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B is for Beard is finally back from the printers! Here’s a shot of me collating like mad last night. I took them over to the IPRC and bound about 30-40 of them after this; still have a lot more to bind before Stumptown this weekend and Crafty Wonderland the next.

Also, below is a short video of the book being run through the two-color Heidelberg offset press at Gann Brothers Printing here in Portland. I also took quite a few photos which are up on my Flickr.

Speaking of Stumptown, I will be tabling at booth 95 all weekend long, except for a short time on Sunday at 11, when I and some of my studiomates from Tranquility Base will be putting on an inking demo for anyone who wishes to come and watch. My plan is to ink a few new Baby Otto pages.

The Banner Year Pre-Order special $25 deal is still in effect until Friday. If you’re still thinking you want to buy B is for Beard and BEARFIGHT!, you should take advantage. After Friday, BEARFIGHT! will be $12 separately, and B is for Beard will be $20.

How about a process post about flocking? If you don’t know, flocking is made up of powdered rayon fibers, which when adhered to any object with the proper adhesive, creates a fuzzy, felt-like texture. All 77 contributing artist copies, as well as the first 200 of the run of 500 will have the “BEARFIGHT” title flocked in white.

Here’s my ever faithful screenprinting setup with my makeshift flocking box next to it. I did the first 50 covers myself as a test, but will have assistants later, so it was helpful to have the box right next to the screen.

The company through which I bought the flocking fibers also sells a water-based adhesive which has a lengthy enough working time to be able to screenprint with it just like ink.

Since only a small part of the cover was to be flocked, I used a box just large enough for half the cover. The bottom of the box is lined with wax paper, so all that extra flocking that’s piled there can be dumped out easily and placed back into the flocking applicator bottle (you can just barely see the tip of it in the lower right, it’s just a plastic squeeze bottle).

With the adhesive freshly printed, place the cover inside the box, and puff the flocking fiber over the sticky area until covered. Flip over and tap to remove excess fiber.

This is what you’re left with after tapping; still too much. The water-based adhesive can be cured in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes, then brushed clean with a soft paint brush or towel.

The final, flocked cover. It’s very visually subtle in person, but it feels really awesome.

Hope you enjoyed the process. Now I just need to bind them and Bearfight should be up for sale by the end of the month!

For those of you who are also interested in buying my upcoming thesis book, B is for Beard, from which I’ve been posting pages this last week, I’ve set up a pre-order special for both books. It costs quite a chunk of change to put out the larger and larger books I’ve been working on lately - especially since B is for Beard is two-color offset printed - so any and all pre-orders will really help make the process a little easier, financially. Pre-orders will also include a Bearfight! button and whatever else I decide to throw in your package.

Shipping Destination

USA and Canada $25.00 Everywhere Else $28.00

(Bearfight will be for sale separately by the end of the month, but B is for Beard will not be printed until the end of April, so any pre-ordered Bearfight copies will not ship until early May, along with B is for Beard.)

Thanks for reading so much!

I believe I showed the start of this panel a month or so ago, and here it is, relatively complete. I’m really happy with the lettering. It’s pretty big for me, almost 5 by 4 feet. I’ve got another panel the same size that I’m finishing up too. This will be part of a show I’m having in December; more info on that soon.

Yes, the drippy dollar signs are gold leaf.

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Winter Sale: 15% discount on orders of $20+ (before shipping) from the radrobot.org store or my Etsy shop. I just put a number of new giclee prints up on Etsy last night. They won’t be for sale here, only there.

Earlier this year, around the time I decided to stop my Weekly Print site, I was preparing to cover my screenprinting pre-press method but never got a chance to. It’s a factor of my print process that I’ve wanted to share ever since, so how about today? The print is for the upcoming Artcrank PDX poster show, a bicycle-themed poster show.

Most of my prints, and other pieces, start as really quick thumbnails. I just had this concept of a SharkBike in my head with which to build. I’m also throwing around some ideas for what I wanted the lettering to say; I was trying to find some combination of sharks and bikes that seemed to make sense. I’m also starting to throw around color combo ideas.

A sketchbook is not always available when inspiration strikes, so I had to write this idea down on my internet bill envelope, which really confused my roommate when she found it on the kitchen table.

“Don’t” turned into “Never,” which I thought sounded a bit more dynamic. Also wrote down some more color ideas and final dimensions, as well as things like whether or not I should use halftones or a splattered effect in certain parts of the print.

This is the scan of my linework, actually slightly smaller than the poster itself. As you can see, I decided to draw a full front wheel, instead of looking more like a gaping shark’s mouth like I drew in the sketches. I penciled it like that, but decided the full wheel looked better.

I did in fact use a homemade ink splatter technique, scanned in, and turned into water splashing around the SharkBike.

Here’s my working file for the print. Usually, in a working file, I try to use as many layers as I need, so I can take out and add visual elements easily. This one is pretty simple though.

When I’m happy with the working file, I save a copy as my final print copy and start combining all the many layers of the working file down to only one layer per color in the final print, in this case three. I could probably go WAY in depth into this step of the process, but it’s one of those things that I’ve done so many times now that it’s second nature and I didn’t think to record the process as I was going.

The red and blue layers have a black color overlay (turned off for the image). I print out each layer separately, with the black overlay turned on, onto transparencies to use as my positives with which to expose my screen.

Final print later this week!

