custom Cycle Crew 'invited' me to their annual party in September. The entrance fee was a flyer design they could use to invite their 'real guests'. ;)
I used the chance to learn how to produce work in Manga Studio 5 (MS5), a software package I bought shortly before. Despite the 'cheesy' name, this piece of soft is THE SHIT.
Coming from Photoshop, it is very simple to pick up - I have more problems going back to PS now because the shortcuts are just more intuitive for me in MS5.
The whole thing was sketched out before with pencil & paper,signed off and then illustrated in MS5.
The brush engine, the way the pressure sensitive WACOM pen behaves, is so much better than in PS.
It really feels natural. The path drawing abilities and raster layers are so simple to use and open so many possibilities.... The font was a bit of a pain to do in MS5, but there needs to be a challenge...
Since then I upgraded MS5 with brushes from Frenden.com - which makes it the perfect digital tool for inking projects. Those brushes were used on the Shirt Design for Udo.

The best is the price of Manga Studio: they want to push the new version into everbody's face, so they sell it for around $50. Plus S&H &taxes it will be around 70 Euros - but it is a steal if you are into this kind of 'art'.

I can seriously recommend it if you own a WACOM board or something alike.

Expect more good things to come soon.
I plan to punch out a few bikes in the ink style I explored with Udo's old Panhead. This time in digital.

Stay tuned.

Retro Shirt Design for US Custombikes

My friend Udo had me do some new shirt and shopbanner designs prior to ChoppertownNation in Kaldenkirchen 2013 (http://choppertownnationmeeting.blogspot.de/). This time the drawings were almost done 100% digital. The process was fast and dirty. The tool used was Manga Studio - highly recommended to anybody who is interested in doing inking digitally.
Get some brushes from Mr. Frenden and you are set.
Stay tuned for more of this kind.

Get a shirt from USCB while they last from www.us-custombikes.de

Harold 'Hal' Robinson - a huge inspiration back in 1996

I got infected with the Easy Riders virus back in 1979 or 1980. Can't really date it properly.
By that time I had my first time experience with the Easy Riders Magazine through my godfather.
He was heavily into choppers. Well, some would say, that exposing a six year old to magazines, where readers photos had a good chance to get published when the girl on the backseat was flashing her nipples, could be a heavy influence. Probably it did.
By the time, they had these awesome drawings of motorcycles that came with the photos from Michael Lichter. They made such a huge impression on me, that i spent some time in 1996 to create some of my own.
Just recently I learned they were done by an Illlustrator called Hal Robinson (http://halrobinsondesigns.com/bikes.html) who died in 1984. He was really influential for my approach and they way I wanted to show of bikes. Display it in black and white, just with indian ink on a illustration board.
He was also the creator of many comics and especially his character Miraculous Mutha was well known in the motorcycle scene.
In 1996, I drew Udo's pan - the first bike I ever did pinstriping and free hand lettering on. The detail picture is about 5cmx6cm in the original. Honestly I was really surprised by the detail I put into the illustrations back then. I plan to do a project with some bikes in this style. This time done digitally with a touch of dirt to remove the digital appeal (probably involving printing, hand retouching and rescanning...) - stay tuned.
P.S. These big tits from US girls shown in Easy Riders at the time had an educational influence on me: I prefer small tits - they age better.

i did the flames on the bike and as this dude had already two bikes painted, I gave him the original drawing.

This is a scan from a reproduction film i created back then when i did my apprenticeship.
I think this was the second bike i tried in the style and it is even more detailed than Udo's Pan.
Still no comparison with Hal's awesome bikes that show both style and simplicity in one picture.
Needs a few hundred drawings to reach that stage of mastery.

I think it is time to revive this tradition and bring it back into the motorcycle magazines.

At least into those that care.

Skull & Script - some old sketchbook stuff

acryls in sketchbook; script done in white acryl

I finished another sketchbook last week and had a look through old ones.Found this scripts, which i did over painted skulls. The anatomy sucks as they are both from a time before i owned a skull model. However, i liked the colors and the fact that they are another layer behind the font....well the script on the right is not awesome, but I like the effect.

Hot Rod Monster 01 ala Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth

Endlich habe ich mal ein von Ed Roth inspiriertes Hot Rod Monster hinbekommen.
Dachte an so etwas wie 'Driving on Steroids' als Titel.
Besonders stolz bin ich, weil das Referenzmaterial für den Wagen in einem komplett anderen Winkel vorhanden war, und ich diesen mit Hilfe von perspektivischen Hilfslinien relativ schnell und freihand konsturieren konnte. Wird nochmals detailliert mit Tusche umgesetzt. Soon to appear here.

For Andrew: This is the first completed Hot Rod monster Sktech. Will do a cleaned up version with China Ink at some point and a cool Headline. Hope to do more of these when I have my personal assignement for the tattoo flashes behind me. We should have some T-Shirts printed over in the Ukraine at some point ;)

Fink Different

Originally I was looking for a nice Ed Roth's Rat Fink graphic to decorate my studio.
Not only did I find the picture above, but also on the official website a picture with Ed himself and the text "fink different".
When Rat Fink was invented, 'fink' was the term for weirdos and people outside the cultural norm. Hot rodders, skaters, surfer boys, bikers....
Funny enough the quote 'think different' was used by Apple Computers together with pictures off extraordinary people (Hitchcock, Callas...) to get the attention of the typical Apple User: Bohemians, Artists, Intellectuals. Short for people who wanted to be different for a little bit of extra cash.
With the Apple IPhone, this edge was lost and almost everybody is using Apple products.
The extraordinary became the ordinary. Pop Culture will kill the brand...it is just a matter of time.

For me this particular spelling of the word think hits the nail on the head.
It is time for a change in being different. fink different.

Skull Painting sent off

30 x 40cm, Acrylics

This is a picture for friend who made me a generous present. I had to 'sacrifice' something for him. As i love my children a lot, I decided to sacrifice some spare time and paint him a picture of a topic and in the color scheme he likes...I think he will enjoy it.
I was suspicious about the color choice, but I like how the overall piece turned out.

Flash Contest #2

As part of a tattoo flash contest on a forum, i created this flash and provided it for for coloring.
The Style is not necessarily unique, but it was good for the purpose.
Next time, I need to take more time preparing the actual flash design.

Demon Mask

A friend asked for a tattoodesign for his friend (complicated I know). He asked for a demon in a ‘demon mirror’.
Not sure what that meant, but I came up with this design and he likes it a lot and wants to get it tattooed…

The teeth need a little rework as they look too much like rabbit teeth…the Rabbit Demon.

This just sparked another crazy idea for a tattoodesign.

Pencil on cheap paper (for those interested).