Crash Parlor! an illustration of the band.

I was commissioned by my good friend to do an illustration of his band, Crash Parlor.

They have a very unique sound. I guess you'd call it 'old timey' music. It's very lively music played all acoustically. I really enjoy their stuff.

Because of the old timey feel to their music I saw them in 'old timey' clothes. I could really picture these guys playing rowdy bars in old western towns with men drinking and gambling and can-can girls look for customers. 

I started off with a sketch.

I tried to capture their likenesses as best as I could. Not only did I give them old timey clothes I also gave them a different instrument. They really do play these instruments and often switch them around. 

I looked for period clothes to put on these guys. I knew some of the elements that I wanted like a top hat that an old snake oil salesman would wear and a bowler hat with vest and garters like you might find a poker dealer wearing.

In my search for clothes I found this really cool old top hat. It was too cool not to use! They said it belonged to an old Indian to boot!

I drew bigger, more detailed drawings using these images I gathered as references.

Then when I'm happy with these I put them on my light table and ink them up.
The light table is one of the best things to happen to my work. It allows you to work over pencils while keeping the paper clean.And if you don't like what you've done you don't have to start from scratch because you still have the pencils you did. My work is cleaner now and I have more options with less labor.

here are the inked drawings.

I would have drawn them all together but my scanner only allows me to copy 8 1/2 x 11. It's not a very fun limitation but I work with it the best I can.

Then I drew up a title. I could have easily got one out of the computer but I wanted the challenge of doing it myself. I enjoy working on type fonts.

The lettering works but it could be more refined if I had worked bigger, though time restraints made this version good enough. I also polished up a bit on the final version when it went on the computer for coloring.

I threw all the elements on my Gimp program and colored it up. So this is what I came up with. Again, the coloring was not great but under the circumstances it works.

I enjoy comparing the original sketch with the final version to see where it came from to where it went.

Now I just hope the band doesn't kill me for making them look so ugly.