After I left Disney Interactive I said to myself “I want to sculpt something.” So, I called my friend, Jeff Decker, who owns Hippodrome Studios and does amazing bronze. I told him that I wanted to come down and leach some of his sculpting essence. I traveled to Springville Utah, had a great time hearing awesome Jeff stories but, before I leave, he wants me to look at something. It’s a design that someone did for Jeff’s buddy who is building a restaurant/pub. Jeff shows me the design and asks what I think. I didn’t even know what it was. “It sucks!” “I know, right” Jeff says and then shows me a second sketch which was the next attempt. “That sucks more than the first.” “I know, it’s like Moore’s Law in reverse. Exponential suck!” It looked like a 15 minute clip art job and it’s supposed to be the main logo for a very expensive brew pub. Jeff asked if I would give it a go. I hummed and hawed and was very non-committal...and then the moment I got home I obsessed over it for 5 hours in to the night and made some sketches.
Now about the pictures above...you’re looking at a 1907 Strap-Tank Harley Davidson. Very rare. The friend Jeff spoke of was Rick Salisbury, who owns Salisbury Homes, and he purchased one for a steal at $650,000. It’s worth a $1,000,000. Rick’s plan was to make the Strap Tank the theme of the restaurant.
Jeff gave me a couple sketches he did for Rick because the others were so bad (at the top in blue pen). The very first thing I did was put the engine back on a slant and stay as close as I could to the actual bike. Even if the vast majority of people don’t know what in the dump a “Strap-Tank” is, it’s all the more reason to not lose the features that made it identifiable. You can see my progression above going from left to right. I ended up with this B&W version.
I created a few different color options for them and liked a different version than the one they picked. I liked the red lettering with the cream outline. They ended up changing a couple things in my design, mostly wording. They had their grand opening this past weekend and I was surprised at how much they used the design. They even had it etched on bottle openers.
Rick is the Kenny Rogers looking mullet dude cutting the ribbon with the crappy snips. Good guy. My cousin’s father-in-law is the chap sportin’ the pink glow. That’s Wilford Clyde, Mayor of Springville and President of Clyde Companies; which owns Geneva Rock and Sunroc. He was all rosy-ied up because of the Springville parade that morning, where he was honored to chuck clods of wrapped corn syrup at the city’s children. It was a good time at the parade as well as the grand opening.
Not sure about the paint job on the wall. It looked rushed. However, I do like the glass and will be ever so proud as I pretend to drink beers of the root and ginger persuasion.
Oh yes...and I still haven’t sculpted anything.
baratheonpilled
dededos
blakekathryn
2087
vaporwave
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto