Love Hate

This time, I was commissioned to pimp out my friend's kicks that have "Love" and "Hate" already printed on them. She wanted hearts on them along with her 3 favorite colors red, blue and green. Typically I would have more input from my customers on what they want and how they want things to be painted on the kicks. This time, my friend was sort of letting me have the liberty to go on and do my own designs with very little information provided. And boy, I sure enjoyed pimping this pair. The two shoes are in complete contrast of one another. The love shoe is a lot merrier and colorful while the hate shoe is limited to a smaller color palette with a somewhat more barren and morbid look.
Because this was my very first pair of hi-top chucks I've ever painted so I was having some difficulties with the paint job. Unlike low tops, hi-tops are designed to have a boot-like aesthetics; however they are made with canvas, so when putting the front flap down onto the sole, the sides collapse inward making difficult to hold the shoes while stretching the canvas for painting without smearing acrylic everywhere. This took me probably a good two hours or so to finally get used to. But overall, I think these shoes turned out well. I hope my friend like them :)
OH AND MERRT CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 

Brain Wave Dance

A friend of mine commissioned me to pimp out some kicks as a chirstmas present to her special someone. She was running on a low budget, and for the first time I charged my paint job by hours. This pair took me a little more than five hours to finish. My friend wanted awkward turtles on the kicks along with "brain wave dance" (This is supposed to be an inside joke between my friend and her special someone), so I did it. I hope the other person likes it because I sure enjoy drawing/painting some upside down sea turtle.
Cheers
P/S: If you want your shoes pimped out and are running low on budget, let me know. I will work out a good deal for you :) Happy Holidays to y'all!

Buddha what?

My girlfriend, after seeing my pimped out tom's from previously, decided to purchase herself a pair so that I could of course do a kick ass paintjob on them. She convinced me that they would make a perfect advertising tool for my shweet kicks, so I agreed to paint away on her new favorite buy. She wanted cute looking buddha on the shoes, but specifically not the typical buddha that you would find at buddhist temple. She also wanted water to be painted on as well. With that in mind, I went ahead and did these puppies their justice. The design came out looking quite good yet simple. Also, my girlfriend was so excited about the shoes that actually asked to help painting and so I let her paint about ten percent of the whole thing. I guess now that she has assisted to pimp out the kicks, she'll come to appreciate them more.

Sponge Bob

So I got another order from one of my previous generous customer and this time she wanted the shoes painted not for herself but for her kid. She specifically asked me to not have Sandy painted on the kicks because she's too weird looking. Now I am not a fan of this show and haven't seen more than two episodes but I know enough to agree with her on Sandy being a tad of crazy cookie. Anyway, i carried on and painted away. The design this time is simple and features of course Sponge Bob, Patrick, Mr Crab, Squidward and Gary. Hope y'all enjoy this pair. 

Afro Samurai

I had never been an avid anime fan until my very first time coincidentally watching Afro Samurai down at the basement of my dormitory with Nic. The animation is amazing and the presentation puts other anime movies to shame. Afro is a bad-ass samurai and the fact that Sam Jackson does the voice for him makes it doubly badass. But the thing that really makes me love this movie is the cultural syncretism that it promotes. Afro Samurai takes place in an ancient Japanese setting but modernized and filled with rich African American culture. Oh also, Rza from Wu Tang does the music for this movie and he kills on every single track for this movie. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Interesting yet straightforward plot but after all, there are other things that make this movie a masterpiece you've gotta check out.
Alright, I am done yapping and now back to our kicks for today. These are actually mine and also not Vans. They are my very first pair of Tom's. So to celebrate such a memorable occasion (if you haven't noticed I have fetish for shoes and will do silly things like this just to show much I love my kicks.), I have decided to paint them using one of my all time favorite anime movies, Afro Samurai. The design is simple and features the main character Afro and his twice killed, first friend then enemy, Jinno. I also painted the quote "Add one more body to the body toll. May God bless this poor bastard's soul." on the back on these two. So here they are, I present to you, my lovely and of course dope Afro Samurai kicks done by yours truly.

Panda-tastic

So I am back with another pair of shweet kicks for your viewing pleasure. My client and I had a chat about what she would want painted on the kicks, and she said she would love to see pandas, cherry blossoms and bamboo stocks. She was very particular about the look of the panda, so I decided to do a quick sketch of a panda. Got a green light from her, I went ahead and painted away these kicks.

Fombie

While waiting for more orders on the kicks, I had more free time to pimp out these little DIY vinyl guys. They have been phenomenally fun to do and of course bring me along with my character creating fetish back to the old days. After Dub-A-dee was conceived, I was looking for a new look for my 4 inch dude. And after digging around, the idea came to me. Why not a zombie? (I know i know this should have been my instant classic character as I am a sucker for zombie movies and also believe that the most bad ass thing to do is killing zombies in a near future zompocalypse) But anyway, I carried on with the idea and Fombie was created and has been munching on brains ever since :D

Dub-A-Dee Panda (DIY toy)

A while back ago, I stumbled upon these do-it-yourself toys at a store on Hawthorne street, Portland. They looked like they would be perfect for art to be painted on. So I went home and did a little research on these little guys and boy, people surely have taken these toys to a different level with there creativity. Many colorful, reworked or even re-sculpted characters were created out of these little plain white vinyl guys. Anyways, it took me about a month or so to work up to actually painting one. Here I present to you Dub-A-dee Panda. 

Up

Before I start yapping away about these kicks, I'd like to say that I love everything about Pixar and they totally rock my world.

These shoes are themed obviously from the movie "Up" by Pixar. Initially, the client didn't exactly know what she wanted on the shoes. However, she had looked at the "despicable me" theme on previous kicks and decided that she would want something of that style of animation. Sophisticated yet cute. With that in mind, I went ahead and picked out couple of themes, mainly movies. She got back to me and "Up" was her choice. And there I was, painting away for 12 hours.

Dinosaurish

Here is another order whose client didn't exactly know what he'd like to see drawn/painted on the kicks. He was generous enough to let me pick out a theme for his pair. I had found a picture of a graffiti wall painted with dinosaur-looking creatures. It was fun looking and very colorful. And of course that naturally appealed me, thus I decided to get that graffiti wall on those kicks. And here they are. Fantabulous :)

Despicable Me

I saw "Despicable Me" in theater with my girlfriend, and boy I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot was admittedly predictable and a bit of a cliche but the minions and of course Gru, starring Steve Carrel, rocked. Also I am a sucker for cute animation, so this one definitely got my vote.
Now back to the kicks, I got these bad boys commissioned not so long ago. The client did not exactly know what she wanted on the shoes so she let me pick a theme for them. Of course after getting all cute out from "Despicable Me", I had decided that Gru and the Minions would make it onto the shoes. And so they did. These two kicks took me about ten hours to finish :)

Monsters of Colors

So this is my very first order. The client has a reference image that she'd like to have it painted on there. So I did exactly what she had asked and here they are. It took me about 6 hours or so to paint these colorful little monsters on the two kicks. Even though the theme did not require a lot of attention to details, it leaves a lot of room for me to work with color placement of each kick. In the end, they've turned out to be very cute.