Malleus' Blog

THE BLACK KEYS

malleus — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:10:31 +0000

It’s grey today.
it’s raining and it’s melt with snow, quite depressing weather to look out of the window.
It’s perfect to stay at home, with Your cat sleeping on a cardboard box close to where You are, reading a book and drink a coffee.
It’s perfect to draw too.
And to post some images on the net to testify we’re doing some new crap.
We started from gold and we finished with black.

And it’s been cool cause no problem at all with the last screen.
A run of about 150 posters for the Black Keys, playing this monday coming in Milano.
60 copies will go to the band, the other ones will be on sale on our webstore.
And this is how it looks like.

To far to see?
You need more details?
Ok, let’s go.

We like women with tattoos, I think You already noticed.
Personally I love when there are more tattoos then skin, I like to look at images of women with stories inked on their bodies, drawings running one behind the other.
So we thought about the idea of a woman with living tattoos, moving out of her body, jumping out of her nails to move all around her, mixing colors and creating shapes.

She’s looking at You like she’s waiting to capture You with her tattoos.
And there’s probably a secret behind the key lock tattooed on her belly.

We like to think about stories when we draw, we don’t like images that has nothing to say, beauty has something to tell, to go beyond what You see, open imagination.
It’s a secret, don’t tell it around;-)

And I’m happy about this print cause it’s totally in Italian, TBK requested to have it in the native language and we think it’s awesome.

And here’s a jpeg of the design

I think we did a pretty good job!
Have a great week end

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I Love this videoclip!

FRIDAY

malleus — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:38:19 +0000

The ground is moving here in the North of Italy.
In the last 2 days there’ve been some little Earthquakes, getting worried even if I haven’t experienced any of them till now.
But I don’t like the idea of Earthquake, it makes me scared!
Anyway, while the ground was trembling, we moved on with the new poster for the Black Keys in Milano.
They’ll be here on monday and we’ve almost done the poster.
One color left!
Today we moved on other 3 colors, a metallic transparent silver ink and then another shade, from yellow to red (or from red to yellow depending on the way You look at things…)

Very happy about the underlay shadows and the hairs.
We have got more colors with less.
Very cool.

Damn, it’s really a monster!

And then a nice shade on top.

Very metallic!

There’s a keyhole, I know I know… but it should be a tattoo…

So, we’ve one color to go and tomorrow we’ll show You the final print.
Curious?

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Watching Long Way Down in these days.
Not liking it as much as Long Way Round for now.

CRAZY DIAMOND

malleus — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:04:12 +0000

Internet sucks today.
It’s all the day it sucks.
So I’m pretty nervous and I’m listening to something to relax, listening to Fister.
Bronsonic is very good, I like it, they seems a “clean” version of a great band called Nightstick.
Sorry if I don’t put links but as I said … internet is too slow to open other pages on my laptop.
Anyway, check for Fister.

Ok, hope You liked the prints we did for Dead Rockstars artshow.
“Crazy Diamond” has been numbered and signed.

Gosh… it took minutes to upload these pics!
Just to show You Poia is getting crazy too!

I must say we started this year going like greased lightning (don’t know if this has a meaning, but I liked it a lot…).
Lots of prints so far and a lot more to come.
By the way, we started the new poster for the Black Keys.
They’ll be in Milano, here in Italy, next monday.
Looking forward to their gig!

It’ll be a 7 colors print, there’ll be a lot of red, a lot of black, then gold, yellow and silver ink.
2 shades, lots of work for a run of about 150 prints.
And then we’ll do 7 variants and 152 AP different versions
…
C’mon! I’m joking!
No variant and no AP for this one.
150 copies are enough for us.

First color has been a gold, a light one.
As You can see there’s a frame and a woman.

Then we worked on the first shade, a black and red one.

Looks nice, I like the colors we decided for this!

Ok, more tomorrow.
Have a good night

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If You got a chance, check for the movie below.
Fantastico Mr. Caine.

