Tornado seeds! Giant magnets! Dynamite! Rocket powered roller skates! Anvils! Giant Rubber Bands!
Kickstarter is celebrating their 8th year! And 3 Billion dollars raised for artists around the world. They said the ACME Poster that we (me and you all) helped launch in 2012 was a crazy success that they’d like to show again! It is now a part of Kickstarter Gold!
So I spent a lot of time figuring out how to redesign the poster entirely, into an 18×24″ ‘I Spy’ picture. All 126 ACME gadgets, arranged into chaos, with no titles, no description. I placed all 126 titles at the very bottom of the poster, making it a great challenge to find individual items. Where are the explosive tennis balls? Where are the Sproing Boots? Where are the Spy Car plans?
Illustrations are sized close to the huge 24×36″ poster (well 90% close), but all of the negative space and gaps and ‘order’ have been obliterated. It’s like an ACME dump truck filled a football field with bombs, and you have to find them all. And obviously, no descriptions, and the titles are far down below. Even I struggle to find stuff in this print. It’s fun!
This is an idea several folks who backed the original poster wanted, and I love making chaotic charts. Plus this poster is half the size (18×24″ compared to 24×36″) from the original, which is often easier to find space for.
Lastly, the metallic gold layer is going to look killer. Costs me a tad more to add colors, but all of the white ink is atop the metallic gold, and this should help the drawings really pop off the new ‘Tangy Orange’ French Paper. It’s not red, not orange. A bit warmer than my usual reds.
]]>I love how the Apollo 11 posters turned out (the actual ink and paper just look great close-up). So I managed to fit every single Apollo 11 gadget illustration (without re-sizing) onto a single t-shirt! ‘Midnight Navy’ tees with metallic silver ink.
69 NASA gadgets and materials that flew to the moon in 1969, all on a comfy fitted Next Level t-shirt:
The text and descriptions of each object are much too small to be legible on fabric, so they have been removed to make the design a bit cleaner for something simple like a shirt. But all the details of every object drawing are still there! I also added a ‘July 20, 1969’ date to the shirt design, just because it’s cool and might make a good conversation starter.
All shirts are $29, come in sizes from Small through XX-Large, and are available right now.
Note: I am quite suddenly in the middle of moving my entire workshop (and the shipping operation) to a NEW location in Chicago. Your orders (and these shirts) will be shipping from:
Fringe Focus Inc.
2811 N Pine Grove Ave, Floor 1
Chicago, IL 60657
This new shipping office is much MUCH closer to my home, and more efficient. So I’m able to ship a few orders every day! So if you’re waiting on a package, know that I’ve just made a huge step towards making this much faster. Exciting!
]]>Oh man, these are great! You’ve wanted them, here they are: ACME Corporation T-Shirts
Screen printed on ‘Cardinal’ red Next Level fitted tees, the ACME shirts feature your favorite fictional company’s Anvils, dynamite, and a giant magnet! The shirt fabric is soft slightly heathered, and should help make the design feel authentic and vintage (despite being created this month).
These will be shipping in late April, so please order your size (available in S through XXL) now so we have an adequate supply.
]]>This poker poster is a major step for me and the company. I’ve been recovering from severe Major Depressive Disorder, and was unable to draw / ship / operate for several months. This poster is entirely an effort to bring funds (and normalcy) back to Fringe Focus, so I can order materials, ship tubes, ship frames, etc. In addition to depression being an insanely tough battle, I also have to pay for this leave of absence (literally) due to my lack of any art releases since June 2016.
My goal is to ship The Poker Lexicon posters later, towards the end of April. My priorities instead will be on older orders / packages (Apollos, Frames, etc.) throughout March. I hope to revamp customer service, answer emails, etc. Truly sorry about the trouble, and I hope to keep everyone posted now that I’m building things back up.
While I haven’t been playing much recently, throughout my life I’ve been super fascinated and psyched about poker. My friends and I often had Texas Hold’em tournaments (home games, we sadly aren’t very good). There is insane depth and complexity to the game. It’s a profession, a culture, a way of life for some people… and all you really need is a deck of cards.
I wrote down everything I’ve learned over the years, and collected hundreds more poker terms into a spreadsheet. Then I boiled this down into roughly 250 terms across 52 categories. I organized all of these (somehow) into an illustrated 18 x 24″ infographic poster.
The Poker Lexicon is ridiculously densely packed. Like if you didn’t know much about poker, this is plenty to get you started. If you DO know a lot about poker, then this is a simply a way better looking alternative to any poker related art that I’ve seen.
These open edition posters will be screen printed on thick 100C cover stock. Each big 18 x 24″ poster will be signed by hand (by me!). I loved researching this print and finally getting back to work. If you have any other ‘Lexicon’ (vocab) type posters you’d like to see me do, let me know! This one was fun.
— Rob Loukotka, Donk (that means I’m bad at poker)
PS – Thanks for all of your help and patience over the past year! I hope 2017 will be awesome.
]]>“I draw pictures for a living, but I’m also clinically depressed. I posted about this in my Depression sucks! Also, where is my poster? Nov 16 post on Kickstarter. I am overjoyed and humbled and thankful for the dozens (perhaps hundreds) of messages and encouraging emails I have received since then.
My closest friends are a handful of people. My family is ~ dozens of people. But my customers and fans of my art in general are over 5,000 people! So it’s weirdly important for me to explain my situation to folks like you, who may not know me personally, but might have my art hanging in their hallways or offices.
I had the ACME Kickstarter with over 3,000 customers, and the Apollo 11 Kickstarter with nearly 1,000 people. In between then have been dozens of fun personal projects that thousands more folks have added to their homes. My company has grown from just my side project to a real company with employees, and I can’t even count how many countries we have shipped art to. It’s surreal and fun and amazing!
