Strange Things Art to make your skull gears turn.
Gum shoe shining his light right atchu’.
And you better watch out, son. He’s a super sleuthin’, stretch-armstrong lookin’, mustached man. He’s going to get to the bottom of your mysteries. Who killed who in the kitchen with what? Who clobbered Colonel Mustard with the candle stick!? Ask the Gum Shoe. He’s got nothin’ better to do.
Also, his body is made of gum. Or some shit. I don’t know, who cares.
I just started doodling with my Pitt pens and Micron brush pens. Started thinking “hey I had fun with that IPA label, let’s try it again but make it… Different.” Low and behold, Dick Tracey meets Mr. Fantastic: Detective Gum Shoe. It was really great to start inking again. I still have to finish #inktober… Even though it’s next year… And it’s March. Whatever, don’t judge me.
Going to give the original sketch away to a good pal of mine, I think.
So yeah, I put the doodle into Illustrator and went from there. Traced every line on that sumbitch with the pen tool. Colored it in Illustrator too. This was a bit challenging because of the light source. The source was coming from the flashlight, so I had to think about how it would effect the surfaces of his gum shoe stretchy arms and boulder cap. It was fun though. Added a lined halftoned background and turned the gradient light source into a halftone as well for your printing pleasure. I’m going to add some text to this for the second round of Private EyePA labels (if that ever happens).
In the meantime, I’ve uploaded this sucker to both Redbubble and Society6 for your viewing/purchasing pleasure. It was tricky to get the formatting down.
Click to enlarge the detail shots below, and make sure to check out Gum Shoe in the respective shops. I’ll do a featured merch article on that soon for those interested.