SYD

malleus — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:24:11 +0000

101 posters are printed and done.
We added the last touch and now we’re totally happy with them.
This is one of those posters we prefer to look at once it’s printed.
It’s double what You see on a cold monitor.
Especially cause we added a sparkling glitter and we hand brushed the diamond.
Look below!

It’s quite difficult to capture the glitter… it seems sand…:-)

101 handbrushed diamonds.
It sounded quite silly to work on a 50 x 70 screen for it.
Then we wanted to give more warmth to this print.
We’re talking about Syd Barrett!

And here a nice jpeg to show You how the print looks like.

We’re shipping 30 copies to the USA tomorrow.
The opening reception is February 2nd in Eugene Oregon at Blunt Graffix studio, after which it will move to THE WAVE gallery and remain up until the end of march.
So, don’t miss it!

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Watched “Boy Wonder” tonight.
Great!

DEAD ROCKSTARS 3

malleus — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:43:55 +0000

Today we’ve printed black color and now You can see that the Dead Rockstar we’ve worked on is Syd Barrett.
I guess the most of You already understood.
It was quite easy, we love Pink Floyd and Syd has been a great great inspiration for our music and art.
So, let’s go with some pics and details.

We’re happy of how it’s coming out.
What do You think?

And some details

One final color is missing (and it’ll be a sparkling glitter ink) and then we’ve decided to hand brush the diamond with another glitter ink, an iridescent one.
Tomorrow You’ll see how it’ll be, let’s cross fingers!

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DEAD ROCKSTARS 2

malleus — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:15:08 +0000

Tonight I’m pretty tired, so I’ll just post a few pics of the new poster we’re printing and I’ll go.
It’s for the artshow DEAD ROCKSTARS, in the USA.
Have You hit it? C’mon! It’s easy.
“It’s no good trying to place your hand where I can’t see because I understand that you’re different from me …”
Is it clear now?
Tomorrow You’ll see it 100%, 2 colors left.

There’s a diamond, there’s an octopus, there’s a cat…

And we’ve also finished the wall version of the upcoming Earth poster (the gig will be in March, so plenty of time for the silkscreen) and the new Caracol.
And we’re planning to start tomorrow the printing process of the new poster for the Black Keys in Milano.

And wait!
Tomorrow we’ll put on sale the Thomas Negovan prints and the “Angeli and Demoni”.
Stay tuned!

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Listening to Black Sabbath right now

DEAD ROCKSTARS 1

malleus — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:06:18 +0000

We’ve started the printing process for the next poster, it’s the print for the Dead RockStars artshow, A Tribute to the Mortal Gods of Sound.
The opening reception is February 2nd in Eugene Oregon at Blunt Graffix studio, after which it will move to THE WAVE gallery and remain up until the end of march.
It’ll be a run of about 100 pieces, half will take a plane and fly to the USA, half will go on our webstore and subs and so on.
We’ve decided to work on one of our favourite artists, he gave birth to one of the most incredible bands ever, he’s an european singer and guitar player, he’s been totally important for us (You know, we also play in a band and we’ve been very very inspired by his music).
Guess who he is.
Well, looking at the pics here below, You’ll probably think he could be Frankenstein (and so You could relate it to Lou Reed… but he seems to be still alive…), but once the print will be finished You’ll see he’s more delicate features.

OK, let’s go with a few pics.
First 2 colors went down together, it’s a nice shade.

Today we’ll move on with the 3rd color, it’ll be a gold.
Then other 2 to finish the print.

Moreover we’re working on a lot of other stuff, posters, cd covers and so on.
Coming next the Black Keys, then the third Argento poster serie (starting in these days), the Melvins, Earth, Asymmetry, Caracol new album (and possible print?), Ufomammut and many many more I don’t remember.
So, stay tuned!

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Listening to Corrosion of Conformity, I loved them years ago, when Pepper was in the band.

