Matthew Skiff

Now I don’t know if this place is famous because…it just is…or if the South Park episode has helped it’s fame, but I have been going to Casa Bonita ever since I was a little kid. I remember it being one of the coolest restaurants around…but that was when I was a kid, when you are my age, things are necessarily how I remember them! Anyways me and some of my friends decided to take a trip down there this weekend because some of them haven’t been there before…I decided to take my camera along and capture the events!

The first thing you do when you walk in is grab a menu and pick out what you want to it. There is a bunch of stuff to choose from, but you have to order some kind of food in order to get in. I think it’s some form of punishment because the food isn’t that great and will wreak havoc a couple hours after you have eaten it.

The line wasn’t as long as the last time I came here for my sister’s birthday, but it was still long…this place is busy all the time. It took us a while to figure out what was going on and how we were going to get our food. Here is my friend Nick trying to figure out what the heck is going on!

Here is the food..plates and plates of food, all you have to do is tell the people what they ordered and they hand it to you. Obviously this is some really great food (sarcasm), I mean, they wouldn’t just leave bad food out in multiple rows for you to grab…right?

You had better be careful and wait for the servers to give you your food, the plates are hot! My girlfriend tried to grab hers from the table and had her hand slapped by the server!

Here is the crew of friends that came with me!

And here is what I had to eat, the #1. I could only eat half of it…

This is the only good food you can get there, their world famous Sopapillas!

And you have to eat them with honey!

This lovely lady is my girlfriend Ciara! She tried to hide from the camera but I caught her…

Always come prepared when coming to Casa Bonita…Ciara planned ahead!

After eating…it’s game time! First up…Skee-ball…or Ice Ball I mean…

Then make yourself look like a fool on Spider Stomper…

Nick made bank on tickets with this game!

Here is all the loot we got! yes, that is a Rooster and a Walrus!

View from behind the waterfall!

A light found in one of the secret passageways.

You always have to visit Black Bart’s Cave when you come here! I took some photos of what it’s like inside, but you are just going to have to find out for yourself if you are lucky enough to visit this place! Some of the stuff still gets me to jump…and I’ve been here a bunch of times!

A lot of the cool stuff was broken, I really wanted my fortune told! Oh well, maybe next time!

The fun day came to an end and I walked outside to darkness about a couple piles of puke in the parking lot! It was a great time spending time with my friends and showing people that had never been there what it’s all about. I do think this place is hyped up a lot and will probably fail to meet your expectations. I didn’t get a chance to photograph it all, so if you are ever in Colorado I suggest you stop in and see what it is all about!

Dead, Serious! just released their spring/summer line and it is filled with even more awesome shirts than the last season! I was privileged enough to do another design for this seasons and it was probably the most complicated design that I have ever done, but also my favorite design that I have done to date! It seems like the reception for all the shirts has been pretty well judging by the great response they had at this past weekends Groezrock festival! It seems like with each season the shirts get better and better!

Of course, the same familiar designers are back this time around, creating some really great looking graphics! We have Derek Deal, Shatnz, Keaton Henson, Survival and Sockmonkee. I feel really lucky to be apart of all these great artists and they never disappoint when it comes to creating some great looking t-shirt designs!

Go grab some great looking shirts here! There are also some pretty cool new things coming from DS! soon that I can’t talk about. That gosh darn volcano really delayed some of the product being shipped over to them, but it’s safe to say that you will be stoked if you love DS! We are already brainstorming ideas for the winter and it’s going to look a little bit different…but still have that typical Dead, Serious! flavor!

I have been doing a lot of work for my good friends at Ruckus Apparel. Josh has been really good to me, giving me some really fun design concepts, and it helps that the clothing company is based right here in Colorado. I did a ton of work for them this time around; the Lost Boys, Chief, Save Me, Castle and Rotten Apple. These were a ton of fun to do, it was incredibly hard to keep these things a secret for so long!

Ruckus has stepped their game up this time around, go all out on everything. They got some awesome photos taken by the very talented Zach Reed from Bluetide Productions. They even went as far as going with a new screen printer so they could have larger and better quality prints. I can’t even begin to explain how stoked I am to be a part of this line and I look forward to doing more for them in the future. It’s just too bad I couldn’t have come down for the photo shoot, but I don’t think I have enough muscles for it…ha! If you want to see better pictures of the designs, check out my Flickr!

