FLier than the rest of 'em...

Posted by Ebun | Posted in , | Posted on 1:15 AM

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I'm gonna take a break from the usual. Instead of posting something I produced/designed I'm going to critique someone else's design. In this case, the 2010 Mercedes SLS AMG.
I love cars and hope to one day design some amongst the myriad of other things I will design. Anyhow, anyone who is familiar with the iconic 1955 Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing
will immediately recognize the similarities within these two models.
The iconic "gullwing" doors, front grille, side vents all re-emerge on the 2010 SLS AMG. This design feels like it was born out of nostalgia and an intent to establish the SLS as the same iconic car the 300SL became back in the 50s. However, it must be said that a lot of car manufacturers are looking back in the past and recreating classic designs; namely Ford with the Mustang;Dodge with the Charger and Challeger, and Chevrolet with the Camaro. Are these designs all recreated out of nostalgia? Or are they a last ditch effort to recapture the hearts of customers more concerned with fuel-economy and practical cars? That's a discussion for another day. Back to the critique of the 2010 SLS AMG.




In plan view (above) the car looks like a bird with its wings outspread, which lends to the notion of flight and speed which I'm sure Mercedes were going for, except you won't be flying down the freeway with the "doors" up, or at least I'd hope not.



The back I'm not too sold on. The design gurus at Mercedes could've really set off this design with the back. I figure they went "safe" with the front because it's one of the most recognizable aspects of the car and understand why they kept it very similar to the 1955 Gullwing. The back looks like the lovechild of the 1997 Acura 2.2 CL and the 2003 era Infiniti M45. Not what you would expect from a car that's gonna run you a few million pesos.

02-2010-sls-amg-leakage

The profile, the whole car actually, looks very similar to the SLR McLaren except for the cropped front grille on the SLS versus the pointy one on the SLR McLaren. I'm not sure exactly, I haven't read up on the status of the McLaren, but I'm guessing the SLS will replace the SLR? I don't see the sense in producing both cars simultaneously.


In comparison to the classic of the '50s though, I commend Mercedes for making the gullwings doors actual, well, doors. See, the 1955 model had a high sill (as seen in the pic above) which made entry and exit of the vehicle difficult. So the fact that the doors swung all the way up was rather foolish from a functional design standpoint. However on the 2010 model it looks like you can actually put your legs on the ground and exit the car without much effort.


I was hoping to really tear this car apart, but I really can't. There isn't much to really say about it either way. I'm not overly impressed because it's a familiar design just modernized. Of course this is just from seeing the car in pictures on the internet, so take my critique with a grain of salt. As far as the interior, I am not impressed. At all.



The center console looks like it was manufactured by Dodge and not Mercedes.


If I'm fortunate enough to own one in the near or distant future (depending on how many shirts I can sell) or get to see/drive one, I'll update this post with a more in-depth and accurate review. This will do until then. Cheers.

The beauty is in the process

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 1:24 AM

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In a few of my previous shirt posts, I had snapshots of the shirt as it became what it is. In this post I essentially do the same thing, however I am documenting a different procedure of making a shirt: stenciling. No matter what the design was I have always trusted that my hands were good and steady enough to create an accurate rendition of what I had in my head, or already drawn out. However, part of being a good artist is trying new things and exploring different avenues that ought to bring you to a similar result. So this time, I decided to try stenciling out.

Step 1:
I drew out the design on a piece of 8.5"x 11" paper and then inked over it to really get the boundaries of the design.



Step 2:

I take an Xacto knife and begin cutting out the design to create a stencil.


Step 3:
Once the stencil was cut out, I realized how foolish of me it was to cut out the design on a piece of paper: It isn't strong enough to handle paint, but I didn't have chipboard around. Not letting that deter me, I used push pins to hold the tight edges and corners down onto the shirt.



Step 4:
I took a paint brush and began painting. And problems started happening, but I made the best of it.

Step 5:
The semi-finished product. I took off the paper once I was done painting and to my dismay some of the paint bled through the paper (duh) so I have to go back and "manually" fix the smudged edges. C+ for my first time trying this technique, I'll work on perfecting it over the winter break.

The advantage this technique gives is that it saves a lot of painting time and the edges come out sharper and neater than a purely hand-painted shirt. It took me maybe 10 minutes tops to apply paint. Most of the time was spent drawing out the design, then inking it, then cutting out as neatly as I possibly could before applying paint. In contrast, straight painting is a little more rough around the edges and has a more "artistic" look and feel once it's completed. I still prefer straight painting, for now, because I can put much more colors on a shirt simultaneously, as opposed to a stencil which is similar to screen printing where you can only apply one color at a time and basically have to layer. All in all, it was a fun process. Maybe I'll get into graffiti...

Re-Boot

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 1:54 AM

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I created this blog to represent everything that's "me" Over time it has become saturated with my t-shirt and mostly my design work, which is fine, but there's more to me than that.

I'm into fashion/style and have liked shoes ever since I was a little kid. As one grows and matures, so does your style and the things you wear reflect that maturity. Lately, I've been wearing a lot of suede bucks, desert boots, loafers and boots. This post is about the "boot" and the ones I am fortunate to own.

Earlier today, I went home to NJ to pick up a package that has been waiting for me for almost two weeks now. I ordered the grey RL Rangers from davidz.com and upon putting them in my closet, I realized I have quite a few pairs of boots. I only documented the three "tallest" ones in this post.