Angeli e Demoni

malleus — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:16:04 +0000

There was ice today, it was a really really cold day.
All was white this morning, it was nice to see, not the same to go out and breeze.
I know, You don’t care that much.
It’s winter, so it’s obvious it has to be very cold.
You’re totally right, better to change subject, so let’s talk about a new poster we’ve shipped today in the USA.
It’s the first print of the Year, well, the first one apart the Profondo Rosso print.
It’s the Thomas Negovan poster.
Beside being the owner of Century Guild gallery in Chicago, Thomas is a singer/composer and he’s recorded his new album “By Popular Demand” on WAX CYLINDER (bypassing all manners of modern electrical and digital technologies.)
And it’s great considering the period we’re leaving.
It’s fantastic to use old ways of doing things, it’s a way of touching our past, to create a link with what we’re now, what we have and the way we’re getting “computerized” and “empty”…

So, we worked on 4 different versions of the print.
The first idea was to use a glowing in the dark layer on all of them, but, while printing, we started in having a lot of doubts.
I know, phosphorescent is cool, but it’s also white and it popped out from papers in a terrible way.
So, while working on green, red and blue metallic paper with a perlescent ink, we decided that we wanted to do a version with glowing in the dark color, but it had to be on white paper.
But normal white paper is not so cool.
So we used the same incredible paper we used for the NEVE print (do You remember it?), a metallic iridescent one.
And the result is great.
Anyway, this is what we did.
First of all a regular version on green paper, 3 colors (silver, red and perlescent), run of 147 pieces.

Then there’s a variant on blue metallic paper, 3 colors, run of 25 pieces.

Moreover we’ve worked on a double AP run.
We called the first one “Angeli”.
It’s a 2 color print on red paper, limited edition of 35 pieces.
There’s no perlescent layer on this one, we loved the black on red, so we kept it very simple.

Finally we have “Demoni”.
3 colors printed on white iridescent paper, run of 59 pieces.
This is the only version glowing in the dark, revealing 3 skeleton demons coming out of an eye and an inscription saying: “The angels brought you progress, burned your flesh, watched your murder and called it art “

This is the paper I was talking about…

This is the screen we used for the glowing ink.
It’s the same image of the pearlescent ink, plus the inscription.
And this is how the print is looking like!

Wow!
It’s getting a really long long post.
Sorry.
These prints will be on sale very soon on our store.
When?
Very soon, let us think about it!

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Listening to The Dillinger Escape Plan – Irony is a dead scene

Leather

malleus — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:07:50 +0000

Here we are, as promised, with some pics of the AP on black leather paper of the Dario Argento movie poster of Profondo Rosso.
We’re already moving around the next one, it’ll be … it’ll be… I’ll tell You soon.
Anyway, for Profondo Rosso we’ll only have regular, variant and then AP.
We’re trying to limit the editions, otherwise there’ll be too many versions and we don’t like the idea too much.
Happy?

In the pic above You can see the glitter and the paper.
Cool.

And the final view

Ok, it’s all for today, need to go and work out the Black Keys poster now.
And, please remember that today it’s a very important day cause it’s the F***ING GAMBOA Bday!
Best wishes mate!

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Listening to Massive Attack right now, Mezzanine is a great great album!

Profondo Rosso – Variant

malleus — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:09:27 +0000

Today we’re gonna show You some pics of the variant we’ve worked for the print of Profondo Rosso, second poster of the Dario Argento serie.
As You know it’s on a black glittered paper, looking awesome.
But You also know we like to do things in the best way, we like to overdo.
So, we also decided to make the image pops out of the paper.
The glass had to be real, so we thought about using a sparkling glitter ink on it and this is the result.

A screen for the glass…

… to add prints some class :-)

Sorry, the pics doesn’t give an exact idea of the print.

But it’s something like that.
And tomorrow, last part of the Dario Argento with the copies on leather paper!
And just to make You curious, here’s a little taste of it!

Have a good night!

Malleus' Blog

THE BLACK KEYS

—————————————————————————————— I Love this videoclip!

FRIDAY

—————————————————————————————— Watching Long Way Down in these days. Not liking it as much as Long Way Round for now.

CRAZY DIAMOND

——————————————————————————————- If You got a chance, check for the movie below. Fantastico Mr. Caine.

SYD

—————————————————————————————- Watched “Boy Wonder” tonight. Great!