Skateboard Graphics: Mike V reads my mind

Video courtesy of Shred or Die

Fat Friday 4 - Pure, unfiltered full cream 100% fat decks

Ahoy, it's been ages! What can I say, my house has kept me busy.
For this Fat Friday, I think y'all should explore on your own so I have compiled below, for your surfing pleasure, a shortlist of some of the finest independent and underground skateboard manufacturers, all of whom lean towards the fatter side of things.

Big Mess Skateboards - Early 90's "football" shapes with graphics by shit hot artists including the current art director of Santa Cruz, Lucas Musgrave and Michael Walrave, my favourite artist at the moment (see below)

Five Points Custom Skateboards - Custom old skool pool and ramp boards in every shape imaginable or design your own. Fat-ness!

American Sideshow (Johnny "Mojo" Munnerlyn) - Original Santa Cruz artist working under Jim Phillips in the 80's.

Never Again Skateboards - Honourable mention for effort, although a little on the slim side sometimes.

Destructive Hellride Skateboards - Really sick Z boy style cruisers with moulded death grip and the most original plastic accessories ever created.

Getting ready to bomb Florida

I bought this "Diadora" Sector Nine knockoff as a complete from the local car boot market for R100 a while back.

Worst case scenario, I could use it for truck spares I thought. It came with really odd wheels - 53mm but wide and around 78a durometer. It had the worst graphics I've ever seen - an obviously traced image of a snowboarder and a set of stairs with absolutely NO perspective. Something had to be done!

While I waited for the  first coat to dry I popped the hardware onto The Donor (you remember The Donor from before hey?). Took it for a cruise round the block - have you ever ridden a deck with hardly any concave, a short wheelbase and old skool mounting pattern? It's as weird as it seems!

This, by the way, is all in preparation for a mass bombing of Florida Road tomorrow, hosted by Zoo York.

Bombing Florida Poster

Until then, BB

Enough is enough.

I'm going to take it right back to basics and keep it simple - no point trying to run before I can walk.


Here's my next goal:

Tech Decks, Bullet Rounds and "Guess The Vintage Board"

Howdy, I've been mighty quiet on the updates. This would be due to finding over 1000 like-minded people who do nothing but eat, sleep, drink and talk (online) old-skool 80's - early 90's skateboards on the skull and bones skateboards website.

I've collected some shit to throw up here and since it's been over a month I'm cramming it all into one post!

Tech Decks. I really dig these! I've been trying to get my hands on any with classic graphics but I'll take satirical ones like this Black Label my friend Stuart gave me happily. This is a snap of the ones at work.

Now, a good long while ago before I found the pink Speed Demon wheels for my slasher (see 1st post) I caved in and bought a set of Bullet Rounds (52mm/1000a?). I never ended up using them but since the speed demons are now on my KFD pool board I thought I'd give them a spin. They look ok on the slasher, but not half as good as the green ones would have.

They're the polar opposite from the kind of wheels I like - and that's big and mushy if you hadn't gathered thus far. They are easily the hardest wheels I've ever encountered, they make for a very bumpy, noisy ride and the way a relatively smooth road rips into them reminds me of my first rollerblade knockoffs in 1996. Yup, BB was a 'blader once upon a time! I suppose they're designed for über slick concrete parks but they're no good to me.

The last little goodie I've got for you is a photo of a rad old skool setup that came whizzing past me while my lady and I were strolling around Cape Town last week. The guy was kind enough to let me take a snap. He couldn't remember where he got it and he really had no clue what I was talking about when I started enthusiastically rambling on about the bones brigade et al. Cool board though ...

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some video footage of a cool secret spot by the next time you visit this blog! Peace out, BB

Skate-inspired design by Board Brain

Oi! I've decided to share with you, a couple of designs I've done that are heavily based on 80's skate graphics.

Hope they make you recoil or at least put on some sunglasses!

Peace, BB

2007: This one predates Board Brain and getting back into skating by 3 years!

2009 Sticker design - Screaming Devil Horns?

Santa Cruz Slasher - Custom Munny by Sam Breakspear

Yo! If you've read all my posts since the very first one you'll know it was the Santa Cruz Slasher that got me back into old skool skating, or more specifically, dropping in on a mini ramp in full padding in a goose-like pose.

Well my good friend Sam Breakspear aka Soopa Shy is just starting off in the world of custom vinyl toys and for my birthday she turned a standard Munny into the original Slasher character from 1984!

The original pre-sword surfin' slasher

Check out more pics of Sam's awesome Slasher custom here.

p.s. If you don't know what a Munny is, check out Kidrobot Munnyworld.

Fat Friday 3 - Sims Lester Kasai Pro Fattie

Frak me! It's after midnight as I post this - can't believe Friday disappeared so fast. Anyway, since I have but three followers and one RSS'er to date, I'm sure you guys won't mind if I post the latest fattie on what is technically Saturday morning!


As a grom of the 80's, I was a full on Hawk, Caballero and McGill devotee (the bones brigade were just so cool man!) but at the same time, old Lester was getting some serious air riding for Sims. This model looks like the one Makro must have taken to China and said, "Replicate, only cheaper".


Check out Lester and co kicking it lumo in '86!


Good night, BB.

Chick Skaters (who skate better than me)

Fat Friday 2 - Pure, unfiltered full cream 100% fat decks

Another Friday rolls around and I do have much to say about "learning to drop in again". That's the easy part - but I'm fully slapstick when it comes to rock to fakies so let's not even talk about it until I have either cringeworthy pics and video, or until I've successfully completed this simple old skool trick.

In lieu, have some pics of even fatter fatty fat fat old skool decks than the last Fat Friday!

First up, as promised last time - the Dogtown Bigfoot:

The iconic Hosoi Hammerhead - possibly the most Ninja-like deck shape ever!

A Zorlac Fire Demon (both sides shown):

And finally, the fattest of them all. This is like if Hummer made boards. I don't even know what this Sims monstrosity is, it was sent to me on email to pwn my claim of the Dogtown being the widest deck I could think of. I stand corrected Sirs!

And so ends another useless ramble. Until next time, Peace! BB.