The interview I did for Strange Kids Club is finally up. I got some different questions this time around and the blog is awesome! Go check it out!

More fun stuff coming soon…I went a little lax on my blog posts in the recent weeks…I’ll try and do better! I just got one of those new Macbook Pro’s, so I’m gonna go have fun with it!

Music and Art go hand in hand with each other. I know that I can’t work without having music playing in the background, and it’s almost as if they both inspire each other, especially when watching music videos. Here are some of the ones I’ve been into for a little bit (I’ll spare you the Lady GaGa and Justin Beiber music videos because you all have probably already seen them, ha). Some of them are super old and some of them aren’t.

I have been a fan of The Knife for a long time, and then I heard the girl from that band was starting a solo project, and this was the first single and video from it. This instantly got me hooked and hyped for her album. Such a great video, the atmosphere is amazing, and the song is great as well

Kid CuDi might have put out one of the best debut Hip-Hop albums in recent memory, if not one of the best albums of 2009. This is one of my favorite songs on the album and the video is perfect for it, I love watching what goes on behind the scenes!

I debated weather I put this video up, or the one for The Arcade, but this one has a higher production value to it. I’ve been into Hyper Crush for a long time, they are one of those bands you either love or hate. I love them, I love everything about them. I love how they throw in references from video games, cartoons and other nostalgia from when I was a kid…and of course I am in love with Holly Valentine as well. Enjoy! (or don’t)

Yes…yes…another Kid CuDi video, but this time it has Kanye and Common on it, so it’s a little bit different! Anyways, this video is amazing, everything about it rocks, from the split screen to…actually every single shot on the video, and the song is great (yeah, i said no GaGa…but…).

This video is the original reason why I decided to start this thread. I don’t know much about the band, but I do know that all the illustration was done by one of my favorite artists right now, Douglas Bicicleta. It’s exactly how he’s art looks on the posters for the Black Drawing Chalks. It almost has an old Heavy Metal movie vibe and I just simply love it…absolutely perfect. The music aint bad either.

Anyways, that’s all I got so far. I hope there is some stuff there that you hadn’t heard or seen…if not I’m sorry…I’m sure I’ll do something like this again when I see some other videos that I like.

Sometime last year I got contacted by a new company based in Athens Greece to do a skateboard design, they were Goodbie. Naturally the first thing that popped into my head was Greek Mythology. They only wanted me to design one or two decks, the first ones done were Medusa and Hades. They were stoked with those, so we just decided to do a board for each of their team riders.

After that, we decided to do a simple logo board as well. A few months passed after I was finished and I was able to see what the skateboards looked like printed, they look great. hHowever they decided to add some text on them and change the colors a bit, some of my colors. The images will also be put on t-shirts, and there will be a Zeus skateboard wheel as well.

I was very happy with the results, this was my first ever shot at designing skateboards! I hope this leads to more opportunities to design skateboards and other skate related items. Anyways, go check em out! I’m not really sure right now how you are supposed to get them, I would try contacting Goodbie and see if you can order them.

I guess, as I’m going older, I’m trying to make my surroundings a bit less “college” are more grown up (in a sense). I am currently trying to start collecting art prints and skateboards to cover my walls instead of posters video games, Maxim models and snowboarders. I just got a ton of new stuff today, and I thought I’d write a little blog post about it.

I just received this awesome art print done by the super talented and heavily bearded Godmachine that was done for the Sonisphere festival. Godmachine has been a pretty helpful guide for me, always answering whatever questions I have about being an illustrator, or even just talking crap over twitter. He’s a pretty great person and as you can tell by the poster, a really great artist. There were only 50 of these prints made…but they are all sold out now.

Lastweek I ordered this killer Deathwish skateboard series from my friends at Blacklist Colorado. These whole series was done by the very talented Brian Romero. Go check out his website, he’s not only a talented illustrator but also a really great photographer.

There is just something about putting skateboard decks on the wall that is very aesthetically appealing. It might be the vertical positioning, or just that there is some really great skateboard art out there. Deathwish is pumping out some of the best skateboard decks that I have scene in years, keeping a real “old school” flavor to them. You can go wrong with some Ren and Stimpy inspired art as well.