But in the past year my brain decided “welllllllll shit”. And I can barely function. I rarely see friends, make any art, or even get out of bed on a bad day. It happened gradually but still quickly enough to be absolutely terrifying. It’s been nearly impossible to have a good day, or create new artwork, or even just pay the bills and be a human being.
Depression REALLY sucks. Like, holy shit. And if you have friends or family members suffering from this, I deeply encourage you to reach out and say hi to them, and that you care about them. The tiniest forms of gratitude or encouragement have helped me quite a bit, and I’m sure the same is true for other people in your lives.
I don’t know what this email is about, or why as a business owner I’d email it to 5,000 people without promoting any product or artwork or whatever. But right now I need people to know I am working my ass off to fix myself. I went to an actual hospital and got a legit psychiatrist and therapist, I’ve joined an amazing depression support group, and I’ve been reading as many books as I can to learn more about how to stop this. (If you have advice or suggestions, PLEASE let me know).
I want to draw cool pictures, and print cool shit, and make everybody’s life .001% better. And the reason I haven’t done that much in 2016 is just my impaired brain. But I promise (with your help) that 2017 is going to be better. And I am excited! So stay tuned.
– Rob Loukotka – person.
PS – If you’ve ordered art this past quarter or so and it’s been delayed, this is why. I am doing my best and can obviously refund folks if gift deadlines were missed. I have recruited close friends to help me ship artwork, so please thank my girlfriend Jenn and my other friends when your art arrives, as they surely are responsible for anything positive right now.”
In the blog post following this one, I announce a new poster (first one in 8 months) that was created specifically to raise funds for Fringe Focus to ship all remaining old & late orders. Appreciate your patience!
]]>I spent basically a whole month researching all of the original manifests and stowage lists of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. I collected over 200 items that we sent to the moon, and illustrated 69 of them on one poster (in reference to the historic 1969 moon landing).
200+ items, 69 illustrations, on one 18×24″ poster printed with metallic silver ink. Available now on Kickstarter.
This poster follows in the footsteps of my popular ACME Corporation poster (which collected 126 ACME Co. items). The ACME print took forever to draw, and raised $105,000 on Kickstarter. This Apollo poster is similarly ambitious, but a bit more factual / educational.
The Apollo 11 Collection has already been featured on Gizmodo / io9, Space.com, Mental Floss, Cool Material, Tested, and more!
Adam Savage (of Mythbusters / Tested) digs it too! Very humbling and cool because I’ve been a huge fan of Tested and Mythbusters forever, and I know Adam is an even bigger Apollo 11 nerd than I am (and I am a big nerd).
Basically, this poster is super fascinating if you have any interest in space tech, space history, or NASA gadgets in general. It’s going to look great up on a wall, and is available for just $29 (with free shipping in the US) on Kickstarter. 9 days left in the campaign as of right now, so get at it!
]]>2015 marked the beginning of my most ambitious poster series yet, Famous Desks. At the time I’m writing this, I’ve released six huge posters in the store that each catalog gadgets and items from six different movie series (or cartoons).
I’ve always been fascinated by movie props, and how important some objects are to the plot. There’s so many movie posters featuring actor’s faces or explosions or whatever, but not much cataloging all the incredible devices / weapons / materials used on set. Each desk poster is really just my attempt to make the fictional world it is depicting more real. Making Wile E. Coyote’s cave full of ACME Corporation gadgets more real. Letting you sit sat Indiana Jones‘s desk, or work at Tony Stark’s workbench, or go inside the Ghostbusters firehouse. Seeing every single gadget Q ever made for 007, or all the gadgets that Doc Brown had in his dirty garage from Back to the Future.
View Large Image (And share if you like)
Each print has been crazy complex, and for the first time, I’m cataloging them all together in some easy-to-browse imagery for both the blog and social media stuff. It’s kind of hard to condense six 36″ long posters into an easy-to-comprehend image. This is like 18 feet of detailed artwork, all at once. All the images in this post I encourage you to post / share if you get a chance.
View Large Image (And share if you like)
These first six posters were an immense amount of work (taking the better part of a year), but I plan to continue the series in 2016. Some fictional desks, and perhaps some real desks as well. They take a long time to draw, but it’s worth it because these are the sort of prints you can stare at over and over and always find new little details. A lot of folks have been hanging them in their offices near THEIR desks, which is pretty cool.
Each 36×12″ Famous Desk poster is available as a print, or as a framed print with a wooden museum-style gallery plaque. View Large Image
If you haven’t checked out each of my Famous Desk illustrations already, here’s a quick link each illustration in the series:
The Desk of Mr. Stark (almost sold out!)
The Desk of Dr. Jones (also will sell out soon)
]]>Continuing with my series of Famous Desks posters, I sat down and drew all the gadgets from what is probably the greatest movie of all time (okay, it’s in the ballpark). I collected the proton pack, ghost trap, Ecto-1, and a ton of other goodies to make a Desk of Dr. Venkman poster. This unofficial fan poster ended up looking pretty awesome, and it was fun to take a super close look at the interior of the Ghostbusters firehouse. I tried to make the layout of the firehouse super accurate (within reason). Tweaked the perspective a bit so there’s great detail on the proton pack as well as the Ecto-1.
I think there’s 33 gadgets or items in this one, not counting structural elements like the poles, door, floor, etc. The items span from both Ghostbusters movies, albeit the majority are from the first film (since Ghostbusters 2 largely uses the same stuff).