After a long day of painting yesterday, I am pretty much completed with the mural/art installation thing I’ve been working on this last week. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience, but I’m ready to be done, you know? I have to finish the red blob coming out of the window, and a few more pieces to hang, and then I’m done!

It’s also really nice to see pieces I completed a year or so ago and say a few weeks ago look so cohesive when viewed on the same wall.

Here’s the second part of my wall, which I just started two days ago and finished last night.

Better pics when I can take them during the day, or during the opening later this week. Thanks for following my process, I hope it’s been at least somewhat interesting.

I got a little more work done on the big wall over at Milepost 5 on Monday night. Here’s where I’m at right now. I’ll be hanging smaller pieces for sale in the big blue open area. I’ll be spending all day Tuesday painting and will hopefully finish things up.

That lightning bolt is all gold leaf, by the way.

One of the other artists painting the room with me dropped out, so I claimed a little more space and started in on this before I left on Monday night. I’m going to extend the water line from the other wall into the door. Not sure what’s going in the speech bubbles yet. Ideas?

Welcome to the wonderful world of perfect binding! I have been spending a lot of time using the new binder at the Independent Publishing Resource Center lately, so I thought I’d do an in-depth process post on what I’ve been up to.

It’s really incredibly simple to use. Once set up, those two red buttons do all the work. Read on if you’re interested.

This slider sets the amount of glue applied to the paper block.

This carriage clamps the paper in place and transports the paper across the glue and sets it on the cover.

Speaking of glue, here it is, an open well of glue, all melty and hot. The interior pages of your book slide over that roller to get coated with quick-drying hot glue.

This side of the binder is where your cover is applied. That dial gets adjusted depending on the thickness of your book. The lever is what presses your cover onto your glue-coated interior pages.

The cover-crimper table can be easily removed to reveal these fans. This comes in handy if you want to make notepads, or anything without a cover, as the fans will dry the glue as it gets carried over them.

OK, on to the actual binding process.

First, take your block of interior pages, in this case, a copy of FADGE.

Clamp your paper block into the carriage, aligned with that metal bar.

If it’s important that your cover is centered on the spine, as it is with FADGE, it’s easiest to mark the center of your spine on the inside of your cover. There’s a light pencil mark there in the center.

Align your pencil marks with the center of the black space on the cover crimper.

OK, now press the red button to send the carriage, and your paper, over the glue and onto your cover.

Hey, there it is!

Pull the lever firmly to set your cover in place; hold for about 10 seconds.

Unclamp the interior pages and open the carriage.

Pull your book out carefully.

You’re almost there!

Hey, it’s a book!

Now it just needs to be trimmed, that’s where the “perfect” comes in.

Beautiful, isn’t it. Paper chopping has never been easier.

Trim down the excess edges.

And that’s all there is too it! Perfection from the perfect binder.

Hope you had as much fun as I did. If you happen to live in the area of Portland, Oregon, and are even moderately interested in self-publishing, I would highly recommend becoming a member of the IPRC. The small membership fee is worth it for the community alone, not to mention the access to free paper, art and craft supplies, computers, cheap photocopiers, and their huge zine library.

Alright, so it doesn’t look so hot at the moment but it’ll get there. I was invited to be part of the Manor of Art show put on by Milepost 5. Milepost 5 is an artist community of live/work spaces in east Portland. They’ve recently purchased a new building next door, which used to be an old folks’ home. Before the big remodel, they’ve opened up all the rooms to over 100 invited artists with which to do whatever we please.

I’m sharing this two room apartment space with a few other artists associated with Tender Loving Empire. This is my main wall, still have a lot of lettering to do in the clouds and in the yellow part of the water, and some more painting in the messy blue area. I have some gold leaf elements planned as well.

I’ll be posting more process shots as I paint more, probably again on Friday or this weekend, which will hopefully look a bit more finished.

I went out to a diner in NW Portland for lunch on Friday, and sat at the counter which happens to face a large mirror. I’ve been going through some head stuff lately and it was there that I decided it was finally time to chop the beard down; get a little bit of physical change to spur on some mental change maybe? I cut it down yesterday, one day short of 8 months since the last time I shaved down to just a moustache.

From ne’er-do-well sea captain to 1950’s hipster in mere minutes. The goat probably won’t last more than a few days unless it proves popular with the ladies or something, but it’s fun for now.

My cheeks are cold.

This design was one of the more popular ones when I had the t-shirt poll a month or so ago and I finally got time to print them up. Two color shirt printing without a press is simple when there’s almost no registration necessary! The white is discharge white (see video below) and the text is red on the black shirts and a kind of bright burnt orange on the army green shirts. I’m totally diggin’ on how these turned out. They’ll be up in the Etsy store this weekend sometime, but if you absolutely must have, email me, they’re available from small to 2X in both colors.

This is a short, time-lapse video of me curing the white discharge ink with a heat gun. You can see it starts out sort of gray, but as it reaches a certain temperature, an additive in the ink leeches the original black dye out of the shirt and re-dyes it white. It makes for really clean whites and a very soft shirt because it’s not a load of heavy ink sitting on top of the fabric. You can get liquid pigments to add to a neutral base discharge ink to dye a shirt any color you want, but all I have is white at the moment.

(Oh, and if anyone’s curious, the heat gun noise was boring so the music is a clip from a band I used to be in. We pretended to be cosmonauts and all of our songs were about space adventures!)