Category: Art

Chester’s Military Blouse from Numb Music Video

I am attempting to replicate the iconic outfit worn by Chester Bennington in the Numb music video. Because it was made in the early 2000’s there is very little information or high quality photos of the original jacket/military blouse. We will never know who designed it.

I must confess, I initially resorted to AI to see if it could upscale the images or isolate this decal so that I might print it myself. The results were hilariously bad. Stupid clankers:

The only solution was good ol’ human effort and a bit of brute force. Turns out that it wasn’t that hard to draw. I had initially been overwhelmed by the image and didn’t think I had a hope of drawing anything satisfactory. But I surprised myself. I blew up the original image to A3 size, traced the blurry silhouette, then studied the 4k screenshots from the music video to add all the details back in. The drawing took eight hours total, but that time paid off. Now to find someone who can screen print this for me.

Below is the sacred heart, seen on the right sleeve. I won’t worry about the other minor decals seen on the jacket, no one will notice their absence. It’s a shame we never see the jacket from the back. I even dug through behind-the-scenes photos and videos, but we never once see what that back design is. It seems to contain part of the American flag, that’s all I can say.

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The Incident Anniversary Artwork Collection

Here’s my artistic and psychological evolution over the past four years.
It’s interesting to reflect on my changing attitudes and approach to the same subject matter. Through it all I remained brave and kept my sense of humour, even when I fell into despair.

Immediately after my near-death experience, the head trauma gave me vertigo and made the world all wonky, so my artwork looked wonky too. The reality of the situation hadn’t entirely sunk in.


One year after the incident, my artwork depicted me brushing it off, ready to move on with life, I was unprepared for the continuing battle ahead of me. This piece was super rushed, I hate the look of it now.


Two years later I was in a very dark place, I had unsuccessfully attempted suicide. I was angry and lonely and in constant pain. But I remained determined to rise above it. This is one of my favourite illustrations.
Now I’ve run the entire gamut of post traumatic emotions. I feel like I’ve reached an equilibrium. This is another illustration that I am proud of.

It feels good to look back on the tremendous growth my art has made in a few years. I just reached a point where I was ashamed that I was in my 30’s and my art had barely improved since high school. Now I can clearly see progress.

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The Incident Third Anniversary

July 22nd, it’s been three years since I nearly died in a hit-and-run. I still live in the aftermath of that incident, but it was also a moment of rebirth for me. I’ve learned a lot, about myself, about pain, about trust, about people, and society.
I will always carry this anger, but it is a good anger. It is not the kind of flame to destroy, but the flame to forge and strengthen.

I wonder if this will be the last art piece I create to commemorate this day. I wanted to capture where I am now. I am in a much better place than I’ve possibly ever been. It was fitting that I latched onto Kazuhira during my recovery, as he too is a character who falls to similar depths and later drags himself out of Hell.
We will never be the same again, but we now have a new equilibrium.

(I’m still waiting on that damn insurance payment!)

I’m always trying to push myself to broaden my skills. I’ve become quite a fan of watercolour as of late. This is the most complicated things I’ve ever done in this medium. It was scary to paint those shadows in. But I think it worked in the end.

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A Collection of Custom Dolls

Back around 2014 I discovered Monster High and was inspired to customise them. It would go on to generate the foundation of the Doctor Travian novel I am writing. I had no experience painting dolls or miniatures prior, my earliest attempts were rough, but I would soon pick up the skills. I learned to paint their faces, insert glass eyes, re-root their hair and make detailed miniature costumes. I sold custom dolls for a time on Etsy, and I would gift a few to my friends.

I don’t have time for such a hobby anymore, but I am proud of the work I did.

Doctor Travian

Cordelia Travian
Sophia
Nyssa
Delphine
Cordelia Travian
Eve
Eve
Ruth Alvarez
Bolormaa
Lillith Travian
Adam- Frankenstein’s monster
Custom furniture

Others

Rochelle Goyle- Monster High
Rochelle Goyle and Garrott du Roque
Garrott du Roque- Monster High
Jubilee- X-Men, custom Descendants Lonnie
Maleficent
Pocahontas
Bride of Frankenstein
Elphaba- Wicked
Kaelis- custom Finnegan Wake, Monster High
Custom Gil Webber, Monster High
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Knuckles

Knuckles (watercolour and marker)

This year I’ve been spending every evening practicing art, but you wouldn’t know it because I only post work when it is fully completed and I am satisfied with it. I think we live in a world now that has been conditioned to treat everything as a source of generating content. No, focus on honing your craft, then share it with the world. Social media will distract you from meaningful progress if you’re obsessed with demonstrating superfluous improvements along the way. You think Da Vinci was cranking out a masterpiece everyday?