I forgot how many hours of drawing this one was. Nothing terrible like 100 hours, this was probably closer to 60 hours by the time it went to print. You can see each and every step, from sketch to finished poster in the animation here. Or check out this 1000px wide animation of this poster.
The Desk of Dr. Venkman is a 2 color screen print that is 36 inches wide by 12 inches tall. It’s signed and numbered by me, with an edition size of just 325. Available now in the store!
Also available is this rarer “Slime” variant in which I drew a bunch of gross ectoplasm all over everything in the firehouse. It glows in the dark! During the day it looks just like regular edition, but at night you can see this slime peeking through. The slime variant poster has an edition of just 175 and is available now.
]]>Good news everyone! A new season of shopping debauchery is upon us! Bask in the glowing warmth of “deals”!
I’m not one to shy away from fun free stuff, especially during the week where we’re all basically deciding what we need to buy our friends and families. So here’s the deal: Buy anything in my store on Black Friday (or the whole week), and I will include a free mystery print in your shipment. Pretty simple, but here’s more details:
The print is 8×8″. It’s hand printed by me, using a wood block print technique here in my workshop. Signed and numbered by me, limited to an edition of however many orders are places during Black Friday Week (November 27th to December 4th, 2015).
I know we are often busy on Friday and this weekend and on “Cyber Monday”. So I made this giveaway last all week. Figure out what sort of gifts you need for everybody, buy art if you can. If you do buy art, grab some here, and get this exclusive print. Cool? Cool. I think it is cool, anyway.
Also, ALSO. Since some folks are buying extra posters and frames and often exceeding $200+ per order, I am giving away whole sets of my ACME Crate Coasters (in addition to the free mystery print) for any orders over $200. This is an easy way to tack an extra gift onto your order, and I hope these two giveaways show my thanks to all of you who are buying art as gifts this holiday season. Rock on!
Note: The final day for US orders to ship and subsequently arrive time (say, by Christmas Eve) is December 18th. So urgent presents should be snagged soon, but you have until the final date of Dec 18th, 2015. Then I’m probably gonna take a week off and drink. Because shipping is hard. I love you though.
International orders: I’m sure Canada can keep ordering gifts, but Europe / Asia, etc. can randomly take between 2 weeks and 6 weeks. So no guarantees on timely holiday gift shipments outside of the US.
]]>October 21st 2015 was Back to the Future Day. To celebrate, I had spent the weeks leading up to that day illustrating a ton of gadgets in Doc Brown’s garage. The Desk of Dr. Brown has objects that span the entire trilogy, and I tried to ensure they all existed or could exist in Doc Brown’s workshop at some point. Time travel means none of it is anachronistic, because time travel, haha. So the rifle from part III, the metal sunglasses from part II, and the original time machine from part I are all hanging out in his lab at once.
It was a mad rush to get all these items looking great and ready by Back to the Future day, so I’m writing this blog post after the fact now that I have time. Here’s an animated gif of all the hours of work that went into drawing this piece, compressed into under a minute!
See if you can find these gadgets hiding in the poster:
Both editions are 36×12″ screen printed posters. The regular is signed edition of 375, and the metallic silver variant is an edition of just 175. Both posters are still available while supplies last!
CLOSED: As of September 10th, 2015, I am no longer accepting applications. A TON of people applied, so thank you! Am in the process of emails and interviews now, but no longer looking for any further applications for this position. Cool!
I need some pretty substantial administrative and shipping help at my Chicago workshop. I’m primarily an illustrator, but as my company has grown more successful selling artwork, the customer service and shipping needs have skyrocketed.
I’ve hired one great assistant before, and they’ve stayed with us for an entire year, but now the company needs a lot more help than the 10 hrs per week we had assigned them, so this post is a search for somebody who has 25 hours a week available to work. By this time next year it could become a full-time, permanent position. But until then, we’re looking for a flat 25 hours per week (at least through January). Hours could change mid next year, or possibly develop into a full-time position in 12 months or so. It’s a small company with wild ups and downs, but it’s super fun, and we’re selling more prints now than ever! So come on board.
The Fringe Focus workshop is CURRENTLY in Logan Square. But we’re aiming to move to Lakeview at some point in the next year, so being located near either neighborhood is ideal. Fringe Focus is an art studio, production center, office, and woodshop. Fringe Focus designs (and sells) screen prints, posters, and laser engraved housewares via https://fringefocus.com There are occasionally gallery shows or fairs as well. We just did Renegade Craft Fair and PAX Prime in Seattle. (Helping with shows or prep work is part of the gig, once in a while)
I am looking for an entry level part-time office administrator / workshop assistant. Honestly the title can be whatever, the work changes month-to-month anyway. I produce new work every month, and you’d be assisting me in producing art and housewares for customers all over the world.
This means cutting wood, gluing projects together, staining / finishing, and operating a wide variety of small power tools (table saw, drill press, hand tools). It means responding to a wide variety of customer emails as quickly as possible. And it means working with our pretty killer custom shipping software to mail art to people’s homes, pretty much every day. And ideally we’ll have some free time to invent new projects, make the shop more efficient, and do some marketing.
It’s very much a job for a generalist, or somebody who would like a good look at what it’s like to run a small company by themselves.
Did I mention there is a laser cutter? We’re gonna burn things.
Fringe Focus Inc. is a successful independent art studio. It’s not huge, but it’s a successful machine and requires great care. The workshop is the design and illustration office, the production studio, and the fulfillment center (all in one). The office administrator / workshop assistant would primarily be working in the shipping / packaging station, and at the computer making sure all customers get their art smoothly.
