Skateboard Deck Art Designs

DMAC

Working on some entries for a design show on skateboard art. Entries have to be in by Thursday. The first one I'm doing is a Chinese dragon. I'm going to be repositioning it a little to fit better for the final pencils.

The winning entries will be printed on decks and displayed as part of the show then auctioned off.

Megamau_X

i had to be the first to say something.


Fuckin sweat.

seriously, i hate the shit out of 98% of the crap thats on those boards and this is cool. plus its nice to see something that isn't a childs environmental concept or a character concept or remake.


sexy, two thumbs up.

edit: i hope you win man, and i especially hope you don't get beat out by some fuck who desided to trace a famouse boarders face in illustraitor and through some floweres behind it.

im tired to death of that shit.

DMAC

Thanks man.

The back left leg is bugging the hell out of me now that I've had a chance to look at it a bit. I'll take a look at it tomorrow and see what I can do with it.

Hellbound 17 1/2

Reminds me of my old Caballero board... Man, that was a loooong time ago!

Supernothing

The tail bugs me. I've never seen a dragon with its tail just kind of.. rounded.. off like that. Truth be told, though, I've never seen a dragon.

Tweaked_Bat_

That's a damn sweet design. However, the part where the head/neck is attached to the rest of the body is a little confusing at first, because you see the back of the dragon's body, but it's facing us from front on. Upon closer inspection you notice that it's twisted it's neck around, but it still seems a tad off.... you could probably pass it off though Overall I think it would look a little less confusing if his belly were facing us rather than his back, but I think you're at the stage where it's kinda hard to fix that, aye? EDIT: after looking at it for a little longer it makes more sense. Yeah I think it's ok, it just lost me a bit at first glance.

Also the part where the left (our left) claw is jumbled together a bit with his snout area, but I think colours will fix that problem.

I'm not an expert of chinese dragons (or dragons in general), but the left (our left again) arm and leg are twisted in the opposite direction if ya know what I mean, but I'm assuming that's the style in which a dragon like that is meant to be drawn, right? Atleast that's what I see at first glance. My brain will probably make more sense of it the more I look at it.

In any case, if I had a skateboard, I would love to see that on the underside of it!

r-jasper

ive gotta agree with super nothing, i think that the tail needs to come to more of a point but im really liking your design!

Google Image Search

Fun Dragon fact: Chinese dragons have 4 toes, Japanese have 3 and Korean have something like 7 (I think). They also have their own unique reasons as to why the other dragons have a different number of toes and why they're better than the others.

Great design though, the head is especially nice, really nailed the style.

DMAC

Yeah, I'm planning a fairly major revision today...

Thanks for the feedback.

Staleghoti

I'd like to see a skateboard design that allows for boardslides.

Something that looks cool even after being all scratched to shit.

srsizzy

Staleghoti wrote:

I'd like to see a skateboard design that allows for boardslides.

Something that looks cool even after being all scratched to shit.

What, like put a painting under the painting? So when it gets scratched, another painting is revealed...it's genius!

Or somehow integrate the materials the painting's made of into the wood so it can't be scratched off.

Anyways, nice design DMAC. Dragons are always awesome.

Staleghoti

Ya, like obviously when the thing is totally wrecked it's... totally wrecked... but something that continues to look cool until that time.

DMAC

Other than the fact that it's been Photochopped and the missing pieces filled in with a mouse, what do you guys think of this?

Buckwolfe

Meh, its not a bad design, but the first one is far superior in my opinion. This new revision doesn't really hold the eyes attention as much. The eye is drawn from top to bottom by the swishy shape of the dragon's body, but that's about it. At least with the other one there was the really neat curl that led up and around to hold the viewers attention. It seemed much more ornate.

And to be perfectly honest, I was really digging the tail on the other one. But mayber there's some middle ground you can find between having the stubby tail and the pointy one. Plus, that frill thing that the rounded off tail had was pretty nifty, and far more interesting than just a pointy tail.

Staleghoti

Ya, needs as much detail as the first one.

Clouds, and other oriental stuff

DMAC

I'm still planning on doing background clouds and stuff and the tail probably will still have the flare on it that the other one did. I just can't seem to make the curl in the middle of the body work without the legs looking gimped.

Sublimus

I think the thing that kills the forst one is how busy it is. So if you could somehow keep the loop the body makes, but not confuse the eye. I like them both either way, though.

D.T.

