Kobe Bryant for Nike and Motortrend Classic

So I can finally show this Kobe Bryant T-shirt design that I did for Nike last year. It features Kobe and his new shoe. His nickname is "The Black Mamba". Unfortunately this project got killed so this design will never see the light of day. :(

it took a really long time to render all those snake scales. :-(


story for motortrend classic magazine about a man remembering his childhood dream of racing around the globe in various international cars.



for Motortrend Classic Magazine. a reflection story about a man remembering his father and their love for cars through the years together.


for motortrend classic magazine. about how non-experts can instinctively pick the best cars. In this case, the author's wife.

Easy and Happiness



I made another pair of shoes. This time out of hemp. Here is the process.











rubber for the soles



glue







my old roomate Aka had a housewarming party at her new apartment. I made white and red sangria.



the next day it was nice to wake up to my roomate's girlfriend making Nabe, a great hangover food



I switched rooms to my old roommates room where there is this gas heater. I hate using gas so i am nervous about using this thing. but i can't even smell that gas anymore so i guess those brain cells are dead now.



my roommate bought this magazine and i recommend it to anyone living in tokyo, its got some great stuff in there and its in english and japanese.



i saw my classmate drinking this so tried it and it was pretty yumm-ay



my Nigerian classmate "Lucky" and his random big bang hat.



This is Cho-san. at least that is her name in Japanese class. I sit next to her in class. Her self given english name is "Pinki", yes Pinki! hahahaha Chinese people have the most awesome self given english names. One of her mottos is "Easy and Happiness" hahahaha. She's 23, from Shanghai, graduated from college already, and is pretty cool compared to the rest of my Chinese classmates. and her english is off the hook.



Easy and Happiness - signed Pinki



My old classmate Benny goes to Keio university to study Japanese now. Today was their annual student festival thing so there were tons of people out including, middle school/highschool girls, real college students, kabuki cho hosts, grandpas and grandmas, the odd foreigner. The theme of the day was how most of the girls looked like jail bait and the only way to be sure is if they were wearing their middleschool uniform and skirt otherwise its pretty hard to tell. I guess i am just getting that old now. why does fake wrestling have to be one of the things that they have embraced today?



why do peruvian pan flute bands have to be embraced? don't they watch southpark and know that it is famously mocked as the shi!ttiest music on the planet earth?



ginko trees turning yellow



as with all student festivals there were lots of dance performances



a lecture hall. through out the school there were floors with various stuff going on inside. this was the building with live music.



this was screaming death metal, yes that girl was letting out banal death metal screams.



crappy beatles cover band



i have absolutely no idea wat was going on in this room.



there were random lecture halls where different rock bands were playing and there would be little groups of groupies. Man this would be so fun if i went to school here. The whole thing was an interesting sight to see.



This festival is famous for picking up people which i didn't see a lot of earlier but later on there were gauntlets of guys picking up girls. supposedly the girls are supposed to be into it at this festival, i guess cuz they are college students and stuff. anyway here are 2 chaps goin at it in Japanese style, hands on their knees, kneeling over trying their hardest to be assertive yet polite.

Rainbow Bridge Run

So I ran the Rainbow Bridge, a famous Tokyo landmark. It goes from somewhere near Tamachi to Odaiba, the man made island with the giant ferris wheel and stuff. I ran with my big camera. It wasn't so bad except i kept stopping to take pictures so I didn't really get a good run in. I guess there will be no more of that. its about a 10km round trip from my house. I love running. Even though I got hit by a taxi I still recommend running around your city, it's an awesome way to see what your city's got.



it gets dark here early. sunset time.





It's the best view you can get on a run on one side but then not so cool because then right beside you on the other side is this.



Rainbow Bridge. it's supposed to light up like a rainbow at night. Also when i got to the start you have to take an elevator up 7 stories to get up to the bridge and it was taking forever for it to come so i said, hey its only 7 flights ill just run it, only it turned out to be like 3 times more stairs per story. so instead of running up and turning twice and you're on the next floor it would keep running forever before i got to the next floor.



Fuji Television building in Odaiba.



I love boats. I wish i was chillin' on that rooftop deck.



What are these things?







these pocket bikes or whatever you call them crack me up.





a life on the sea, is that the life for me? it would be cool for a lil while i think. or at least a tokyo canal bum


I never drink soda. i saw this on someones blog and thought it would be awesome. It's roasted chestnut flavor. it was like mild pepsi. How cool would it be if the US market and consumers had the balls to have new limited edition flavors of every product every few months? that's what happens here and it's awesome. You can literally drink a new drink everyday for the rest of your life they come out with so many new flavors.



gachapin ramen. that's his side kick/partner mukku



drawings for a series of illustrations for a project i can't show yet. that's lil' bob raish on the right. I had to tone down his indigent little smile for the illustration.



I was psyched to finally find this building somewhere inbtwn Daikanyama and Shibuya.



went to an illustration exhibit in daikanyama put on by Giant Mango, whatever that is.







next i went to an exhibit in the Parco building in Shibuya. 2 giants here. David Choe and James Jean. both from LA. the exhibit was called L.A. Secret Studio. Gallery was small. wish there was more. I love the work these guys do and was happy to find out they were having an exhibition in tokyo. These 2 are david choe.



David Choe is Korean American. you can see him on the Vice magazine website hitchhiking around the world.



the last three are James Jean. he graduated from SVA. it seems like all the sucessful illustrators graduate from SVA. as for FIT.....



he drew these all from his head with no plan. super detailed pen drawings.