Lupe Fiasco "Lasers" Concept Series: I Don't Wanna Care Right Now

This particular track from Lasers was definitely one of the ones that irritated me. There is a sharp contrast between what Atlantic Records wanted and Lupe Fiasco's style as a rapper. It's painfully obvious that this is what the label forced him to do. Auto-Tune saturates this song. If you go back and listen to Shining Down (A track that was supposed to be on Lasers.) Lupe states that he doesn't agree with the way everyone jumped on Auto-Tune after T-Pain, Lil Wayne and Kanye West picked it up.

This song sounds like it's better suited for the Black Eyed Peas or Usher. Anyway I wanted to create a piece that symbolized Lupe's values and his labels expectations. I wanted to go with something more realistic than the previous piece but still abstract to a point.


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Euphony Series: Chillin'

I had the idea for this Euphony piece for a few months but I think it made more sense to work on it on vacation. You could say this illustration is the spiritual successor to the original Euphony. I even went back to putting headphones on her. She is all about music after all. The location in the painting is inspired by The New Haven Green. The figure was hard to set up freehand so I added one point perspective to make things manageable. I'm very pleased with the results.


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Lupe Fiasco "Lasers" Concept Series: Till I Get There

The idea for this just came to me out of the blue. Since Words I Never Said was so dark I felt it was only right that the next piece be whimsical. This painting was inspired by Monopoly. I just wanted to represent what happened to Lupe. His album was in limbo and no one thought it would see the light of day.


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Lupe Fiasco "Lasers" Concept Series: Words I Never Said

This piece was extremely ambitious for me. It's been some time since I've done any realistic portraits in Sketchbook Pro. I believe Sade was the last. I'm not too crazy about the content on Lasers but Words I Never Said is just a masterful track. I wanted to go all out on this piece. I wanted to convey several things in this piece. For one this track is clearly different from the others. The lyrics are potent and not dumbed down like most others.

Also Lupe is taking several shots at key figures in the media and in politics. I wanted to show Lupe as villainous for making such a track. I personally support his music but I wanted to portray him from the perspective of Atlantic Records and those who don't understand his music. I just had to go with The Joker. (The Heath Ledger representation.) First I painted Fiasco like I would any portrait. Next I added the face paint (almost like a make up artist) on a separate layer. This let me erase the top layer to let skin show through. After doing that he really looked like The Clown Prince of Crime.


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Euphony Series: Glamour

I did this one right before the show to pump up my art raffle at Apple iPie. I went for a Pulp Comics look for this one. My intention was to portray Euphony as a starlet from Old Hollywood.


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Skyzoo Series: The Burn Notice

This is the second painting in my Skyzoo Series. I named it after one of the songs on his colab album with Illmind: Live From The Tape Deck. Naming this one The Burn Notice turned out to be a good move since in the reference photo he's been lit in red. I did this one in Brushes.


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Lupe Fiasco "Lasers" Concept Series: Letting Go

This is an ArtRage painting for the first cut off of Lasers by Lupe Fiasco. The imagery was extremely important to this piece. I wanted to convey a powerful message of a man literally letting go and falling into the abyss. There are several other messages in this piece too but what fun would it be if I gave away everything?


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Featured Illustration: Paraffin

I got Procreate for iPad (Yes, the name is very lame.) yesterday and I couldn't think of anything to draw. After finishing a very labor intensive portrait I didn't want to use anymore photo reference. Rose suggested I draw her Paraffin kitchen doll. I mostly did it from memory but I couldn't help but glance at the model she made out of clay. Overall I had fun taking on this little experiment.


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Euphony Series: That 70's Girl

It's been a while since I sat down and worked on my Euphony Character series. While working on another piece I got inspired to do this one. I've had the idea for a few months. (Pretty much after I finished Passion.) I just wanted to produce another one in the series when I was ready.Originally I was going for a style that would scream Celebrity Music Star. The afro made it look like she came out of the seventies though so the theme changed. I'm so happy with the results that I did three versions.


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