Deon's Custom Skate Art Deck

My good friend Deon and I met through collecting Star Wars toys and for many years he put his drawing skills on the back burner but now he's back as Jumpsuit Art, kicking huge butt and taking names!


I threw a gig/party/live art thing at a local club for my birthday and asked 6 people to customise some old skool inspired (flat and unrideable) decks I made from leftover 6mm plywood. I was particularly enamoured with Deon's one, especially since he took into account where the trucks would go and he used the space well. When I saw the drawing taking shape, I offered to top any bid. Little did I know the crafty gent had been planning to give it to me all along! Feast your eyes below.

The full deck showing the start of a gentlemen's duel. This is my kind of fish! It would make a hardy rider, with space left for a jawbone and tailbone. Click for a larger view (recommended).

I really dig how the photocopy-proof blue pencil sketching is still visible up close. As an illustrator myself I have to marvel at the perfect balance and poise of these dandy dudes.

Oops! Offence has been taken and sword-cane's are drawn. You can see in this closeup how crappy the plywood is - it must have been a nightmare to draw on using markers.

I'm stoked to have such rad stuff to draw attention to my crappy little blog. I'm sure anyone who's made it this far has been pleasantly surprised to find two posts with absolutely no whinging about scratching the Slasher or how wonderful Speed Demon Gooeys are! Stick with me, there's more to come. Cheers, BB.

Sam's Custom Skate Art Deck

How lucky am I to have such rad friends?

For my recent birthday I received not one, but two customised decks as a gift, amongst many other rad but non-skate related stuff. The first is a KFD deck sanded down to natural wood then painstakingly handpainted in gouache by my good friend Sam Breakspear aka Soopashy (she of the custom Slasher Munny last birthday). The subject of the artwork is kind of an inside joke but at least you can appreciate the ridiculously tight lettering and insane layout.

The full deck. Click for larger view (all pics).

The tightness of this hand lettered logo and the "Ozzie's Café" signage is font-like in it's crispness.

This little guy is so cool, and he's so stoked on his Santa Cruz! Look at the detail and authenticity of the logo and hardware - even the distress on the board and helmet. Insane.

No detail left out - even the typical sneakers–on–a–wire have become Vans Half Cabs!

Just one of two bits of stoking artwork to be uploaded today. Check out more of Sam's work here. I'll sign off on the next post.

Let's recap, shall we?

Sheesh, my posts and sessions have slowed down conversely to the amount of rad old skool stuff I've acquired in the last 4 months! I can't wait to share some photos of all the rails, tailbones, trucks and even decks both old skool, flat and hand painted.

In the meantime, I thought we could all dig a nice update of the Slasher now that it has all it's original hardware and wheels back. I still think my setup looked better but I needed the gooeys for my main rider. These are Bullet trucks and reissue Bullet Church Glass wheels, although both have been scaled down to fit the micro sized deck.

It's now an actual small setup for a lightie rather than a cruiser. Took it down to the beach with my old mate Stuart (he of the backyard half pipe that was torn down in favour of a pool nobody ever swims in) and it rides just fine, but it's slower now without the big wheels.

Another useless ramble from your fishboard-obsessed internet friend, BB.

Skate Art Satire 2

The skateboarding industry is the only one I know of where doing a tribute or satire of a famous graphic is allowed to fly and no one's feeling get hurt. With the incredible news that VCJ has rejoined Powell Peralta and is developing new graphics for them in his signature style, I bring you some of the most recent examples of tribute art. This time it's Element with Mike V and Ray Barbee decks that relook their first pro graphics from back in their Powell Peralta days.


First up is the Mike V Elephant (renamed Patchyderm in the case of the Element version). With Mike V back on Powell Peralta, this deck is already marked down at most online skate stores and will be gone soon. The original on the left is Vallely's actual first pro deck.

Not sure which artist is responsible for the new elephant on the right but this Element ragdoll guitarist below is done by Sean Cliver, the ex-Powell Peralta artist who created the companies most prolific graphics, including the original ragdoll, after VCJ parted ways with them.

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?