This piece was commissioned by a guy I used to work with when I was designing apparel (hats) for RG. He was the rep for our hat manufacturer- he would fly into Austin from China to meet with us and show us the new hat production capabilities (fits of hats, different fabrics, embroidery, printing etc.) I would come up with design ideas and Meyer turned them into a physical thing. We’ve kept in touch over the years and when he asked if I’d do a commissioned painting I was happy to be the one who physically manifested HIS ideas.

They recently moved from California to San Antonio and during the move they lost this Grateful Dead poster. He asked me to reimagine the poster and include his family and pets- 5 people, 4 dogs, and a horse, as an anniversary gift.

The design started with simple sketches. Then I composited the scene with 3d modeling software (cinema 4D and I found the Alamo Model on Sketchup marketplace) This took about a week to compile the assets, pose the skeletons and get the lighting dialed in. After that I built the canvas out of hardboard, put about 6 layers of gesso on it and transferred the outlines to the canvas.