Pop Brollies - Wedding Skulls

Just before I shipped out this wonderful custom set of Pop Brollies I managed to put together a quick impromptu photo shoot. These umbrellas turned out really fantastic. Done in red and silver on a black wood cane umbrella, all the umbrellas got a variation of a skull & crossbone design. The ladies umbrellas were done with a googly-eyed kitty skull & crossbone. The gents had regular googly-eyed skull & crossbones. In order to set the bride and grooms umbrellas apart, I reduced the size of the swirls and vines and enlarged one skull & crossbone, leaving a few smaller ones as well. In total there were 12 to the set. And I'm anxiously awaiting the photos from the real couple.

For more images of this wedding set of umbrellas, see the photo shoot on flickr.

Steampunk Fashion Show - Redux

I did another Steampunk Fashion Show in January. While I did include the Bombs Away, Stripes, Silhouette and Steam Engine Wheel, I did create three new umbrellas for this show. First was Pop Brollies - The Penguin's Umbrella. This is a design I created for an Etsy Customer. She wanted the Penguin's Umbrella from the first Batman Movie... You remember Danny DeVito's delightfully disgusting portrayal, I'm sure. To me, it feels a bit more Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, but hey, you say tomato and I say tomato, right? Either way, it looks great but this design does come with a small price, it took a lot of paint, and a couple of tries, but in the end, it's amazing and such a fun umbrella for any Halloween fan.

Pop Brollies - Fuck Cancer. I have a friend who has gone through some really tough times lately. She is a cancer survivor, but just lost her father to it. I lost my mother to lung cancer not to long ago too, so my heart was with her as she went through this struggle. As a gift, At her request, I made her a geary, swirly, fuck cancer umbrella, based off of my original 1900 Gears design.








Pop Brollies - 1900 Flower Gears. In my search for gears I found so many great designs from the 1900's that just one wouldn't cut it. I want to have a nice variety for people to choose from. So, while the other design was based on hearts, this one is based on outer space and flowers so that each gear has a wonderful galactic floral feel to them. They even remind me of stained glass windows.

I'm also thrilled to share with you a close up of that Steam Wheel design from the previous fashion show. It's such an impressive scale and detail it was a shame to lose it in such a faar away shot.

All of these photos are thanks to Jason Ernst over at Wildhare Designs. Check out images from the rest of the fashion show including close ups of my other designs on his site. For even more photos, check out BCJ Photography who, once again, was the official photographer of the event.

Steampunk Fashion Show

I really have been horrible about getting updates done. I suppose that's because I've been so busy painting umbrellas rather than blogging about them. Here I'm thrilled to show off the set I created for the first Steampunk Fashion Show held at the Subterranean in Chicago November 2008. I really need to get these out for a special shoot outside one day soon, since I still have them, but in the meantime I give you the few shots I do have and will follow up with a couple links to others photos.

First up Pop Brollies - Bombs Away. This design was graciously permitted by the amazing Bethany Shorb, the genius behind the Cyberoptix Tie Lab. This is one of her very popular ties. I took the design scaled it way up and hand painted it on a black wood cane umbrella.

Next, Pop Brollies - Steam Wheel. I found the inspiration for this umbrella on a turn-of-the-century steam engine wheel. Obviously the umbrella lends itself to the wheel so it seemed the natural choice for a steampunk themed fashion show. After digging long and hard for just the right way to do this, I found some schematics of a steam engine. Stripped out some excess, enlarged to near life-like scale and voila. A great design for the engineer in your life.

Pop Brollies - Carnival Stripes. I became obsessed with the idea of creating perfect wide stripes on a curved surface. No easy feat mind you, this umbrella clocked in about a month's worth of work in and of itself. I can say if I ever do this one again, it won't take as much time, but I'd guess it'd still rack up a good 40 hours solid. Never-the-less, it turned out fantastic and I'm keeping this one for myself. I love walking around in the rain with it. It's so Beetlejuice!

Pop Brollies - Silhouette. When I think of Victoriana, I immediately think of a silhouette. A classic gentleman's profile in white on a black wooden cane style umbrella. I can just imagine this umbrella along with a lady's silhouette as the perfect wedding gift for a unique bride and groom.

Pop Brollies - 1900 Gears. You can't have Steampunk without gears, but I didn't dig up any old gears for this umbrella. I scoured the net for hours to find gears from bicycle chainrings from the turn of the century. Sadly this photo doesn't quite show them off as well as I'd like, I'll have to see if I have some better photos for you. I can tell you the largest gear at the top is wonderfully sweet with heart shapes in the cut-out of the gear. A wonderful design for a valentine's day gift or just to tell someone you care enough to keep them covered all the time.

Pop Brollies - Hi Biscus. You've already had the pleasure of seeing this wonderful umbrella, but I did choose to show it at the Steampunk Fashion Show as Victorians were keen to study horticulture and often tended to their gardens. My model did such a great job in the show, I wanted to include the photo here for you to enjoy.

For some more great shots, check out the BCJ Photography site, home of the event's photographer.(Warning some images are NSFW) You can also check out the entire runway shoot on my flickr account.