The Legend of Hot Rod

 From 2018 to 2021, I worked for an architectural company for their IT department. When COVID hit and we started working from home around March 2020, we had A LOT of Zoom meetings. Working from home really got the creative juices flowing and Zoom meetings got really fun with backgrounds and an actual green screen. A couple of months in, my IT service team manager had an idea: to do how-to videos for basic issues to keep IT tickets down since weren't used to working from home in that capacity. Since my manager found me entertaining on Zoom meetings, I decided to use that to bring on Hot Rod. A 7th-level Technomancer to help people get learnt so he could get turnt.

Using my basic webcam, I filmed bits, OBS to get footage from a virtual machine, and Premiere to edit everything, Hot Rod became a reality.

Follow the journey of Hot Rod:

The first video instructing the users on how to connect to the company VPN while remote. Management wasn't sold on Hot Rod's definition of a VPN.

The second video being a teaser of what's to come while adding a bit to Hot Rod's lore.

The third video explaining what the Self Service Portal icon is for. The company had a DTS team which was design technology system or something. I really can't remember. Just having a little go at them in the video.

The powers that be didn't like the "voluptuous party nurses" bit so Hot Rod was forced to censor himself. Here's the censored VPN video where he is redubbed and the words "voluptuous" and "nurses" are removed.

Hot Rod didn't fit the stuffy corporate setting despite being loved by 98% of the IT team. After one meeting, the IT manager killed the idea of Hot Rod and thought he was too weird and goofy. So I whipped up a goofy in memoriam video for Hot Rod.

They gave Hot Rod one last chance to change and make a more "serious" how-to video. So, Hot Rod did what they asked and got as serious and boring as possible. He still managed to take the piss out of them in the end.

Thus the tale of Hot Rod ends here. A fun journey and side project to mess around in Premiere and get those creative juices flowing.

Parody? Homage? Or straight rip-off?

What happens when you're a pro-wrestling fan AND a Doctor Who fan? You make a ridiculous homage/rip-off/parody logo for a t-shirt!

So, the Bullet Club is by far the most over stable in professional wrestling. (Translation: The Bullet Club is by far the most popular group/alliance of wrestlers in professional wrestling) Because of that, there are tons of derivative logos that are official merchandise. BUT! Fans do the same thing. Like this one.

This is the original. Designed by an artist commissioned by Prince Devitt aka Fergal Devitt (the founder of Bullet Club). The origin of the name comes from pro-wrestling terms. You're either a worker (work the crowd/stay on script/follow the pre-determination of the match when wrestling) or a shooter (go off script/do whatever you want/intentionally hurt your opponent/win the match that's not supposed to happen). Devitt proclaimed himself as a "shooter." So the idea of the logo features guns and bullets to represent that. It also looks tough and badass. Stylized skull, crossed AK-47s, and bullets.

For the Doctor Who shirt, I kept the skull and chevrons but replaced the AKs with crossed Dalek guns. You know, the things that look like whisks. For the bullets, I decided on replacing those with the infamous sucker arm. The toilet plunger things. To accomplish this, I did it all in Flash by *cough cough* tracing *cough cough* over the skull to keep that shape. I found a typeface similar to the one used in the original to say "Dalek Club." The gun arms and suckers were created from shapes an converted to symbols for easier placement. Seen here:

I submitted this to a t-shirt screen printing company hoping they had no idea this was a Bullet Club parody shirt. However, the ONLY problem was the use of the word "Dalek." HA! So, after some adjustments, I had to add a location. Since this shirt was done for a Doctor Who con for my buddy and I to wear there, I just added the con's location: Atlanta, GA.

Turns out, that's all I needed. And below is what it looks like worn in the design proof image:

Fun with fake logos!

This was a fun side personal project I did for a fake karaoke feud. A local friend hosted karaoke in a small town and I was the "big city" bad guy. So I created a fake karaoke brand and logo and even did a t-shirt run.

First up is the main karaoke logo:

I wanted this to be a typical and cheesy looking logo and it even features the Atlanta skyline. All of this was done in Flash.



Second is the fake hipster bar where I hosted:

A fictional bar located in O4W in Atlanta called the Beard and Sailor. I designed this with the most cliche looking hipster design that is seen everywhere. The beard and sailing wheel were free to use vector clip art. Again, designed in Flash.


Up next, the fictional brewing company:

The Yanes Brewing company. I think I used some brewery name generator for the name. The signature brew was definitely generated to have the most hipster sounding beer imaginable: The Saffron-infused Saddle Sore American Lager.
The logo was designed in Flash and I wanted that generic coaster looking type of look.


Lastly, and the logo I'm most proud of:

The "official" organization that sanctioned my karaoke: The Nippon Karaoke League. Located in Japan - the origin of karaoke. Having this seal of approval means my fake karaoke was legit. This one I had a lot of fun with. I wanted that Japanese company look but with the weird cuteness often found in Japanese logos. A smiling microphone over the Japanese sun. This was so popular, people wanted shirts with just this logo. Seen below is the shirt logo with the name of the League above it:

Again, design in Flash.

Here are the shirt proofs for the t-shirt runs I did:

The main Big City shirt with all of the sponsors and official sanctioning logo. I wanted it to look like those running shirts with logos covering the shirt in a really tacky way.

And the NKL shirt:

Birthday pub crawl map final look

Based on the map as seen in The World's End, here's the final version of the map sketched and colored in Sketchbook Pro.



The perspective is way off on some of the buildings as I was messing with the perspective tool and trying to keep it all relative to the way the street is angled.

Birthday pub crawl map sketches

My good friend had his birthday earlier this year and wanted a pub crawl themed party. Since I just recently saw The World's End, we decided to do our own "Golden Mile" in East Atlanta Village where he lives. Unfortunately, it came out to be about a half mile and the crawl made more of a Y path rather than an interesting winding path. Below are the pub sign sketches I created for each stop. 


First stop, Argosy:

The name of this pub is based on a merchant ship and even has a painting of one inside.

Second stop, The Elder Tree:

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This is an actual British styled pub so the sign wasn't too difficult to design.

Third stop, The Earl:

Thought it would be fun to take the acronym of the EARL (East Atlanta Restaurant and Lounge) and make it regal considering it's a straight up dive bar. Based the design on a painting of John Fleming, VI Earl of Wigton. 

Fourth stop, Flatiron:

Not sure how this place was named but I made the sign based on an actual flat iron.

Fifth stop, The Midway Pub:

I intentionally made the half-way stop this pub. The sign is obviously a half finished pint.

Sixth stop, The 529 Bar:

This one was a bit easy as they have a coat of arms as their logo and I based the sign on that.

Seventh stop, Mary's:

Cleverly named gay bar in EAV. So, I used the Victorian styled pub sign for this one.

Eighth stop, The Glenwood:

Named after the road it sits on, the design of this sign is based on what Glenwood literally means: a wooded glen (valley). 

Ninth and final stop, The Graveyard Tavern:

Much like the Midway Pub, I intentionally made this the last stop because of the name. I has several ideas but I eventually went with  the winged skull motif from late 17th Century to early 18th Century gravestones.

Background Designs #2

Gothic themed based on a book/story. I chose "Fall of the House of Usher." Idea #1 Idea #2 Idea #3 Idea #4 Final Alternate #1 Alternate #2

Background designs #1

Some background design projects. Western theme: Idea #1 Idea #2 Idea #3 Idea #4 Final