You’ll also learn quite a bit about running a small business, and working for yourself. Fringe Focus Inc. has no clients, and nobody to answer to. There are no conference rooms, no phone calls, and no exact schedule (we’re flexible, but there are windows each day we need somebody at the office for sure). If you’re very detail oriented and can follow instructions, you’ll be able to learn how to operate every machine in the woodshop (including the laser cutter).
So this is 40% admin and customer service job, 40% shipping labor, and 20% totally random stuff we’ll basically just make up as we go along.
As of Sep 10th 2015, I am no longer accepting applications for this position. Plenty of applicants already, and interviews are underway. Thank you for your time, and stay tuned in months/years to come for other positions at Fringe Focus!
Write an interesting (non-boring) email with the subject “Fringe Focus Office Assistant” to rob <at> fringefocus <dot> com
If you have artwork, or pictures of previous hobbies, send those as well. Show me stuff!
This is a an entry level paid part-time job. You need to be available every weekday in the afternoons due to package pickups and deliveries. Ideal hours are 12pm-5pm Monday to Friday, but we can be flexible for the right person. This could be ideal for someone that already has another part-time job, or if you have a school schedule.
I will make a decision at some point in September 2015, and an ideal start date is at some point in September 2015.
No phone calls. Ever. Ever. Ever.
Let me start off by saying that illustrating every James Bond gadget is a really, really big task. Continuing my Famous Desks series, I wanted to include the mother of all gadget collections. The 007 franchise has probably more famous gadgets and weapons than any other series of anything, ever. So here’s the details on The Desk of Q
I watched every official James Bond movie dating back to 1962 (Dr. No). I watched all 23 movies in a row, and included a gadget from the trailer of SPECTRE (The new 007 film coming out later this year). Note: Even though this is unofficial fan art, I did not watch or include any non-EON Bond films (there are some parodies and unofficial films that many folks don’t exactly count as canon).
That’s 24 movies of content, that I had to boil down to just the brief seconds or minutes a gadget appeared, so I could take notes. So, maybe 50 hours of that alone. I would often just draw the poster WHILE other films were on my TV, but would tend to pause whenever Q showed up.
Click image to view larger. This is a huge series of snapshots taken throughout the entire 100+ hour drawing process. Basically 5-6 weeks of drawing (Drawing was slow due to the research/detail required), all boiled down to like 1 minute of footage. The composition built itself over time, as I found the best places to hide more gadgets (big and small) on walls, shelves, desks, etc.
The room itself is a mix of the basement pillars from Skyfall, a testing area from Goldfinger (Connery Era), glass testing room from the Moore era, and the subway tunnel wall / pool table is from the Brosnan era. So even the entire location of Q branch is an anachronistic mix of all films.
If you have already bought the Q poster, or are considering it, here is an exhaustive list of what gadgets are present in the poster, so you can hunt them down on your wall.
What gadgets are NOT on the list: Gadgets that Bond creates or finds the field. Villain gadgets / villain transportation. Any transportation Bond uses that is not directly shown in a Q scene. Any gadgets from pre-title sequences that aren’t clearly from Q Branch (Things like a ski pole rifle, or the Jet Pack). Gadgets from non-EON 007 films.
What gadgets ARE included: Gadgets directly given to 007 by Q himself. Gadgets used that have any mention to Q Branch. Any gadget seen functioning within Q’s laboratory and workshop, even if 007 does not use it. Gadgets clearly sent to 007 by Q Branch from afar, etc. And any gadgets Q happens to interact with or mention.
So that’s 81 gadgets on the list, plus a few other objects from Q’s workshop strewn about the design, for a total of around 90 things.
Here is a detail shot of the poster:
This took forever to draw, but I’m really happy that there’s finally a visual collection of Q gadgets all in one place. I have screen printed this poster with red ink, but also made a metallic gold variant that will have metallic gold flake.
All Desk of Q posters are limited edition, so get one while supplies last! All posters are 12 x 36″ screen prints, signed and numbered by me personally.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>As you may know, I’ve been illustrating a huge new series this year called Famous Desks. I’ve already done huge prints of The Desk of Tony Stark, The Desk of Indiana Jones, and The Desk of Wile E. Coyote. So now that I am working on (soon to be announced) fourth Famous Desk… I was playing a bit in Photoshop today to make sure all my compositions had a tiny bit of cohesion. Every poster is wildly different, yes, but due to the perspective, layout, and size it was really neat to create a big messy hybrid of all the desks laid on top of each other. So, behold, this abomination that I made in 5 minutes:
(Click image for full view, if you dare) Yes it looks ridiculous. But there’s definitely a clear relationship between the desks, object arrangements, areas of light and dark, etc. Anyway, look forward to another messy desk soon! I just thought this weird image was worth sharing. Have a good day.
]]>(Click animation to see a wider view at 1000px wide)
Here’s just under 100 hours of work compressed into a minute! Makes it look easy.
My newest poster is The Desk of Mr. Coyote. Think of it as a sequel to my popular ACME Corporation poster of 2012/2013. But this time I re-drew ALL 126 objects (or references to them) in higher detail, with more color, in perspective, in a gigantic desert cave. (Wile E. Coyote does indeed have a cave-home in some episodes, complete with his own mailbox!)
This poster is FULL of easter eggs, and I’m super excited to get these on everybody’s walls so you can inspect all of the Coyote’s stuff. This took absolutely forever to draw, but it’s worth it in the end.
Also available, with a small edition of just 150 (and nearly sold out as of the writing of this post) is this Luxury Metallic Sunset Variant of The Desk of Mr. Coyote. Warmer ink colors, with an extra gold metallic overlay on the red to make the whole poster sparkle a bit. It’s going to be very cool in person, and is available for $65 while supplies last (maybe 20 left, so good luck!)
