June 6th, 1944 – D-Day

There are a handful of events in human history that are almost too massive to comprehend, things so complicated and dangerous it’s hard to believe they actually happened. Some of those moments are positive, like landing on the moon in 1969, and others are equally epic but a bit gruesome. The Normandy invasions of 1944 marked the beginning of a turning point in World War 2, and basically changed the course of history.

The Allied invasion of Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944 was the largest amphibious invasion in world history. 160,000 soldiers invaded by land, sea, and air. Some people often assume the ‘D’ in ‘D-Day’ stands for something specific, but it actually just stands for ‘Day’. ‘D-Day, H-Hour’ is used for planning a military operation with unknown dates or times. The massive invasion was subject to inclement weather (among a million other potential problems), so ‘D-Day’ was simply a stand-in term for the date of the invasion which was subject to change (and a lot of secrecy).

Among all of the pivotal moments in history, this one simply sticks out to me because it was so visually stunning. Under total secrecy, it places an entire global conflict on one strand of beaches. Entire armies bottlenecked into one location, facing an insane myriad of obstacles, traps, mines, and machine gun fire. It was a surreal, terrifying hellscape of a battle that no one photo or image can really capture.

1998′s Saving Private Ryan and 2001′s Band of Brothers miniseries absolutely do the best job of visually capturing the scope and terror of D-Day, so I watched both in preparation for creating this illustration. Saving Private Ryan places the viewer directly inside a landing boat on Omaha beach, and Band of Brothers shows the paratroopers dropping in at night above Normandy. Day invasion, night invasion, and I was recently asked to make a glow in the dark print for a gallery show, so you can see where this is headed.

The print is a 4 color screen print, using 3 grays in addition to glow in the dark ink. The ‘day’ visible print shows the Allied invasion from the sea. Hundreds of soldiers fighting their way through artillery, machine gun fire, land mines, and Czech Hedgehogs (those x-shaped steel thingies used to stop vehicles). The ‘night’ visible part of the print used glow in the dark ink to show Allied bombers and paratroopers dropping in on Normandy (and being shot down). I referenced dozens of official photos from the invasion in 1944 in addition to the films. The poster is incredibly detailed and took quite some time to draw, but I felt it was important to be accurate to the scale of it all.

The print was made for Bottleneck Gallery‘s glow in the dark show, titled “When the Lights Go Out.” My 36×12″ poster is available for sale exclusively at the gallery and their online store. If you check out the show in Brooklyn, there are 60+ more artists featured and black lights throughout the gallery. It looks crazy fun, and maybe you’ll get a free glow stick.

Day

Night (Glow in the Dark)

• Title: Day of Days
• Artist: Rob Loukotka
• Size: 36×12″
• 3 color screen print on Madero Beach French Paper + Glow in the Dark ink layer
• Limited Edition of 180
• Signed and numbered (by me!)
• Price: $40

It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.

As a resident of Chicago, you can’t help but love this movie. As an American, or a music lover, or car lover, or sunglasses wearer, you can’t help but love this movie. Blues Brothers is a ridiculously over the top (and over budget) “action-comedy-musical”. Set in 1980, Blues Brothers may just have the best soundtrack to a film of all time (sorry, Daft Punk) thanks to incredible (singing) cameos by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and a hell of a lot more. It’s so. Fucking. Good.

I drank some beers, blasted a LOT of blues music, and drew the Blues Brothers print that I’ve always wanted to see. A print that captures our disheveled yet suave outlaws, Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd). Black suits, skinny black ties, black fedoras, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and white socks. Okay, the socks aren’t in the print, but they are still awesome. I drew Jake and Elwood driving the Bluesmobile, being chased by no less than 23 Chicago cop cars, and they don’t really seem to care.

I made this print as a part of Gallery1988‘s surprise SNL themed gallery show in Los Angeles, titled “Is This Thing On #2 Too | A tribute to SNL”. The gallery show is open March 29th – April 29th, so if you’re in Los Angeles, go check it out. But you can buy my Blues Brothers print online.

Rather than strict black and white, this print uses dark brown ink on warm ‘Sand’ Speckletone French Paper along with the red and blue ink. I thought there would be no better way to light Jake and Elwood’s faces than with police lights in the background, so I basically split the whole piece using red on the left, and blue on the right. It looks REAL GOOD up close in person.

• Title: We’re on a Mission from God
• Size: 36×12″ (three feet wide!)
• Edition of 180
• 3-color screen print on Sand Speckleton French Paper
• Signed and numbered by Rob Loukotka (that’s me!)
• Price: $40

Click the detail shot below to look at a 1680px wide shot of my Blues Brothers poster.

