My buddy Rich recently designed and developed a small web site for Disney. They liked it so much that they gave him another. They not only wanted a total redesign but also a full Flash site. He called me to do the backgrounds so he could animate them in Flash.

Below is what I’ve got so far. This would be the intro frame. Once the site is up and running I’ll post the link.

(click on image to enlarge)

My wife and I have been fans of Crazy Shirts since we came across one of their stores while looking for a wedding location in Sarasota. We were walking at St. Armand’s Circle one morning and we noticed the store. We loved what they had displayed on the windows so we went in.

We bought a few shirts of course. At the counter I asked the clerk if they hired freelancers. Luckily she was well informed and told me about the artist program.

I set up a web page customized for them on my site with some examples and a quick bio about how we love Crazy Shirts and Hawai’i (they’re based out of Hawai’i) in order to get into the program. It worked.

I was then added to their mailing list. Every 2 months they send out requests to their freelancers to come up with specific concepts for shirt designs. I’ve been getting these emails for a while now.

You start off with some clean pencils of your concepts and as each week goes by they let you know if they like your design or not. If you’re lucky enough to get through the all the prelim reviews and get your design to final boards, there’s a chance they’ll buy your work. But there are no guarantees.

For the first time, I’ve reached final boards. I’m reeeealy hoping they’ll buy both designs I’ve drawn up. If they do, my work will finally be on some Crazy Shirts. Plus, it’s $1,000 for each design which isn’t bad.

Below are the designs I’ve come up with with some art direction from them. Although there are 3 images, 2 are just a variation on a theme. Click on each to enlarge.

On Saturday night, September 27th, Pleasure Island in Orlando opened it’s doors for the last time. Today Pleasure Island is no more.

It’s sad to see it close down. I have a lot of great memories of PI. In fact, when I first moved to Central Florida, this is where my brother’s took me to hang out. After years of not really spending time with my brothers since I was always hanging out with my older friends, my brothers and I reconnected while in Central Florida. We were all in our early 20s and were regulars at PI, dancing and drinking almost every night for a few months. What a blast!!!

At the time I had also gone through a bad break up so going out every night to dance and drink with my brothers and friends was a great way for me to get back on my feet. For the first time I enjoyed being single.

On Saturday night, my buddy called and asked me if I wanted to go one more time. Of course I said yes. So I joined him and his lovely wife for one more visit before PI closed its doors and becomes yet another slew of shops.

We hit the Adventurers Club first. I brought my sketchbook with me and was able to capture a quick sketch of Colonel Critchlow Suchbench (Click to enlarge). This is my last tangible memento of Pleasure Island (It’s still a work in progress). The piece is actually a sketch, but I scanned it and brought it into Painter.

Today, I finally sold my 1995 Honda Civic DX. What a great car she is.

Unfortunately one morning, I got in, getting ready to head to work and when I tried turning her on, she didn’t. I knew it wasn’t the starter nor the alternator.

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Like I said, since the FWC aren’t going to use any of the first 4 prelims I did for their logo, I will be painting the turtles instead.

Here’s the first of 4. This is still a work in progress. Click to enlarge.