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Now available, a Luxury METALLIC variant of my popular Blues Brothers poster We’re On A Mission From God.
The original sold out quickly, and this variant is already 2/3 sold out as of writing this post. It has an edition of 175, and is signed and numbered. The red and blue inks have been reversed from the original, and have a new metallic sparkle overlay that will look really cool in person. Check it out.
]]>The new Batman v Superman teaser trailer is cool as hell. So it Batman’s new armor. So I drew it, and am letting you get your hands on this portrait for $0. For everybody, for any order, for the entire month of May. Celebrate the beginning of the Justice League, or just order whatever posters you’d like from the store and get this print for free!
This print is an 8×8″ portrait with metallic inks! It’s dark blue with a cool silver metallic overlay by the fantastic VGKids. The edition size will be based on how many orders occur in May, but rest assured this print is a limited edition. Signed and numbered by me, Rob Loukotka. These are printing now and will ship in mid-May.
Read more about the Do You Bleed? Portrait.
Or check out the cool laser cut wood variant!
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Continuing my series of Famous Desks, I illustrated the desk of our favorite archaeologist: Dr. Indiana Jones. This poster has already been selling like crazy, so I wanted to say thanks and also show you this cool animated gif of the entire poster getting drawn! This was a LOT of work, on and off over 2 weeks, compressed into just 20 seconds!
I included an exhaustive list of items from all three Indiana Jones films. That’s right, there’s only three movies. Crystal Skull never happened.
The drawing process was largely a matter of placing 40+ items on a large desk in a way that felt natural, despite all of these items never actually being collected in one place. It’s a bit of a fantastical collection, and I had fun mixing items from different timelines around each other. The limited edition The Desk of Dr. Jones poster is 36 x 12″ and is available exclusively in my store while supplies last.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Fringe Focus ships out thousands of packages a year. That’s a HUGE opportunity to make thousands of pieces of art 100% sustainable (or close to it), with little to no negative effect on the environment! Some details on how Fringe Focus tries to make Earth better, instead of treating it like a toilet.
All of this info will remain permanently in the Fringe Focus FAQ for future reference. Will also add to it over time.
]]>Today I added some nifty ways to save throughout the store. I know many of you buy my posters individually, but plenty also buy a handful of various prints to give as gifts. Posters are pretty great for birthdays, significant others, coworkers, whoever. I wanted to make the gift buying process less annoying by making many items in the store $5 cheaper when buying 3 of something, or even 2 of something.
The Desk of Mr. Stark – Now save $5 each when buying 3. (Note: 3 is the limit per person, due to the limited edition.)
12 x 36″ Frames – Now save $5 each when buying 3 or more. (No limit. They’re frames! Always available.)
Miles and Miles and Miles – Now save $5 each when buying 3. (Note: 3 is the limit per person, due to the limited edition.)
Headless Horseman – Now save $5 each when buying 2 or more. (Note: 3 is the limit per person, due to the limited edition.)
The New Colossus – Now save $5 each when buying 2 or more. (Note: 3 is the limit per person, due to the limited edition.)
All coasters (Save when buying 6 packs, 8 packs, etc.)
Cause & Solution Bottle Openers (Save when buying a 4 pack, great for weddings!)
ACME Inventory Series (Save when buying multiples, even more for full sets)
Whiskey Series (Save when buying mutliples)
The Chimera Collection (Save when buying multiples, even more for full sets)
Marauders Calendars (Save when buying multiples)
Anyway. Hope that helps everybody in the future in case you’re stocking up for a holiday! Stay tuned for more posters (a lot more) in 2015!
]]>My recently debuted The Desk of Mr. Stark (Iron Man Poster) took a very long time to draw. The first in hopefully a series of ‘famous desks’ art prints, I wanted the Tony Stark desk to be crazy full of details and easter eggs from the movies. While illustrating this print, I took progress screenshots all along the way. So here is like 50 hours of work compressed into under a minute:
As you can see, I didn’t follow a planned composition like I normally would. I drew each object in their own layer, and often moved them around on the surface of the desk until it was a good balance between messy and eye pleasing. This poster is 36″ inches wide and is available now so you can inspect all the details yourself when this is up on your wall.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Wanted to give you all a peek at my process for my most recent poster. I’ve been wanting to draw an astronaut golfing on the moon for a while and decided to print it as a 18 x 24″ screen print. I captured a few images before the poster was finished so folks could see the rough early sketches:
The first sketch was actually drawn on my phone while I was on the train. Then I moved to Photoshop to sketch using my actual drawing tablet. Each shot shows a few hours of work, the entire poster took a few days to complete. The animation compresses that work to like 20 seconds. Also I obviously looked at a lot of reference images from Apollo 14, so the moon surface and spacesuit are somewhat accurate.
Miles and Miles and Miles is a 24 x 18″ art print available now in the store. Cool cool cool.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Two new things up in the store. The first is a laser engraved Baby Groot in a real metal bucket. He’s holding two jingle bells and trying to be a Christmas Tree. Because duh.
The second is I have added gift cards to the store. You can buy $30, $60, or $100 gift cards for your friends and family. I’m offering instant digital cards, or wooden cards for those willing to wait for shipping. Both are a great idea for the holidays, as you can get your friends/family art without having to pick a specific print/poster just yet.
Last Day to order to ensure a pre-Christmas delivery is this Friday the 19th. So grab some art in the store, final week! Rock on.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Chicago: I’ll be at booth #139 selling posters, portraits and some new gifts at one of the nation’s largest craft fairs. Renegade Craft Fair, if you haven’t been, is an absolutely fantastic show that features over 200 artists in multiple shows all over the world. I’ll be at this winter’s Chicago show, with a ton of new and old Fringe Focus stuff. There may be a chance to win one of my original ACME Posters.