Here is another deck I just got, that is pretty cool but also pretty offensive. This is the Erik Ellington Tribute deck put out by Deathwish and it’s amazing. First of all, it’s based off the old Randy Colvin World Industries censorship deck back in the 90′s. This thing looks killer under a black light and it even glows in the dark. Of course, it also comes sealed in a black bag to hide all the bad parts so the little skate kids can’t see it. You can see all of it’s features in this video.

I got this print a while back as a Christmas present from my mom, but I thought I’d throw it in this post as well. This is an awesome print done by the guys over at The Black Axe. The Black Axe has some really talented people taking on everything from t-shirt illustration to website design. I think you can still get it from their store if you want to grab it, as well as other cool stuff!

That’s all I got so far, but it looks a lot better than a wall covered in random posters. I have a skateboard series that I did coming out within a couple days that will probably take up another one of my walls. There are a lot of cool things happening over here, some pretty big stuff too, but for now all that stuff will be kept a secret…happy Manic Monday everyone.

The fine folks at Disturbia have decided to do a series of interviews with their artists. Here is mine, this was a fun interview, a lot of different questions that really made me think. I probably come cross as a nerdy douche bag, but I guess that’s just who I am. I’m just happy I was able to do work alongside Godmachine and Drew Milward, and Disturbia’s art direction is top notch!

Back when I was a kid, I remember my parents getting a movie called Heavy Metal on VHS. I can remember the shiny metallic box it came in, as well as the awesome cover (painted by Chris Achilléos) that it had. I asked my mom about it and she told me that I couldn’t watch it, that I wouldn’t like it…or something. I didn’t really think that much of it, but every time I went to look for a movie to watch, the metallic VHS box would always catch my eye. I got a bit older and one day while the folks were out, I popped that sucker in the VHS player and got to watching…and realized why my mom told me not to watch it.

The first thing I noticed when watching it was the killer classic rock soundtrack that was blasting through the speaker, and then the animation began. The animation was a bit strange to me, but I guess that’s because it was first released in 1981. I stuck through it and was kind of getting into the story…the violence that was happening in it didn’t really bother me, and then bam…nudity. I was like 10 years old watching this movie…haha.

As I am getting older I am realizing how awesome Heavy Metal is, I didn’t really understand it when I was a kid. Finding out that someone like Ivan Reitman (he directed Ghostbusters) and all these famous actors and rock bands had a part in this film makes it even more awesome. You can’t really go wrong with Sci-Fi, hot chicks and a heavy metal soundtrack. Having it be animated might make it seem a bit juvenile (and it is), but who cars. The film speak to me even more, now that I can appreciate the art behind it.

The movie eventually led me to becoming familiar with the magazine years later. The magazine is what inspired the movie, and is jam packed with a lot of my favorite artists. People like Simon Bisley, Boris Vallejo and even H.R. Giger have all produced work for the magazine. Now the magazine is owned by Kevin Eastman (one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators) and it’s still pumping out monthly issues. Hevay Metal has even published one of my all-time favorite books, TMNT Artobiography, Maybe one day I’ll be able to get to do a cover for the magazine.

I guess they are going to make a new version of the Heavy Metal movie, and are actually working on it right now. Yeah, there was a sequel, Heavy Metal 2000, released a decade ago, but it kind of sucked. The only thing good that came out of the movie was a video game, and even that wasn’t all that great. This new movie is going to have some big names behind it like David Fincher, James Cameron and Zack Snyder, and I’m pretty stoked about that.

I thought I’d take some time out to show you guys (who are just familiar with the type of t-shirt companies I work for) a different side of apparel.  Now, I love the companies companies that I work for…and I love illustrated shirts as much as the next person. But Sometimes I like to wear something simple and less in your face. This is where the streetwear brands come in. With streetwear comes a high price you pay for the product, but I think it’s worth it for the quality you get. A lot of these companies not only have some great t-shirts, but they also have some great denim and cut & sew products as well. Here is a list of some of my favorite streetwear brands.

