A one-way mirror to my soul.

Ahoy! This January was really fun, because I got to kick off the year with working on my helmet design for Nutcase Helmets' artist design series. Going in, I felt pretty good, having designed quite a bit for print before. There were, however, some fun new challenges that arose in the drawing process. I got to go into the Nutcase offices here in Portland, and talk one on one about our printing restrictions whilst holding onto helmets. After some amazing creative work together that led to a nautical adventure design (YES!), I started out on the work. After transferring my drawings to linoleum, I carved them out.

I then mixed some inks, brayered them out, and inked up my linoleum to get it ready to print.

The most exciting part of my process is when I get to see how the print turned out!

After this part, I scan the prints into photoshop, and start the less glamourous process of layering and coloring in photoshop. This is a very exciting time for me, as this is when the art starts to really sing.

(Photo credit: Toby Orzano)
Designing for a round helmet is like designing for a globe. Do you remember those world maps where the globe is in a weird shape because you can't squish a circle down to a rectangle on paper? EXACTLY. In the end, we decided to put the background image directly on the helmet, then have the foreground characters as decals that will be added on top.

What foreground characters, you ask? How about a pedal-powered Jules Verne-inspired machine?

Or, one of my classic divers that I'm so in love with?

Or a WHALE SUBMARINE? What? YES. Obviously I had a lot of fun on this project.

So, I'll get to see all of this loveliness on some real helmets on the prototypes we'll be bringing to Eurobike and Interbike this late summer/early autumn. These helmets will be available to YOU, the general public, in spring 2016. Until then, save your pennies! XOXO, Carla