If you like art, or if you even have a passing interest in looking at interesting things, come to the show! It’s not just me, it’s like 200 other booths that are bound to be even more fun. There will be FOOD, and BOOZE, and ART EVERYWHERE. Take a date there. Take a friend there. Take your family there. There’s music, and a photo booth, and a Doodlebooth, and all kinds of cool shit. You could spend hours and hours there and have fun the whole time.
See you this Saturday and Sunday in Chicago! Booth #139. Bridgeport Art Center (1200 W 35th St). Show is from 11am to 6:30pm each day.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>You could buy a Groot, an ACME, a new Toy Series, ANY ORDER will come with one free mystery print I am printing exclusively for Black Friday. The mystery print is a hand printed woodcut on paper, signed and numbered by me. It is very limited edition, and very cool.
Black Friday Giveaway runs all day from12am Central to 11:59pm Central.That means 1am-1am for east coast, or 10pm-10pm for west coast.
This is great way to snag an extra gift for yourself or a friend. Mystery print is 8×8″, Signed and numbered.
In addition to the free print giveaway, all orders of $99 and up will ALSO receive a laser cut pop culture tree ornament(mystery design, but it is cool!). That means if you buy a $99 wood portrait (or whatever), you are ALSO getting a free print, free tree ornament, and free shipping. That’s a pretty good deal. Get on it.
Get yours now! https://fringefocus.com
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>Starting to combine some of my woodworking projects with my poster projects in a new Wood Portraits Series. To kick things off, I’ve drawn some Guardians of the Galaxy and have been lasering them into cherry hardwood boards (nonstop) here at the shop.
My laser cutter is actually quite small, so I can only produce ONE portrait at a time. This means nearly every 45 minutes, I have reload the laser and start the process over again. That isn’t counting all of the sanding and finishing I do here at the workshop. Each portrait is only $59 which is an absolute steal for laser engraved artwork of any size. In fact, I may have to raise prices in the future because I’ve been working 14 hour days to prepare all of these portraits for everybody, haha. But for now, you can snag Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot in my store for just $59 a pop.
These are super fun to draw. It’s unlike a screen print or digital work, and I have to use incredibly thin lines in some cases because the laser tends to blur out details that are too close to each other. The backgrounds have some subtle gradients that look pretty awesome in person. And every portrait is a different wood board, which mean every single one is unique! Your portrait won’t look exactly like the ones in the photos, but it also won’t look like anybody else’s portrait (not 100% anyway). The wood is full of wavy patterns that actually look like galaxies or dust clouds (perfect for this movie!)
If you would like to see me make MORE wood portraits, with different characters from other stuff, let me know! Hit me up on Twitter or something.
IMPORTANT: If you are subscribed to this RSS feed and not my actual Email Newsletter, I highly suggest you also subscribe to the newsletter. I make some announcements here on the blog, but the newsletter is faster and usually ensures you can hear about new projects before they sell out, etc. I’ll always continue to update the blog posts, but the official Fringe Focus Newsletter is totally the best way to stay up to date on new releases. Cool cool cool!
]]>I drew Groot. And I lasered him into a cherry wood panel. You can buy this laser engraved wooden Groot right here: https://fringefocus.com/i/groot-wood-portrait/ (Limited edition of just 150). He is $59 unframed, or you can add a frame to your order for $40 (so $99 for a framed Groot with gallery plaque).
Framed Groot:
Unframed Groot:
Expect MORE wood portraits soon. I am actively drawing some new characters, and am open to suggestions. These look pretty incredible in person, and I’d love to make some more limited edition characters that are collectible.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>As of 9/30/2014: No longer accepting applications.
Hey. I need some help shipping things (and making things) at my Chicago workshop. Come work with me.
The Fringe Focus workshop in Logan Square is an art studio, production center, office, and woodshop. Fringe Focus designs (and sells) screen prints, posters, and laser engraved housewares via https://fringefocus.com There are occasionally gallery shows or fairs as well.
I am looking for an entry level part-time production assistant (only 10 hours per week). I produce new work every month, and you’d be assisting me in producing art and housewares for customers all over the world. This means cutting wood, gluing projects together, staining / finishing, and operating a wide variety of small power tools (table saw, drill press, hand tools). You’ll get to make products every week, and (importantly) ship products every week.
Did I mention there is a laser cutter? We’re gonna burn things.
Fringe Focus Inc. is a successful independent art studio. It’s not huge, but it’s a successful machine and requires great care. The workshop is the design and illustration office, the production studio, and the fulfillment center (all in one). The workshop assistant would primarily be working in the woodshop / finishing area, and the shipping / packaging station.
An apprenticeship means I’ll be producing work, and you’ll learn to replicate it. You’ll also learn quite a bit about running a small business, and working for yourself. Fringe Focus Inc. has no clients, and nobody to answer to. There are no conference rooms, no phone calls, and no set schedule. If you’re detail oriented and can follow instructions, you’ll be able to learn how to operate every machine in the woodshop (including the laser cutter).
There will be a bit of administration work, like printing shipping labels, packing lists, and organizing areas of the workshop. But most activities will have you using your hands, and we’ll try to keep your time sitting at a desk to an extreme minimum.
Cutting wood and other materials.
Staining / Finishing / Painting.
Operating a laser cutter.
Gluing or fastening projects together.
Drilling… holes… into stuff.
(Production tasks will be repetitive, we may make thousands of one item)
Printing lists of all customer orders.
Filling boxes with packing material and artwork.
Packing tubes with rolled posters.
Printing and applying shipping labels.
Mailing postcards and small items.