Matix – I have stacks and stacks of Matix jeans in my closet. some of them I have outgrew, but for some reason I still keep them.  I’ve been wearing Matix jeans forever…every single time I’d get a new CCS catalog in the mail, I’d first turn it to the Matix page to see what kind of new jeans they had available. I’ve just recently gotten into their flannel shirts as well, they are probably the most well made flannel shirts I own, and they definitely got me through the cold Colorado winter we just had (and some days are still going through).

Kr3W – I’ve been wearing Kr3W jeans for a long long time. Ever since I got into my skinny jean phase (I think once I stopped wearing JNCO’s and Lee Pipes) and wanted to stop paying ridiculous prices for Volcom jeans, I’ve been wearing Kr3W. The jeans were made for people that have chicken legs like I do. I also have a huge stack of Kr3w shirts that I’ve worn so much they have holes in them. They make some killer button up and knit shirts as well as some footwear under the Supra brand. Kr3w is a perfect mix of skate and hip-hop culture.

Fourstar – I just recently discovered Fourstar a few months ago. My friend and owner of the local skate shop Blacklist, Nate, kept on talking them up and telling me to try them out every time I went into the shop…but I’m a stubborn person and I hate trying new things. After hearing about it for a few months, I decided to try out a pair and I loved them, and now I need more pairs. They have a ton of other great stuff too…but their denim is where it’s at.

Creepstreet – If you frequently read my blog, you know that I’m a big horror fan. Creepstreet puts out horror inspired shirts almost exclusively. I have even got to work with them on one shirt from their past season’s release. A lot of the times they parody movies that I didn’t think anyone else would know about besides me (Slime City for example). Boris, that guy who owns Creepstreet, is a pretty funny dude…I’d suggest checking out the Creepstreet blog if you aren’t easily offended. They pump out shirts the way it should be done…multiple colorways and exlusives. They also have some awesome stuff for girls too. If I saw a girl walk past me in some Creepstreet gear, I’d probably instantly fall in love with her.

The Hundreds – This is where my wardrobe gets a little east coast LA influence. I think I have about 5 of their hats that I’ve bought in the past few months and a ton of shirts. A lot of their stuff centers around pop-culture parodies, and if you have seen the kind of art that I do, I love that kind of stuff. They recently just dropped a brand new shoe line too, and although they are a bit like the Vans shoes I love, they are slightly different and come in a lot of cool colorways. They just came out with a cool new “Reload” Jacket that I need to get…but I have to save up for it first!

10Deep – Here is the east coast NYC wardrobe influence and probably my favorite streetwear brand…maybe even my favorite clothing company right now. With each season’s release it gets better and better. I thought their winter drop brough some killer stuff, and then I looked at their Spring release and there is even better stuff. Their cut & sew stuff is off the charts…their sweatshirts, jackets…everything is amazing, and actually pretty classy. I really don’t have much more to say about 10Deep, but I don’t think I really have to, their stuff speaks for itself.

Now, if you have read a lot of my interviews, or if you just know me…it’s no secret that I love cartoons. Cartoons are basically the reason why I love drawing, designing and making art. It was literally the first stepping stone one how I got to be the person I am today. I would spend hours and hours in front of the TV watching cartoons. I would get up early to catch Garfield and Friends before school, and sometimes I’d get lucky and get a late start to school because of snow or I was sick so I could catch Power Rangers or Beast Wars in the morning too! Then after school, KidsWB had a killer line-up of all their great cartoons…like Aladdin, Bonkers, Tale Spin…the list could go on. Saturdays were obviously the best, Fox Kids had the best cartoon line-up in the history of cartoons as far as I am concerned. And then the rest of the weekend would be spent watching Nickelodeon. Yes, I did spend a lot of time inside, my mom would have to literally force me to turn the TV off. But while I was watching TV, I would have a pad of paper and pencil in my hand and draw. These are a few of the cartoons I watched and had a huge influence on me.