I don’t want Fop, goddamn it! I’m a Dapper Dan man!

Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? is an timeless collection of beautiful scenery, insane characters, and great music. Everybody remembers The Soggy Bottom Boys, Pete getting turned into a toad, and Dapper Dan hair pomade. For Gallery1988‘s “Product Placement” show, Dapper Dan pomade seemed like a perfect subject to illustrate. The theme was to create a real advertisement for a fictional product.

Since the movie was set in 1937, I tried to capture the look and feel of a poster plastered on a wall in a Depression-era Five and Dime store. I borrowed the exact copy from the Dapper Dan pomade can and added a bit of marketing jargon that felt appropriate for the era. I even added a bit in the corner that reads “Genuine pomade used by The Soggy Bottom Boys!” which is technically true?

Printed by VGKids on Cream Speckletone from the French Paper Company, there’s lots of little fibers, dark spots, and flecks appropriate for something that has been laying around since the ’30s. I think this poster would be a great fit for a bar, but I don’t have a bar

Anyway, these Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade prints are available exclusively at Gallery1988 in Los Angeles, or in their online store.

• Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade
• 24×18″
• 3 color screen print
• 80lb Cream Speckletone paper
• Edition size: 90
• Signed and numbered (by me!)
• Price: $40

“Whoa.”

I illustrated this out of a great love for the movie. My work doesn’t generally capture love stories, but the bond between two robots felt too compelling not to illustrate. It’s truly a better love story than almost any other film I can think of. Little robots are so cute that it physically hurts me to watch the movie. “Look he thinks he’s people! Look at him put on his shoes! Oh god! SO CUTE. AGHHH!”

As usual, I’m fascinated as much by the environments in this film as I am the characters. The ‘Trash Planet’ Earth is as pretty as it is dirty. So 95% of this gigantic illustration is my take on the pollution. Trash mountains, dust storms, cubes, even a dense cloud of artificial satellites forming the barrier between earth and space.

Anyway, this is just my take on an already beautiful movie. This is unofficial fan art, but I think it captures a lot of great details. Always fun to watch a movie on a weekend and draw fun stuff.

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to drive.”

My newest limited edition print: 007 DB5. James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 is a classic, so when I was approached by Bottleneck Gallery for their Gadgets & Gizmos show, I knew exactly what fictional technology deserved my time and energy. Bond’s gadget filled Aston Martin was unveiled in 1964′s Goldfinger, but also made appearances in Thunderball, Goldeneye, Casino Royale, and 2012′s Skyfall.

Similar to Skyfall, I wanted my print to be deeply rooted in the past. No fancy computers, no buildings, just a DB5 blasting its classic dual machine guns. The custom DB5 (license BMT 216A) was also equipped with battering rams, smoke screens, bulletproof windows, shields, tire shredders, oil slick, rotating license plates, and an ejector seat. You can even catch a glimpse of 007 himself driving the car.

How to get a 007 DB5 print:

This piece is limited to exactly 180 prints available exclusively from Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn (online and at their physical location). It’s a gorgeous two color screen print by VGKids in Michigan, using white and shiny metallic gold ink. The gold ink rocks on the muzzle flares and draws from the DB5′s debut in Goldfinger. It’s printed on gigantic 12×36″ ‘Blacktop’ construction paper from the French Paper Company. Prints are available here at Bottleneck Gallery’s website.

And here’s a shot of the final print file with halftones for screen printing:

Print isn’t dead!

My ACME Corporation poster is featured in the Wall Street Journal (January 5th, 2013). ACME’s Best Product Ever is featured on page C14 of the weekend edition! Special thanks to WSJ reporter Stefanie Cohen for the great interview and writing.

The article features my idea and design process, as well as my plans to build an art studio in Chicago with the funds from the ACME Kickstarter project.

How to buy an ACME poster:

Be the FIRST to know when the final ACME Posters are up for sale:

My limited edition ACME Corporation posters are almost sold out! 3,254 posters were purchased on Kickstarter, and I’m limiting the edition to just 3,400. That means roughly 100 posters will be up for sale towards the end of January / early February. The only way to be notified when these final ACME posters go up for sale is to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or my email newsletter.

We wish you a January Christmas!

A good number of the 3,000 ACME Corporation posters on my Kickstarter have been purchased as gifts. An illustrated 24×36″ poster of 126 different ACME gadgets makes an awesome Christmas gift indeed! But I’ll be printing and shipping the posters in January, long after the holidays are over. The tree will have withered, the ornaments will be broken, the fruitcake hardened into stone, only then will your beautiful (and gigantic) ACME print arrive.