(Shipping tasks are very repetitive, usually 20 to 100 orders at a time)
Keeping workbenches organized
Cleaning & vacuuming dust
Printing detailed labels / instructions for various tools & machines
Building jigs to make boring tasks easier for both of us
Building workshop furniture, like shelves, racks, and tables (to be used as infrastructure here)
Going on quick runs to the hardware store or art store for supplies.
Skills you’ll learn here! But if you have experience, that’s cool too.
As of 9/30/2014: No longer accepting applications.
Write an interesting email with the subject Workshop Apprentice to concierge <at> fringefocus <dot> com
If you have artwork, or pictures of previous hobbies, send those as well. Show me stuff!
This is a an entry level paid part-time job. Pay and any decisions regarding schedule & timeline will be determined later. But you should have 10 hours available per week. Schedule will be very flexible and can be shaped to your needs.
No phone calls. Ever. Ever. Ever.
As of 9/30/2014: No longer accepting applications.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>If you’re already on my email newsletter list, then you are now entered in my random monthly giveaway. I’m just gonna mail a print or some artwork to somebody randomly on the list. If you signed up a year ago, you’re entered! If you signed up today, you’re entered! And you’re entered forever. A new winner, every month, of whatever I feel like giving away. Fun!
There are no more details. Just sign up, and maybe you’ll get free stuff. The newsletter is pretty great anyway, and I usually only send 1 or 2 a month. It’s very chill, and full of new art. That’s it. This is a just a thank you for all those who are subscribers.
I will email you asking your street address when you win. And if you don’t win, there’s always next month! Just stay on the list, and I’ll pick an email at random.
]]>Available now: ACME Dynamite, ACME Magnet, and ACME Jet-Propelled Unicycle screen prints. Part of the ACME Inventory Series.
I’ve also added rustic black picture frames to the store for your 8×8″ ACME Inventory prints. They include real glass, and a laser engraved gallery plaque with each print’s title.
Picture Frames: $40 (Frame + $25 print = $65 total. Art will arrive framed and ready to gift!) $180 for any 3 prints with frames! Lastly, there is a MYSTERY 7th ACME item print that will included your order for FREE if you buy all 6 ACME prints, or any 3 ACME prints with 3 frames.
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>I needed a nice big desk (I’m 6’4″) at the workshop so I could illustrate posters in peace, away from all the saws and dust. Buying a gigantic desk is expensive, and I happened to have tons of wooden pallets from all my Fringe Focus poster tube deliveries. Killed two birds with one stone, and chopped the pallets up into a mighty big desk. Plus I own a workshop, so DIY is the way to go.
1. Get some pallets
Honestly, despite what the internet seems to indicate, pallets are not a magical resource ideal for furniture. They’re warped, chemically treated, full of staples, dirt, nails, and rust. They’re ugly, really. BUT if you’re looking to build a desk or table with a lot of character, something that can take a beating, then pallets are great! And it’s great to recycle! If you want a gorgeous flat piece of wood, look elsewhere. I had a ton of pallets in the basement because I receive all of poster tubes on pallets. You could find some at a grocery store if you don’t have any? Or Craigslist?
2. Rip apart the pallets
This isn’t the worst step of the process, but it’s up there. Use a claw hammer and wedge it beneath the board. Slowly rock the hammer to peel the board up, but be careful not to snap the board (pallets are brittle). I suggest moving across the entire board, slowly lifting it up by fractions of an inch at different locations. Many nails will be rusted or break, WEAR GLOVES. A crowbar helps for leverage, if you have one. If your pallet is particularly difficult, use a hack saw, jig saw, or whatever saw to detach the end points first! You lose about 1 inch on either end, but then you only have 3 nails to remove, instead of 9-10.
3. Choose your favorite pallet boards
You’ll want to chuck out severely damaged boards. I found that half of my boards were very dark, and the other half were light (two different pallets). So I chose to lay out the most interesting looking boards in this stripe pattern. Yours could be a lot cleaner, I was aiming for a dirty look.
4. Plan your desk size
I’m not gonna give exact dimensions here, because pallet furniture by nature is all going to vary a lot. But I wanted a very deep and wide desk. I have a large drawing tablet, two monitors, and usually lots of mess on my desk. I decided on an angled design, as that allows the edge facing me to be a tad longer. Even though the desk is 69″ wide, the edge facing me is around 76″ because it’s at an angle. The wide end was 3 feet deep, the shallow end about 2 feet deep. This also gives a wild forced perspective look, as I’m using progressively skinnier boards as they approach the shallow side. Plus I won’t have to struggle to reach a shelf on the wall on the 2 foot side (whereas a 3 foot deep desk requires you to stretch when reaching across).
5. Plane, joint, or rip your pallet boards
If you are lucky, your pallet boards will be exceptionally straight, blemish free, and without warps. I was not lucky. Many of the boards absolutely required jointing or planing so I could lay them flush with each other to form a table top. But I do not own a jointer or a planer. Solution? I ripped these mofos on the table saw. I did a few of them with a custom built table slaw sled. But many other boards I just ripped freehand or with the saw fence. This let an edge that bowed out half an inch or so become square. It was NOT perfect, but it was much better than attempting to build a desk surface with warped boards. You could also use hand planes on the surface, but the risk of damage is high with so many hidden nails / staples in pallet stock.
6. Stain your pallet boards
Because I had half dark boards and half light boards, I wanted to accentuate the contrast. I took all of my dark pallet wood, and applied a custom pickling stain to it. Basically it’s white vinegar with steel wool and tea bags in it! You let the steel wool begin to rust in the vinegar for a few days, then steep the tea bags. What you’re left with is a stain that rapidly ages your wood. It can make brand new wood look gray, and it made my dark boards even darker. You could also paint your boards, use traditional stain, or leave them untouched. I used my steel / vinegar mixture and it looked great.