I’m trying to get more into colouring, I am finding I am fond of watercolours, it seems to be my favourite medium. Amazingly this is just a cheap watercolour set from Kmart. It’s surprisingly vibrant. This painting is based on a screenshot from the show Knuckles, I chose it because, aside from Knuckles being adorable, it presented a challenging lighting scenario . There’s also the difficult perspectice of the building behind him. That ended up being overwhelming, so I kept the background abstract. I’m most proud of how the flaming fists turned out.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Ménage à trois (NSFW)

Final illustration, lighting corrected digitally.
Illustration pencils.
Illustration scanned before ironing.
Illustration scanned after ironing. Colours enhanced digitally.

This year my resolution was to draw more and try to push my art to the next level. But I wasn’t going to go the conventional route of doing some sketching every day and practicing anatomy. That’s boring and I find it hard to be consistent with that. Instead, I’ve always learned best when I set myself an ambitious project and learn the skills I need to as I go. No practicing, no test runs, just throwing myself into the deep end; sink or swim.

This was definitely a trust-the-process experience. There were many times I wanted to give up on this piece, but I’m glad I persevered.

The inspiration for this came from the curiosity to see if there was a way to combine the sensibilities of classical art with porn, and erotic fan art. I find most porn and erotic art ugly because it is so base, with little regard to lighting or composition. To me, the technical beauty of the image is essential to the pleasure of the image, be it aesthetic or erotic.

I’ve never drawn erotic art before, so off I went to Porn Hub for anatomy reference. What I saw was quite miserable, it’s all so cold, and mechanical, and vulgar. To remedy this, I combined that with my knowledge of Romantic art and Greek sculptures to bring in the warmth, and gentleness, and humanity. Sex should be a wonderful, loving thing, I wanted to capture that. I felt there was such a connection between my Dark Urge character Durga, Lae’zel, and Gale, which is why I chose them as subject matter.

When I began this project months ago, I had no idea I was going to be rendering it in watercolour. I just drew the initial sketch in my regular sketchpad. Once I had completed it, I felt watercolour was right, but I had no idea if this paper could handle it. It held up surprisingly well, but the process of painting was slow because I had to wait until it was fully dried between layers, it took days. Each step of this process I kept thinking “Oh no, I’ve fucked up. I should quit and start over again”. The paper ended up quite shrivelled, but I persisted. I found I could even ink on top of the painted paper. It was actually looking far better than I anticipated, despite being a crinkled mess. I had no idea how the illustration would handle being smoothed with an iron, if the paint and ink would remain unchanged by the heat. I just went for it and it turned out completely fine.

This project has definitely furthered my art and taught me not to panic more than sketching anatomy would have.

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Fashion illustration of Phil

This was how my friend Phil appeared to me in a dream. He was doing some sort of Artic expedition, but could walk through a door in the middle of the tundra to return to his apartment. Phil says it gives him League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes, I am inclined to agree. His outfit was of fur and leather and wool of the deepest, richest blues and browns, I tried my best to capture it, but this will have to be close enough. This is my first attempt at using Krita.

I hate colouring, whether it be with traditional mediums or digital. I’ve spent most of my life drawing in black and white. It’s hard to start thinking in terms of colour.

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Metal Gear Triptych III: The Shimmer

The Brain Comforts Itself (A trilogy of dreams)

After several traumatic incidents leaving me severely injured and profoundly alone, my subconscious provided me a place in which I could retreat. This place was not devoid of pain or danger. No, each time I visited I was made to overcome a challenge, face some aspect of my real pain, the difference from reality being that I had someone stronger and wiser than I was to walk with me. This phenomenon has been known by shamans all over the world perhaps before the written word itself. The ancients speak of spirit guides and tulpas, beings that visit our minds to provide us with unique guidance. 

This is an ability I’ve had my whole life, but I dismissed my fantasy worlds as childish or shameful. After my near-death experience followed by the most intense dreams of my life, I decided I didn’t want to keep these things locked away in my mind anymore, they don’t deserve to die with me. 

These characters might belong to a video game, but I don’t think that matters, these are the forms my subconscious assumed because these are figures who represent meaningful qualities to me. Snake, Miller, Ocelot, each in their turn taught me something important on my journey to recovery. 

This project took me down all sorts of surprising avenues of research, from the self-insert fantasies of Dante Aligheiri to the dissection of the subconscious by Jung. Our private relationship with our fantasies or even the fiction of others is significant, this triptych demonstrates the providence my own mind offered me as protection from my pain. 

See the rest here: https://traviandesigns.com/tag/metal-gear-triptych/

The Dream:

Ocelot is an enigma, both instantly recognisable, yet ever-changing. I can relate, but how does one reconcile all the people one has been throughout a life? Ocelot would know better than anyone.

Here is the result of nearly two years of work on this project, I feel I have learned a lot, but I don’t think I will be jumping into making comics any time soon. It’s a lot of work!

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