June 6th, 1944 – D-Day

There are a handful of events in human history that are almost too massive to comprehend, things so complicated and dangerous it’s hard to believe they actually happened. Some of those moments are positive, like landing on the moon in 1969, and others are equally epic but a bit gruesome. The Normandy invasions of 1944 marked the beginning of a turning point in World War 2, and basically changed the course of history.

The Allied invasion of Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944 was the largest amphibious invasion in world history. 160,000 soldiers invaded by land, sea, and air. Some people often assume the ‘D’ in ‘D-Day’ stands for something specific, but it actually just stands for ‘Day’. ‘D-Day, H-Hour’ is used for planning a military operation with unknown dates or times. The massive invasion was subject to inclement weather (among a million other potential problems), so ‘D-Day’ was simply a stand-in term for the date of the invasion which was subject to change (and a lot of secrecy).

Among all of the pivotal moments in history, this one simply sticks out to me because it was so visually stunning. Under total secrecy, it places an entire global conflict on one strand of beaches. Entire armies bottlenecked into one location, facing an insane myriad of obstacles, traps, mines, and machine gun fire. It was a surreal, terrifying hellscape of a battle that no one photo or image can really capture.

1998′s Saving Private Ryan and 2001′s Band of Brothers miniseries absolutely do the best job of visually capturing the scope and terror of D-Day, so I watched both in preparation for creating this illustration. Saving Private Ryan places the viewer directly inside a landing boat on Omaha beach, and Band of Brothers shows the paratroopers dropping in at night above Normandy. Day invasion, night invasion, and I was recently asked to make a glow in the dark print for a gallery show, so you can see where this is headed.

The print is a 4 color screen print, using 3 grays in addition to glow in the dark ink. The ‘day’ visible print shows the Allied invasion from the sea. Hundreds of soldiers fighting their way through artillery, machine gun fire, land mines, and Czech Hedgehogs (those x-shaped steel thingies used to stop vehicles). The ‘night’ visible part of the print used glow in the dark ink to show Allied bombers and paratroopers dropping in on Normandy (and being shot down). I referenced dozens of official photos from the invasion in 1944 in addition to the films. The poster is incredibly detailed and took quite some time to draw, but I felt it was important to be accurate to the scale of it all.

The print was made for Bottleneck Gallery‘s glow in the dark show, titled “When the Lights Go Out.” My 36×12″ poster is available for sale exclusively at the gallery and their online store. If you check out the show in Brooklyn, there are 60+ more artists featured and black lights throughout the gallery. It looks crazy fun, and maybe you’ll get a free glow stick.

Day

Night (Glow in the Dark)

• Title: Day of Days
• Artist: Rob Loukotka
• Size: 36×12″
• 3 color screen print on Madero Beach French Paper + Glow in the Dark ink layer
• Limited Edition of 180
• Signed and numbered (by me!)
• Price: $40

It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.

As a resident of Chicago, you can’t help but love this movie. As an American, or a music lover, or car lover, or sunglasses wearer, you can’t help but love this movie. Blues Brothers is a ridiculously over the top (and over budget) “action-comedy-musical”. Set in 1980, Blues Brothers may just have the best soundtrack to a film of all time (sorry, Daft Punk) thanks to incredible (singing) cameos by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and a hell of a lot more. It’s so. Fucking. Good.

I drank some beers, blasted a LOT of blues music, and drew the Blues Brothers print that I’ve always wanted to see. A print that captures our disheveled yet suave outlaws, Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd). Black suits, skinny black ties, black fedoras, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and white socks. Okay, the socks aren’t in the print, but they are still awesome. I drew Jake and Elwood driving the Bluesmobile, being chased by no less than 23 Chicago cop cars, and they don’t really seem to care.

I made this print as a part of Gallery1988‘s surprise SNL themed gallery show in Los Angeles, titled “Is This Thing On #2 Too | A tribute to SNL”. The gallery show is open March 29th – April 29th, so if you’re in Los Angeles, go check it out. But you can buy my Blues Brothers print online.

