MUSICAL ARSONISTS

This week’s portrait, Dave Grohl!

Everlong, Monkey Wrench, My Hero and the list goes on. Often I’d hear certain songs on the radio but for some reason never made a real effort to find out who the performers were. In 2011 I discovered the name of one of those performers. The guest band on Conan came to perform a song and after the taping continued to play, giving the audience and staff basically a mini concert. What made that moment special for me was the fact that I had heard a number of the songs before and loved them and now in front of me playing them live was their creator, The Foo Fighters.

I’ve been wanting to do Dave’s portrait for a while now, but I wasn’t sure of the direction to take, then I remembered that there was this special on HBO about the Foo Fighters album, Sonic Highways, I watched it for some inspiration and got a whole lot more. It’s an amazing 8 episode series covering each song on that album with each one being recorded in a different city, and the musical history of that city.

I think in the very first episode, Dave was talking about the song, “Something from Nothing” and the phrase, “musical arsonist” came up and I thought that it, that’s why I love their music. It’s a lot like a fire that gets lit and then starts to burn hot and fast. The Foo Fighters are arsonist using music as the medium to start the inferno.

I wanted the feel of fire in this portrait so I decided on setting Dave on fire… his hair of course. As for the background colors, red and black I picked up from their logo. Though now looking at the finish art there’s an X-Men feel to the background which wasn’t my intent.

Unlike my regular illustrations, aside from working out the likeness in pencil, there isn’t a lot of preliminary art created especially with the colors. I’ve been trying to feel my way through each one, with a theme in mind and picking colors as I go. 

That’s the fun and the challenge for me every time, I have nothing but my imagination on how I think each one will turn out.