The first is the best (the symmetry of form between the head and tail is great), but I agree that some things are awkward. If it were me, I would just take both left legs and fold them up into more natural positions. I would have the back left leg folded up like the right one and be visible in that space where the body curls. I'd fold up the front left leg and have the claw visible in the "armpit" area under the right front leg.

The way those two legs are now, it looks like his belly should be facing us.

Everything else looks solid. The twist at the neck looks a little odd in black and white, but I'm sure color will totally take care of that.

Staleghoti

DMAC wrote:

I'm still planning on doing background clouds and stuff and the tail probably will still have the flare on it that the other one did. I just can't seem to make the curl in the middle of the body work without the legs looking gimped.

go ahead and gimp the legs, bro.

Dragons like that mostly fly anyways, they don't need legs.

earthwormadam

In the new design, you still have the same problem of the head being too close to the nose of the board. There is still too much space on the bottom.

And I think the first tail looked more awesome.

DMAC

Yeah, the more I look at Chinese/Japanese dragon designs, the more I realize that most of them really aren't drawn to be "anatomically correct". The legs are all attached at different points along the body and just sort of stick out wherever. I'm working right now on trying to blend the two versions.

Some things had to change from the first version for purely technical reasons, I don't want anything too close to the edge of the board so I had to move things around a little.

DMAC

Keeping in mind that the final version is still going to have scales and whatnot, this is the "merged" design I think I'm going to base the final pencils on:

earthwormadam

Thats the stuff right there.

The only issue I can see now is the clouds. The linework gives the clouds too much emphasis. But once I see it colored, I will most likely retract this statement.

Are you going to color it?

MagicToaster

I like this last version best. it's a shame that when you put the wheels on it it's gonna cover up alot of the image.

DMAC

I do plan to use the color to push the clouds a little further back. I don't know if these decks will ever have trucks/wheels attached to them since they're for part of a design exhibit. I did try to adjust things so that they cover anything too important though.

I've pretty much got today to finish the line art, tomorrow for the pencil rendering, and Wednesday to do the color. :shock:

Should be cool when it's done though.

melting_doll

DMAC wrote:

Should be cool when it's done though.

i never would have thought otherwise. :^:

zatch01

I have never been a big fan of dragons but it looks good.

My only crit is the scales above the left leg, it is really throwing me off. perhaps if it was moved over a bit more to distinguish itself more from the body.

DMAC

Pencils.



Coloring in progress...

TimTheSloth

the dragons left leg is really confusing.

DMAC

Yep.

earthwormadam

So clean. So smooth.

The only thing sticking out to me it some of the scales. Right below his arm on the left, it looks like there is a staright line of dark scales going across his body.

Very detailed work, and it looks super.

Supernothing

I liked what you did with the tail in the first revision. A bit saddened that you changed it back, but I'm assuming it just wasn't working somehow. I just can't help but think the poor thing had the end of it's tail lobbed off.

EDIT: I looked around at some dragons. Depends on which ones you look at, but a lot have their tail end like that. Nevermind me.

DMAC

Time for bed.

earthwormadam

That is splendiferous. The backround color might be a tad too much like the color of the dragon. The orange and red pop out very nicely though.

Bed time for me as well.

ohdee

Shit is real. Fuck man really, really nice effort.

I can see what they ^ meant about the background colour, but I think the fact that it pops the red bits out so nicely more than makes up for it, I dare say this has occured to you because it seems deliberate.

Word. Nicely done

Staleghoti

Fucking awesome as usual.

art monkey

You win man.
You just win!

Tweaked_Bat_

Like I imagined, colours did rectify a few of the problems I noticed, and I personally don't mind the tail all that much. Also, the left leg confuses me a bit, but I think it's meant to do that anyway if you look at any chinese/japanese dragon drawing. The style is to have the legs/arms splayed out in opposite directions, even if it goes against the laws of... er, anatomy or whatever. Top job, if you don't win that competition thingy then there is something seriously wrong with this world :P

DMAC

Thanks guys. I submitted my entries earlier today. I included an alternate all blue version.

Deans

Gwah, a little late now but I noticed a confusing tangent. I can't tell if the hair below his head going down the neck is the back of his mane or some sort of beard. It also looks like it's in front of his neck a little.

[edit] Logic suggests that it's the back of his mane twirling around but at first glance it's not that apparent.

DMAC

Yeah, it's coming around from the back. I don't really see a problem even if people read it the other way though.