STREET KING

Here's the 3rd in that Artist Series Stephe did with Zoo York. This one, by far, wins the award for being the ugliest... I bet no one is gonna be turning this into a girls graphic any time soon.

  Originally, Stephe made this as a giant alligator, but the powers that be asked him to change it into a rat.... go figure.  Maybe rats have been proven to have more selling power than alligators? They're probably more "city iconic". Gators are sort of southern things, righ?  I wish it was still an alligator though, cause the rat is just kind of... too ugly.  Stephe could've done a nicer looking rat, i guess.  But the sketch of the alligator looked really cool. (check it out after the jump.)

POSEIDON

So, This one is called, well, I guess now it's called Flush the Streets, or something. Previously it was called Come Hell or High Water, but Flush the Streets sounds more Poetic.... it looses some of the Apocalypto Global Warming message though.. but whatever.
  Personally, I think that Stephe just came up with this idea cause he was like, "Hey, I wanna draw some waves and Octopus tentacles."  (Two things that I make fun of him for drawing) and then he was like, "Alright, add some buildings, and the empire state building, and....Neptune. Why not?"  And boom, Illustration done.
  Okay. so scratch that.  Stephe got a little mad at me for writing that and he lobbed a banana peel at me.  Um... he spent a lot of time thinking about this graphic and it somehow relates to another one he did where the city is snowbound and theres a Yeti thing or somethin.

Illustration Friday: TALL

It's been quite a while since I've done an Illustration Friday Drawing.  I honestly haven't had time.   I guess I still don't have the time, but I needed to get myself into a good drawing head space. So, what the heck.  might as well whip up something fast..... it would be fun.  I haven't been able to draw something "for fun" in quite some time.
  It used to be the case that I'd try to make all my Illustration Friday drawing refer back to a Greek Myth. The box just seemed a little too confining.  So, I just started drawing and let the my mind wander a little.  When I woke up, this guy was staring back at me, and I was half way through with coloring him.  I like to think that he's one of those whole grain fed viking kids whose parents moved to America when he was in middle school, so now he's a giant among dwarfs.

  The key word: Tall.
 Hope you like this pictorial missive.

CITY PROTECTOR

Hey All,   Stephen's been too "slammed with work" (that's his own phrase) to be able to continue to update his blogs and stuff, so he gave the task to me.  Right now he's drawing some monster or something.   Anyways, This graphic was done for Zoo York as part of a second Artist Series, cause the first one did really good.  After coming up with 7 board designs, they were like, "Hey, come up with 6 more of these Monster-Destroying-the-City Tshirts."    And he was like, "Okay". I think it's a little hard to figure out how to make more than 7 of these comic things, but Stephen didn't seem phased.  I left the studio that night at around 6ish.... and when i came back two days later, he already had the sketches ready to go for me to put into the Creative Brief.   More (and Sketch) after the break

Apparel Graphics

Hey all,
  My trusty new assistant, Eddy, just dropped a bunch of T-shirt graphics on my Apparel Graphics page... and the best thing is, he put them on actual T-shirt bodies.  now you can see them as they are meant to be displayed rather than just seeing illustrations floating in space.

  Thanks Eddy.

King Westgate.

Further Proof that I was right in choosing to make Westgate's board be King Kong. I can't remember how long ago it was that I made this shirt, but I'm pretty sure it was my first season at Zoo.
    When JCPenney started carrying Zoo products, they raided the archives for printable designs. i guess this is one of the graphics they liked. Henceforth, REPRINT!! Keep on being a manimal Westgate.
 *photo credit to Sean Cronan.

CHAZ ORTIZ

Comicboard1ortiz, originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

Of the series, I think this is my My favorite. I can't say if it's the best looking of the group, but the process of making it was so fluid, I never got sick of it. Usually, in every illustration project, about half way through, I realize that I have no idea what I'm doing, and feel trapped in a cage I can't get out of. Then I try all sorts of options to fix it. And then usually i end up realizing that there wasn't a problem to begin with, I'd just been staring at the drawing for too long. With this board, I never had to go through that. It was just a strait shot. Wind in my sails the whole time. So, why, you ask, is this the Chaz Ortiz board. Shouldn't it be obvious, The dude is a king among beast concurring tricks faster than humanly possible. Hey Chaz, what do you gotta say? "Just skate hard, skate your best, and don’t get yourself down. Just go out there and skate how you know how to skate, make sure you have your run planned, and just have fun."

TeamBoard

Comicboards6Aliens, originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

This one almost got dropped due to technical difficulties. But Chapman, the Board maker, liked the design so much that he asked if we could use the graphic as the team board. I was like, "Dope". And with a few tweeks here and there it was spiffied up and ready to print. I really like drawing Octopus legs. They have a certain type of challenge and grace to them. So I had a lot of fun drawing these octo-aliens.

Kevin Taylor

Comicboards3Robot , originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

This board was an add on, and it continued to change though out the design process. My buddy Ken Morimoto and I kept on going back to the drawing board trying to find the right composition and color scheme. Since we already had the rest of the boards nailed down, it was a little challenging to find a colorway that would work with the rest of them and also be different enough to stand out all by itself. For quite a while, the robot was looking way to much like Iron Man (the type treatment doesn't help) but now that it's all greens and purples, i think it stands pretty strong. I hope you like it, Mr. Taylor.

Brandon Westgate

Comicboards4Westgate, originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

Ohhhhhh Yeah. Nothing quite like a good ol King Kong graphic for Westgate. I cranberry color choice is to refer back to his bogging background. A while ago, when Westgate first turned pro, I made a deck featuring a girl on a pool raft floating on a cranberry bog. so I added the damsel in distress as an ode to the old board. You can never draw too many King Kong graphics for Zoo York.

Aaron Suski

Comicboards5suski, originally  uploaded by Stephen Halker.

So, I put the French Liberty leading the people, the 99% riots, and Wonder Woman in a blender, and this is what came out.

RonDeily

Comicboards6Deily, originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

So, while I was working in-house at Zoo, I would draw one Comic-book-cover-looking graphic per season. After a few seasons went by, it got a little difficult to find new scenarios that would work. I always wanted to do something with the bridges and waterways. So, this was my chance. Any graphic where you get to draw splashy water, a dragon head, and Kirby crackle has gotta be a fun one. Oh, and I think the type was taken from.... the New MUTANTS? it was some sort of X Men offshoot. More to come.

Forrest Kirby

Comicboards7Kirby, originally uploaded by Stephen Halker.

Taking some inspiration from the stories of Mole People and Alligators in the subways, I draw up a design that was just as powerful, but on a bit more of a human scale. For the Type, I as riffing off of the Swamp Thing masthead. Hope you like it.

STEPHEN HALKER X ZOO YORK

It's been a long time coming, but my board series is finally out! Brian Mackin and I were throwing around board series ideas for quite a while before this one stuck.
 We started out with the Idea of doing 5 designs, but somehow it kept on growing, so pretty soon they approved 7 or 8 designs. So, with the help of my old intern, Ken Morimoto, we cranked these things out and sent them off. These designs were also turned into my first Artist Series of T shirts for Zoo. Hopefully I'll be posting those soon as well.
 
Boards can be found where ever fine skating goods are sold. More posts coming soon.