7. Glue up your pallet boards
So it might be good to add joints & biscuits in your boards, but I just laid my pallet boards flush and glued them up. There’s a lot of surface area (and a lot of glue) so it worked. I clamped the wide boards in pairs, and I clamped the smaller boards in threes as seen above. IMPORTANT: My boards had wildly different thicknesses, so I am laying them upside-down to be flush with the work bench. The underside of the desk shows huge thickness differences, but the top is relatively even. You could avoid this by picking better stock, or planing the boards, but I figured I’m only using the top of the desk… so the bottom side can fuck off.
8. Bracket the hell out of your desk top
As I said, I chose very warped / destroyed / old pallet boards. So without a planer I had to rely on some trickery to ensure a level table top I can actually work on. This was done by clamping (and gluing) several 2x4s on the underside of the desktop. Again, the desk surface is flush with my workbench, but the underside has unevenness. I actually placed shims & wedges between the thin boards and the 2x4s to ensure an even fit. Each 2×4 is secured with steel brackets on ANY board that was too uneven / warping. Make sure you keep your clamps on until the glue is fully dry. Also, I put like 5 million screws through the 2x4s into the pallet boards for extra rigidity. Maybe overkill.
9. Cut the desk top down to size
Using the 2x4s as a guide, the desk top can be cut down to size. The ragged edges need to be cut flush. If you made a rectangular desk you could maybe skip this step, but since my desk has a 10 degree angle I had a lot to cut! If you have a large table saw, you could cut the entire desk top flush there. My saw and shop are simply too small, so using a handheld power saw (ideally circular saw) like a jig saw can work in a pinch. This desk is ‘rustic’ so cutting the edges even with a jig saw then sanding (with an orbital sander) worked fine! You can see my flush edge to the table top above (and some more dark stain). If you’re going for a clean look, you’ll absolutely need a table saw or jointer. I just said “whatever” and it was close enough.
10. Add an edge / border to the desk top
Since my pallet desk top was raggedly attached to some 2x4s, I had to hide the slop behind a nice edge. I had some 1x4s leftover from another project, and stained them dark brown for this desk. I used a miter saw to cut the 1x4s at the appropriate angles, and wrapped this 1×4 edge around the entire perimeter of the desk top. Basically 4 boards (each a different length). 45 degree miters on the back (straight) edge, with different angles for the front edge. Glue up the 1x4s (or whatever edge you like), and clamp like crazy. You could edge your desk with trim from Home Depot, paneling, or even tiles. But I went with stained 1x4s because that is what I had (I spent $0 on wood for this project).
11. Sand the pallet desk top
I used an orbital sander with roughly 200 grit sandpaper on the entire surface of the desk. In same cases I went so deep I took the stain right off (partially intentionally). There are a lot of divots, scratches, slivers, etc. in these boards. I wanted the surface rather smooth since I will be interacting with it daily. If your boards are relatively clean, this will be easy. If not, have patience, and wear a respirator! Pallet wood dust can be dangerous, so wear a mask and vacuum up all the dust.
12. Add legs to the desk!
Unless you like working on the floor, you should add legs to your desk. I forgot my phone/camera the day I added the legs, but here is finished system for my leg brackets. I had some 4x4s laying around, so that informed my leg choices. You could easily use steel rods, or 2x4s, or even traditional lathed legs. But I used a 4×4 in each corner, with steel brackets securing it to both the 2×4 support beams AND the 1×4 edge beams. The 4x4s are placed directly under the 2×4 supports, to ensure the weight is distributed across the whole surface. Don’t just plop your legs under the thin pallet wood. For stability, I cut 45 degree angles with the miter saw on some 4×4 braces. These braces are secured with 2″ screws. You can make braces like this at any length you choose, it’s as much an aesthetic choice as it is a structural one. (The 4x4s were stained and sanded in the same fashion as the desk top)
13. Finish your pallet desk (literally)
For finishing woodworking projects, I stick to a lot of the same procedures. I use my custom pickling stain (vinegar, steel wool, tea) for aging the wood when necessary, and I use Danish oil for most surfaces. I mix the Danish oil myself (in a jar). My Danish oil is 1/3 boiled linseed oil, 1/3 polyurethane, and 1/3 mineral spirits. This should be applied with a rag (or a brush) quickly across the entire surface, you want to ‘flood’ the wood so it absorbs the oil leaving no dry spots whatsoever. Let this soak in for 30 minutes, then remove the excess with a dry rag. Then re-apply in the same fashion and let this dry for 15 minutes or so. You can keep flooding with Danish oil on repeat for a while, but I find 2 or 3 coats to work. For coasters and small projects, I’d stop here.
For my desk, I added a final layer of brush-on (oil based) polyurethane a day after the Danish oil had dried. I applied a glossy polyurethane to the pallet desk top and edges, but NOT the legs, to give some contrast. This draws your eye to the glossy top, and makes it feel as if the bright desk surface is floating since you ignore the matte 4×4 legs. Depending on your desired finish (and quality of your wood) you can sand the desk with 0000 steel wool between coats, or 320 grit sandpaper for the polyurethane. Let the poly cure for at least a day before use. And you’ll want ventilation for these steps, as the fumes from the poly aren’t exactly good for you.
There, now go build a desk!
You can be first to know about new art prints & limited edition poster releases on the Fringe Focus Newsletter! New art each month. You are also entered to win a poster giveaway (at random) each month! Join thousands of Fringe Focus subscribers.
]]>