Rather than strict black and white, this print uses dark brown ink on warm ‘Sand’ Speckletone French Paper along with the red and blue ink. I thought there would be no better way to light Jake and Elwood’s faces than with police lights in the background, so I basically split the whole piece using red on the left, and blue on the right. It looks REAL GOOD up close in person.

• Title: We’re on a Mission from God
• Size: 36×12″ (three feet wide!)
• Edition of 180
• 3-color screen print on Sand Speckleton French Paper
• Signed and numbered by Rob Loukotka (that’s me!)
• Price: $40

Click the detail shot below to look at a 1680px wide shot of my Blues Brothers poster.

I don’t want Fop, goddamn it! I’m a Dapper Dan man!

Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? is an timeless collection of beautiful scenery, insane characters, and great music. Everybody remembers The Soggy Bottom Boys, Pete getting turned into a toad, and Dapper Dan hair pomade. For Gallery1988‘s “Product Placement” show, Dapper Dan pomade seemed like a perfect subject to illustrate. The theme was to create a real advertisement for a fictional product.

Since the movie was set in 1937, I tried to capture the look and feel of a poster plastered on a wall in a Depression-era Five and Dime store. I borrowed the exact copy from the Dapper Dan pomade can and added a bit of marketing jargon that felt appropriate for the era. I even added a bit in the corner that reads “Genuine pomade used by The Soggy Bottom Boys!” which is technically true?

Printed by VGKids on Cream Speckletone from the French Paper Company, there’s lots of little fibers, dark spots, and flecks appropriate for something that has been laying around since the ’30s. I think this poster would be a great fit for a bar, but I don’t have a bar

Anyway, these Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade prints are available exclusively at Gallery1988 in Los Angeles, or in their online store.

• Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade
• 24×18″
• 3 color screen print
• 80lb Cream Speckletone paper
• Edition size: 90
• Signed and numbered (by me!)
• Price: $40

“Whoa.”

I illustrated this out of a great love for the movie. My work doesn’t generally capture love stories, but the bond between two robots felt too compelling not to illustrate. It’s truly a better love story than almost any other film I can think of. Little robots are so cute that it physically hurts me to watch the movie. “Look he thinks he’s people! Look at him put on his shoes! Oh god! SO CUTE. AGHHH!”

As usual, I’m fascinated as much by the environments in this film as I am the characters. The ‘Trash Planet’ Earth is as pretty as it is dirty. So 95% of this gigantic illustration is my take on the pollution. Trash mountains, dust storms, cubes, even a dense cloud of artificial satellites forming the barrier between earth and space.

Anyway, this is just my take on an already beautiful movie. This is unofficial fan art, but I think it captures a lot of great details. Always fun to watch a movie on a weekend and draw fun stuff.

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to drive.”

My newest limited edition print: 007 DB5. James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 is a classic, so when I was approached by Bottleneck Gallery for their Gadgets & Gizmos show, I knew exactly what fictional technology deserved my time and energy. Bond’s gadget filled Aston Martin was unveiled in 1964′s Goldfinger, but also made appearances in Thunderball, Goldeneye, Casino Royale, and 2012′s Skyfall.

Similar to Skyfall, I wanted my print to be deeply rooted in the past. No fancy computers, no buildings, just a DB5 blasting its classic dual machine guns. The custom DB5 (license BMT 216A) was also equipped with battering rams, smoke screens, bulletproof windows, shields, tire shredders, oil slick, rotating license plates, and an ejector seat. You can even catch a glimpse of 007 himself driving the car.

How to get a 007 DB5 print:

This piece is limited to exactly 180 prints available exclusively from Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn (online and at their physical location). It’s a gorgeous two color screen print by VGKids in Michigan, using white and shiny metallic gold ink. The gold ink rocks on the muzzle flares and draws from the DB5′s debut in Goldfinger. It’s printed on gigantic 12×36″ ‘Blacktop’ construction paper from the French Paper Company. Prints are available here at Bottleneck Gallery’s website.

And here’s a shot of the final print file with halftones for screen printing: