The Little Heartbreakers

My friend David has a son, Levan, who is a couple of years older than my own son, Sandro. Naturally, they are friends, too. So here they are, Levan on the left, Sandro on the right. Both bright-eyed and impossibly cute, they look like brothers. They're like Dean and Sam Winchesters in youth, only cuter than the kids who play them in the show. The little pranks are already breaking a lot of girlie hearts, and I'm sure they won't stop doing that when they grow up.

I drew the boys from the reference photos taken by me last October, during a photo-session for my upcoming project Levan May Cry. For the first time since 1995, I've used only color pencils when drawing -- no ball-points, no graphite, no mechanical pencils. There was quite a gap in the work: Levan was almost entirely finished by the end of October 2009, but Sandro had to wait until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally found time to continue the drawing.

I usually date my artwork when it was started, not when finished, but I decided to make an exception in this case. Thus, The Little Heartbreakers is officially my first artwork dated 2010 -- although actually there is no date on it, because I don't place dates under my new signature. Speaking of, the drawing is also the first one to display my re-branded logo, as you may have noticed.

That's MISTER Max for You!

In A Quick Rinse done last year I introduced MAX, a new brand of detergents from "100+1" -- my very first detergent customers. Guess what -- MAX is back! Only he's called MISTER Max now. Besides the name change, the container was also replaced, so I had to make a new outline to fit the depression in the plastic vessel. Also, strawberry was added to the three existing flavors.

The new design maintains the general direction of the original MAX labels, but there are certain differences, mostly brought in by the changed brand-name and the different shape.

And here's the actual product prototype (in this case, the digital versions of the labels placed on real containers):

But that wasn't all for Mr. Max. In fact, the most interesting part started right after finishing those labels, because now I had to design a mascot for another product under this brand -- a dish-washing gel also called MISTER Max.

I usually draw my mascots by hand and trace them digitally afterwards, but this one has been assembled in CorelDRAW from the scratch. He looks more like a Man in Black (right before erasing your memory with a Neuralyzer) than a detergent mascot, but I think he's still does his job as a "detergent barker" good enough -- you can see him in action below.

That's it for now, but I'll be back shortly with a couple of little heartbreakers. No idea what I'm talking about? Good! Stay tuned and you'll be the first to know.

Spanish Paella Party

Kinda old news, but it's better late than never. Last Saturday my wife and I went to a "paella party" where we were invited by (brace yourselves, full name and title ahead) Manuel Hernandez Gamallo, the Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain to Lithuania. It was fun, I met a bunch of interesting people (mostly Spanish, giving me an opportunity to show off my rusted Español) and had a chance to taste paella (a rice dish of Valencian origin), gazpacho (a cold vegetable soup) and sangria (a red wine punch with sliced fruits), but the first thing to do was presenting the host a bottle of Georgian wine, of course.

While Diana was snatching at her chance to recruit a teacher of Spanish for her university, I roamed the mansion full of guests, enjoying loud music and examining pictures and other interesting objects on the walls. But most of the time I was eating, as you can see from the photo below (I'm not eating anything "exotic" in this photo, in case you wonder -- just some grilled meat).

Enough private life reporting for now. I'll be back with some design news in a few days. Stay tuned!

Paranoia II: The Complete Series

Red Bound II has concluded the Paranoia II series, so I think it's time for a little showcasing. But before that, a brief digression into history.

The first "fit of paranoia" happened to me in 1995 and lasted for two years, resulting in 10 surrealistic drawings, infused with allusions and hidden visual messages in the spirit of Salvador Dali's famous Paranoiac-Critical Transformation Method. The three colored balloons, first seen in Nine Questions (on the right), later became one of the most recognizable symbols in my art. (It represents childish eroticism, in case you wonder.)

The second wave started in 2002, four years after finishing the first series. The gap in time brought in some noticeable changes. Besides the more refined technique, the artwork from Paranoia II (or ParanoIIa, as spelled alternatively) shows more integrity in style. At the same time, all the trademark features of the series are still present: visual audacity, predilection to hidden allusions, and the same Dali-influenced polymorphous imagery.

Paranoia II also consists of 10 pieces: nine original and one remake of a previous Paranoia title -- Red Bound. Here's a number of selected works from the now complete series, as promised in the beginning. You might have seen some of them already in my previous blog posts, while others are published here first time.

Sex a la Salvador Dali (2002)

Trichotillomania: Deluxe Widescreen Presentation (2002)

Laokoon (2003)

The Towel of Babel (2009)

Red Bound II (2009)

You can see the whole series at my website, or my deviantART gallery. As for the future works, there's still a whole bunch of "paranoid" ideas left in my sketchbook, so I'm planning to start Paranoia III later this year.