Discovery Channel's TV shows like "Motorcycle Mania", "American Choppers", "Monster Garage" and the "Biker Build Off" series really got the chopper motorcycle crazy going again like wild fire and brought it into the mainstream.

Being a long time motorcycle fan, I had been reading Easyriders magazine practically since issue one. I also had been doing illustrations for BIKER magazine for several years before the TV series started.

So I was thrilled when Paisano Publications asked me to do spot illustrations of the bike builders from the Biker Build Off TV series for the Poly Bags of their magazines.

It started with a cartoon of Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. doing what they do best ... fight, since then I've done twenty five or thirty of these spot illustrations for Paisano and they have appeared on the Poly Bags of Easyriders, V-Twin and In The Wind magazines. They even started to show up in background shots of the TV shows like American Choppers ( Shot 1 , Shot 2 ).

Now just in case you think drawing cartoons of bikers sounds easy, let me tell you something...

First of all finding photos of the bikes these guys build is easy, but try to find a good photo of them to draw from and it becomes a all day hunt.

Second, the magazine might want to do the art in a "particular" way to make it a "characture" and charactures are not always shall we say flattering.

Now I have a lot of respect for both my Publisher and for these Builders, so when I'm asked to put Clown Noses on certain people or to exaggerate certain facial features, well sometime I gotta' ask, Is this a good idea? , I know I don't wanna' get punched, how much of a sense of humor does this person have?.

In the end no one ever got punched that I know of, but several drawings where scrapped and redrawn in order to be sure to give these guys the proper respect they are due. Some by my suggestion, some by the Publishers and other by the request of the Builders themselves.

I even had the good fortune to meet Arlen Ness at the International Motorcycle Show in San Jose and have him autograph a print of my drawing of him which is now one of my prized items in my collection.

Also it's pretty cool to know that prints of My art work hang some where in the offices of all these great bike builders. For an old motorhead like me, that's a pretty big thrill.

These days I see similar spot illustrations on Poly Bags of other magazines, like some on the Tattoo mags and such, but I did it FIRST !

LINKS TO VISIT :

Easyriders Magazine >

Discovery Channel >

Orange County Choppers >

Arlen Ness >

The Detroit Brothers >

Indian Larry >

Billy Lane's Choppers Inc >

Thunder Cycle >

Kendall Johnson Customs >

Milwaukee Iron >

Matt Hotch's Hot Match Custom Cycles >

MGS Customs >

Dave Perewitz >

Rick Fairless Strokers Dallas >

Covingtons Cycle City >