Hey there… lots of stuff is happening here, let's take a look:

New Fonts - Glasket & Asymek

Glasket is doing extremely well, much better than I could have imagined on dafont… already 3,548 downloads and only on its 3rd day being public. Its been featured in UnderWorld Magazines 17 New Creative Fonts to Download and also in the Graphic Heart Blog (which I know nothing about.) So, that's cool… and now, because I was so excited about all this popularity, I hooked up a new free sans serif yesterday.

Download it here, at dafont. Let's see if it can ride on the popularity of Glasket.

New Music

Along with a recent re-design, the Coats & Corpses site has also been busy with a lot of uploads over the past week. I'm not going to direct you to what's new, or what I like the best, but I'll say that if you haven't checked it out yet… it's definitely worth a look. A lot of the stuff is just old basement demos people had lying around, but the idea is strong… and we've been getting a lot of support from people who were involved in those bands at the time. Thanks to everyone who's supported the project, you can check it out at coatsandcorpses.com.

Logos

I've got some new stuff to add to the portfolio section pretty soon… soon as things start to slow down on the freelance front a bit. Just keep watching the blog, and I'll keep you posted on those updates. Anyway, I've got some work to do… enjoy your week.

So, lately I've been doing a lot of illustration work for greeting cards… but that's not what we're here to talk about today. I'm actually putting off drawing a house for the background of this weeks final card… Instead, we're gonna talk about something that I haven't touched on in a while… the Russell Bazaar! …and the bizarre nature of my recent "cluttered" War Surplus Ad meets Novelty Catalog look of the recent flyer campaign I've been brewing up.

Russell Bazaar (Recent, Past & Upcoming Events)

Well, as I first started out… I was doing a lot of color work. Which is what I was used to with this client, and mind you… a lot of this illustration is very recognizable. It's been used in all sorts of magazines and stuff as clip art that people are familiar with. I hate using that type of stuff, but I've been having a lot of trouble with my wacom tablet lately… and I've been forced to use clip art. Lucky for us all though… first flyer is an original Nick P illustration…

Fancy fancy… I know you love it, but then I turned to clip art (familiar from Denny's french fry wrappers in the late 90's, as well as the Hopelessly Devoted to You Too sampler, and possible a couple issues of Carbon 14.) but I had this image in my head as soon as I got the copy… it had to be done.

Then, I realized that we were doing work for black & white kinkos flyers, and I had to lose the color. So I turned to my own War Surplus vector packs… as seen in the goodies section…

…kinda cluttered, but hey… it's This & That… like a rummage sale, that's the look. Now, for the final… anyone in the Detroit area should really visit the Bazaar, if you haven't… do it. If you have… do it again, or give it another chance. They really seem to be stepping up their game with the new management, so I'm gonna end this post with an ad (double literally)… keep in mind, this isn't the final client approved flyer.

…mmmmmmmmm… takes me back, like reading the novelty ads in an old comic book and dreaming about how sweet it would be to own real x-ray glasses. Sometimes it's all about the magic…

One of the things I love about living in Portland is the strong support for local business. Money that circulates inside the community and keeps everything fresh. If you're in Detroit on the weekend, check out the Bazaar… it's local people making living for themselves. They support each other, and the surrounding neighborhoods… it's important to the survival of local shops to support them, and they help grow communities for the better. Don't let places like Walmart poison your culture, remember the record store? Some things are worth saving. Until next time…

So, it's actually been a little while since I've had anything to show. I know I promised the possibility of greeting card pictures last update, but good news for me… they're using my illustrations. So, yeah… it's weird to actually have a job where I draw. I really want to get back in the swing of fonts, I know Glasket is super close, but right now my freelance is taking up quite a bit of my time. However, there are a few random points of interest I'd like to attention…

Lawless Carver & GBS Detroit

For all my southeast Michigan (USA) readers, I'd like to give a shout to my friends in the band, Lawless Carver. Some people may know I built their website, and did a gigposter for one of their recent shows (see this post) and now, I'd just like to mention them in their most recent endeavor… to perform a one-take set at Groovebox Studios. They're trying to raise $600 by the end of the month to make it happen, as of right now they have $130. If you pledge $20 you get a copy of the 5 song recording, an exclusive HD video of the band performing, and free admission to their next show (which is why I say southeast Michiganders) If you ask me it's well worth it. Here's some links:

Make a Pledge • Check Out Their Site • Hear Some Music

B.C.Ragtime

Newness? Well, apparently I heard yesterday that Ryan McRagtime is coming to town, and getting together with Borg. I've sent them 8 tracks to put vocals to… let's see if they put together some new recordings. If they don't, we've got a couple new albums coming soon to the Coats & Corpses website. First off is an older recording from 2004 of the long lost 2nd album. I dug up a CD with a copy of it and found the original artwork, which looks like this:

Tracklist:

1. While You Were Pissing
2. Brazilian Bands
3. Tattoo at Twenty-Two
4. If You're Going Out, Stay Out
5. Pizzaman
6. Wicked Like Dre (Instrumental Version)
7. Card to the Whore
8. DUMB
9. You Could be the Next
10. What Happens in Ybor City

…and shortly to follow, the We're Not Models album recorded in 2007.

Along with a new website commemorating the exploits of the band. Finally… for those of you who can't wait (and have a Last.fm account with an ear for punk rock. I put up a remixed version of the album, Another Decade of Failure, up today with free download. Check it out here, it's a seamless recording too, unlike the one available on Coats & Corpses. Anyway, this looks like a lot of typing, so… until new time…

Aw… it's not really as sad as the title looks. Don't kid yourself though, it is sad. Now, I'll bet you're wondering what's so sad? I have pretty much nothing to upload visually… according to my contract I can't put any of my current illustrations up anywhere. Hopefully, they'll like them (for my sake)… if they don't it'll still be a win situation for everyone else, because then I'll get to post them on the site. Other than that… I have been working on things:

Fonts

Just uploaded to dafont today, is version 1.4… once they get the updated version up, I'll update it on the site in the goodies section. So what's new in this version? I'm glad you asked… because I've prepared a little diagram. I'm guessing it might make a little more sense than me typing exactly what the new characters are.

Old stuff was there, news stuff is new… simple as that. As for Glasket… that's still coming along well, but I haven't had as much time lately to work on that one. I'm going to do a set of accents and European characters for Absender, then I'll get back to Glasket.

Collages

6 are close to the final stage, a bunch are already ready to be cut  and prepped for the final stage, and another whole lot of them are in the infantile stages. I'll start posting pictures once I'm happy with how they are coming out.

Illustration

Well now, this is the final mystery…  my deadline is Wednesday. I should know soon after that if they're accepted or not. If so, I'll send a link to the website… if not… we'll talk about that when the time comes. Have a good week, we should have a lot of fresh updates throughout the week so stay tuned.

So, yesterday I started working up the initial release version of my new Glasket font… let me just say that things are going, just a little bit… awesome! It's looking great, I have a few issues with some of the letters, but overall it's looking good. Any feedback is welcomed… I've still got some more work to do before I post the initial release, but… yeah, here's a picture of "a new font from the streets".

This is probably the cleanest font I've ever made to date, so I'm pretty excited. In other news, I've got a couple job interviews coming up so wish me luck. More updates to come…