The REAL Ghostbusters - This was probably the first cartoon I watched that I would have called my favorite. Although I don’t remember watching it too much when I was a kid, I do remember that I was crazy about it. I had every single toy there was to have, as well as other RGB crap like puzzles, posters and Shrinky Dinks! Going back and watching the cartoon (I bought the Complete Series last year) I can understand why I loved it show much, and I still love it. The stories aren’t dumbed down for kids, and some of them are actually pretty creepy. The character designs in the show are amazing, not just on the Ghostbusters and Slime…but on every single monster there is in the show. The character designer must of had a blast thinking up new monsters for each episode.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - You CANNOT have a cartoon list without including TMNT. This was MY cartoon, I knew everything there was to know about anything TMNT related. Of course I had every single toy as well as beach towels, sleeping bags…everything. This is the cartoon I look back on most fondly was was the first cartoon that really got me to draw the characters. I literally have tons of kindergarden notebooks filled with TMNT drawings. It’s safe to say, I was obsessed with TMNT, as was most of America. Looking back on the show today, it is so corny, but that’s part of the charm. I don’t think I could ever hate this cartoon for any reason. I think it’s the cause of be having a Pizza addiction as well.

Jonny Quest - I didn’t really get into this cartoon until the later years of my childhood, I didn’t really pay attention to all of the old Hannah-Barbera cartoon at the time. Once I got more heavily into art, I started to gain an appreciation for this cartoon. Every single cel from this cartoon looks like a comic book in motion. Everything about it is perfect, from the character designs to the cheesy adventure stories. I almost feel like this type of cartoon is lost with todays cartoons, everything looks so cheap. This cartoon looks so well thought out…it’s almost perfect.

X-Men – This cartoon introduced me to comic books. I didn’t really know or care about comic books until this cartoon came around, but I’m glad it did. The show almost felt like a 30 minute animated soap opera for kids, but I’m ok with that, it’s just what I needed around that age. Everything was so overdramatic in the show, looking back it seems silly, but I didn’t miss an episode of it. I still think that the Phoenix Saga is one of the greatest cartoon arc’s ever and I can’t believe they were able to put something like that on TV, especially for a children’s show.

Batman The Animated Series – There are few times were something so perfect comes around that it’s hard to argue it’s perfectness, this cartoon was one of those times. I bought the entire series a few years back on DVD and re-watched them and the cartoon still holds up today, for both kids and adults. There is nothing dumb about this cartoon at all, it’s incredibly smart. From the character designs, to the writing and even the music…all of these things put together are what makes this cartoon perfect. No cartoon before or after has been able to match how great this is. It’s been so influential to not only other cartoons, but even comic books, that it has it’s own place in the Batman continuity, even by creating new characters and fleshing out old ones that people may have forgotten about. Looking through my old elementary notebooks, there are tons and tons of square jawed Batman drawings. I don’t think this cartoon will even be irrelevant.

welp…that’s it for now. Part 2 will come whenever I think of more stuff to talk about, and when I have more free time….(there is probably a ton of spelling errors, but I typed to much and I don’t really feel like proof-reading)

The Glamour Kills 2010 Spring line just dropped and they have some pretty awesome stuff on here. I don’t usually buy a lot of shirts anymore but there are a lot of things that I might have to buy from this new line. I did a collaboration with Margy G of Glamour Kills, what seems like forever ago, called the Horror Vixen! Go grab it, and get some of their other awesome stuff as well!

Here is some junk I’ve been working on that I either can’t, or wont show for quite a while. I have been working on a ton of fun stuff as of late, so I am pretty happy. I also have been working my butt off too, so I think I’ll have to take a short break next week around my birthday just to relieve some of this exhaustion I have been feeling and to get my life back in order! More fun stuff coming soon…hopefully the skateboards I worked on back in December will be available soon! And hopefully Apple will release an updated Macbook Pro soon…this crappy 5 year old Macbook I’m working on now just aint cutting it any more!

I had the privilege and opportunity to get interviewed by I AM THE TREND a little bit ago and they just put the interview up. I love this website, and I love that they have a website devoted to not just t-shirt art and clothing companies, but they also feature other art -orms and interesting things that are worth reading about!. I try to check out their awesome show every week at IATT TV. Go Check out the interview and if you are not familiar with their website, read some of there articles too! There is a lot of interesting stuff on there!

This was actually the very first thing I did for FRONT but was put in the issue after the one I did the Wolfman Illustration. This stuff was kinda fun but took forever because there was a ton of research to be done about the animals and what they looked like. There are some I dig and some I think I coulda done better with, but that is just how it goes some times! I think these are in the current issue.

Just a few things I’ve been working on, and some stuff that wont be shown for a while! I have some really fun projects coming soon, and some dealing with some pretty big clients!