Solution: Free ACME Christmas e-cards for everybody! I’m offering two different versions of this ‘We wish you a January Christmas’ card. One is an e-card suitable for typing in names and emailing to friends/family. The other is a print file you can print out on your home printer, fold, and give to that special someone on Christmas morning. Or whatever morning.

ACME E-Card

E-Card Insructions:

1. Download the E-Card .PDF
2. Type the ‘To:’ and ‘From:’ names into the fields provided.
3. Type a message into the field provided.
4. Save the now edited .PDF
5. Send it to your giftee via email or the web! Do whatever you wish with it.

ACME Print Card – Front & Back & 

Print Card Instructions:

1. Download the Print Card’s Front & Back .PDF, and the Inside .PDF
2. Print the Front/Back file on a regular sheet of 8.5×11″ computer paper.
3. Flip that paper over, put it back in your printer, then print the Inside file on the opposite side.
4. Fold the now double-sided page in half (right down the middle).
5. You have a printed Christmas card! Write on it, put it in an envelope, the world is your oyster!
6. Give it to your giftee and explain that Christmas comes in January.

Want to order a second ACME poster as a gift? Simply increase your pledge from $30 to $60 and I’ll send you two posters in January. International orders would be $40 for one, and $70 for two. (You can also order 3 posters, etc. by increasing your pledge further)

Feel free to use these cards however you want. Email them, tweet them, Facebook them, print them large or small. As long as your giftee knows you got them a rad poster, you’re good!

If you haven’t bought an ACME Corporation poster yet, time is running out! Only 4 days left. These limited edition prints will NEVER be reprinted, so you only have until December 24th at 4pm CST.

When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.

When Silver Screen Society approached me to create some work for their ‘Alternate Endings’ show, I knew it had to be Batman. ‘Alternate Endings‘ is a collection of prints and posters depicting movie that have ended a bit… differently. Lost characters surviving, new plot twists added, heroes dying, that sort of thing.

(Spolier Alert!) As a huge Batman fan (and Christopher Nolan fan), I jumped on the idea and wanted to depict Gotham if Batman couldn’t save it. Depict Gotham as the nuclear wasteland that Bane and Talia had intended. You no longer have to ‘Imagine the Fire’.

The (gigantic) map that I drew is based on the official maps that appeared in movie and the viral campaigns for The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises. Though fictional, nearly every building and street location is 100% accurate. I froze stills of the movie, compared viral campaign maps to movie maps, and found key locations in the city. Gotham Rogues Stadium, Wayne Tower, Gotham Opera House, and tons of bridges are all destroyed but present in the illustration.

Screen printed by VGKids in Michigan, this limited edition print is available exclusively from Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn. The ‘Alternate Endings’ show is open December 14th to January 4th. So get your ass over to Brooklyn and check it out, or just buy a print online. Special thanks to Silver Screen Society and Bottleneck Gallery for putting this on.

“Ruins of Gotham” is printed on beautiful Madero Beach Speckletone paper from the French Paper Company.

Title: “Ruins of Gotham” – Artist: Rob Loukotka (Fringe Focus) – Size: 12×36″ – One Color Screen Print – Limited Edition of 100 (numbered) – $40

A giant poster of every ACME product, ever.

126 drawings of explosives, gadgets, rockets, and more!

I watched every Coyote & Road Runner episode, then hand drew all 126 wacky gadgets, explosives, and items that appeared in the cartoons.

Tornado seeds! Giant magnets! Dynamite! Rocket powered roller skates! Anvils! Giant Rubber Bands! I spent over 100 hours illustrating, designing, and researching this one poster.

The fictional ACME Corporation appeared in nearly all 43 Coyote & Road Runner cartoons from 1949-1994. They make any product you can imagine. I’ve loved The ACME Corporation since I was a kid because they’re a true dream factory.

How amazing would it be if The ACME Corporation were real? That’s why I made this poster; to make our world a little crazier.

Only a giant 24×36″ poster can capture the incredible detail of these fun items. The posters will be beautifully screen printed on thick ‘Wild Cherry Red’ French Paper, signed and numbered by me. One poster is $30 and includes shipping anywhere in the US; $40 for anywhere else in the world.

This is my largest and most detailed project of my life, and I would love for you to be a part of it! This poster is available NOW only on Kickstarter.

Hit me on Twitter if you’d like to chat about this project, or Grab an ACME print now on Kickstarter! Thanks.