NEW WEBSITE

Hello Everyone!

MattDyeComics.Blogspot.com has officially moved to a new website. All future updates will be posted over at www.MattDyeDraws.com.

Please check out the new site by clicking the link above, or scroll down to see older posts archived on this site.

Thanks for your continued support!

-Matt

Budweiser Guitar Painting Pics

 

 

  Here are some pics of the guitar I painted at the Budweiser Made in Michigan party recently. All the work in progress shots were taken by Brenda Shea (thank you!). Unfortunately the only finished pictures I have of the guitar were taken with my cell phone (no thank you!) so they aren't as nice.

This whole thing was done in a four hour span from 8pm-Midnight during a concert at the Fillmore. It was a ton of fun and all the staff and crew from the Budweiser tour and the Fillmore were very accommodating. I got to meet / talk to lots of new people (even though I had a hard time hearing anything). It was a blast and I'm happy with the results. This guitar, along with 30 others from different artists in different cities, is headed to Philadelphia for the final show of the tour at the end of August.

Thanks to everyone who came out and supported me at this event!

Budweiser Made in Detroit Painting

I just found out that I will be doing a live painting on an acoustic guitar at the Budweiser Made In Michigan Party this Thursday night. Its a free event happening at the Fillmore in Detroit, with performances from Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr, RAC, and Youngblood Hawke. More info can be found online here.

The painting will be my take on what it means to be Made in Detroit. I'm gonna have a ton of fun with it - so stop by, say hi and enjoy the party! I'll be painting from 8pm-12am. Must be 21 or older to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Sketch & KRC 2013

I visited my brother in NYC this past weekend and I drew this crazy, semi-bionic, snake during the lengthy taxiing process before take off.  The drawing is done entirely with a black Bic ball point pen - which is my go-to drawing method for car & plane rides. Mostly because I can keep building sketchy layers to create a finished product without worrying too much about the bumps.

I also wanted to mention that I will be attending Kids Read Comics again for 2013! The event is this weekend (6/22 & 6/23) at the Ann Arbor District Library. The Artist Alley is Noon - 6pm Saturday and Sunday, and I will participating in a Quick Draw event from 3:30pm-4:00pm on Saturday with Jono Balliett. Check out the KRC website for more info. Hope to see you there!

SPACE 2013 Recap

Last weekend I returned to the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo in Columbus, OH for my second time (with a couple year hiatus in between!). I had such a blast and met tons of awesome people. Huge thanks to anyone who stopped by my table to chat or buy a book! Here are some pics of my table to check out for anyone who missed it:

I also got to spend some time hanging out with my friend and former professor Ryan Claytor (Elephant Eater Comics) and former classmate Leslie Anderson. Ryan (who is a fan/collector of pinball machines) knew of a local pinball collector who happened to be having a party at his house while we were in town. We swung by to check it out and ended up sticking around and playing pinball until the middle of the night. Needless to say, it was an amazing collection and we had tons of fun. I took a few pictures of his collection, but this collage doesn't even do a great job of showing exactly how many machines there were. Awesome!

I definitely plan on attending SPACE again in 2014. Planning on having new comics & hopefully more other goodies by then as well!

DINO BOOKS - SPACE 2013

This weekend I will be attending the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (SPACE) again and I can't wait! I'll be there all day Saturday and Sunday hanging out, selling comics and other cool stuff. Check out the SPACE website for more details on the show.

One of the new products I'll be selling at SPACE this year are these little pocket-sized dinosaur notebooks. There are 4 different designs that I will be selling individually and in packs of 3. These guys are each at least a 5 color screen print (the raptors are a 6 color!) and they're the perfect size for a back pocket for on-the-go sketching or note taking. These weird little dino notebooks have been in the making for a long time so I'm excited to get them out into the world. (sorry for the poor image quality!)

Gates Floating Mountain Shirt

Here are some pics of the latest shirt design I created for gates. I had a lot of fun making this one and learned some new illustration techniques through trial and error.

The mountain on here started as a pen drawing that I decided I didn't like anymore. So I went in and blocked in areas of the drawing according to value and converted it to halftone dots. The finished piece is actually an overlay of those halftoned values on top of a version of the drawing where I attempted to recreate those same values by distressing selected pieces of the illustration.

After I typed that paragraph I realized it was extremely difficult to follow. So I went into my working files and made a little visual aid to help describe the process.

This gif shows the original pen drawing, then the version of it where I blocked in the major values. Then it shows how I tried to recreate some of that value using distress instead of halftones. Lastly, I faded in the halftoned value blocks. I felt like that last step (which was kind of a happy accident) really gave it the final boost of contrast it needed to take the mountain to a certain level of realism or drama. The final piece underwent even more work than the last step of this gif, but this covers the gist of it.

Hopefully you found that little glimpse into my process interesting! If you're really digging the shirt or the band you can pick one up for yourself in their webstore here