The Calvin Klein Caribou was an impulse buy that I do not regret one bit (my birthday present to myself). It was half the retail price and it's a very stylish boot. This is the decepticon boot and what I mean by that is the way I wear it (with my pants covering the boot) can be deceptive. A quick glance and you'd think I'm wearing a pair of cap-toe oxfords. However, if I were to raise my pant leg, you would be met with 8" of beautiful brown leather
split down the middle with a very cleverly placed zipper that makes the boot a breeze to pull on or off. My only gripe with this boot is that it isn't the best thing to walk in. It's actually quite uncomfortable, but sometimes that's the price of good style.
The Tommy Hilfiger Barstow. This boot was given to me as a birthday gift about a month ago. I like this boot because it is rugged. Most people say it's "ugly" and quite frankly I think they mean to say it isn't sleek or it doesn't have a svelte profile. This boot isn't made for style. It is made for function. The Caribou won't hold up well in the rain or in the snow (you shouldn't even be wearing it in such conditions anyway). The Barstow is definitely my go-to boot for the blistering cold weather.

Another reason I fancy this boot is because it stands in stark contrast to the ubiquitous Polo Holden boots. The Holden's are rugged, no doubt about that, but the Barstow, to me at least, are better crafted and there is an attention to detail (see the buttery-tan leather on the green canvas vs. the brown upper) that I'm yet to see on a boot of that stature. Plus it folds down to half it's height, which is nice.
Polo Rangers. It's almost pointless to talk about this boot or sing its praises because, well, it is THE boot of the moment. A while back on Twitter, I posted something to the effect of "you can keep your Ranger boots, give me a pair of Tommy Barstows" and then I saw the gray rangers... Granted, it was a very impulsive buy and when I showed my mother she was like "oh wow, those are nice" and then when I told her how much they cost, she said "return them immediately!" in an African accent, of course. This boot is the middle ground between the sleek profile of the Calvin Klein Caribou and the ruggedness of the Tommy Barstow. It is fairly comfortable and very stylish, however the charcoal grey color makes it a tough shoe to dress up properly in my opinion. Not for me persay, but it's not your typical black or brown boot that you are comfortable with. The fact that there's also a lot of real estate (meaning a lot of shoe especially if you tuck your pants in 'em) makes it tricky. My suggestion? Keep the color palette neutral maybe with a touch of something bright to take some attention off your boots. Because people will be staring in envy.

Hope u enjoyed my "review" of the boots. This isn't meant to show off my boots or anything because there are people with far better selections of shoes/boots out there. Just thought I'd give you guys a glimpse into what makes me wear the things I do etc...

Cesc. Pt II

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 8:22 PM

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What's going on world? A friend I go to school with saw the first Cesc Fabregas I posted and immediately asked if I could make him one. I've been really really busy with Architecture so I just got around to it. Here it is, hope you like...

Fill me in, would ya?

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 2:15 AM

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What's going on world? First of all, I'd like to apologize for not updating in a long time. I've been so busy working on my projects, student organization stuff and just life in general that I neglected the blog. On monday, the 7th of December, I had my final jury/review (whatever they're calling these things these days) for the infill project. We were employed to design an infill for a site in Philadelphia. My studio site was located at 815 N. Capitol St. Philadelphia, PA.

I'll only post pictures for now, but sometime in the future I'd like to really chronicle the entire process, from start to finish so some of the readers can really get a glimpse of what we do as architecture students. It was a lot of work, countless sleepless nights, but it's over (for now) and I'm happy with the result.

20

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 7:06 PM

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What's up world?! You know what today is? My Birthday! I'm excited because I'm thankful to see another year. So I dubbed today "LIVE.BREATHE.FUTBOL" day ha! Pictures coming soon.....

I wanna get in the Sunrise...

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 6:24 AM

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6:15am. Philadelphia, PA. Architecture Studio. That is where I currently am. And have been for the past 8 hours working. Exhausted, I decided to take a bathroom break and was pleasantly surprised that it was sunrise. And it was beautiful. I grabbed my camera as quickly as I could and went outside to capture it. It's the little things we should be thankful for. Have a blessed day. Peace.





"And as the trees grew higher and higher, and the fish began to fly, I went and stole some wings and thought, why can't I...get in the sunrise"
Yeasayer "Sunrise"

Cesc Fabregas...sublime

Posted by Ebun | Posted in , | Posted on 8:45 PM

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What's going on? So my Arsenal pride is in full effect! Who else witnessed Cesc Fabregas' amazing run to goal earlier today? simply...sublime. I may be overreaching, but Cesc was impressive today, so was Van Persie. Anyway, today is my roommate, Tayo's birthday. We are both avid Arsenal FC fans and players of the game and I thought I should make him a shirt. So, here's what I came up with. Hope you like.

P.S. I'm having a lot of fun painting/designing! And if you like this Cesc tee shirt, you can email me at ebun.olaloye@gmail.com and request one and I will make it.





Gunner for Life.

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 2:33 PM

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My mom bought me something that I will cherish FOREVER!!!!! I was so excited when I got it, and it's not even Christmas yet. If you don't know, I'm a HUGE Arsenal fan and have been since I began watching futbol when I was a kid. I got my first Arsenal jersey two years ago, but it didn't have a name, nor number on the back. The one my mom got me has my last name, Olaloye, and #10 on the back. AAHHHHHHHHHHHH! If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm ecstatic! Just thought I'd share with you guys. Love or hate Arsenal, any futbol fan will be more than happy receiving a customized jersey just because. Mommy, I love you!

The Prodigious Elephant

Posted by Ebun | Posted in , | Posted on 10:19 PM

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Wow, I made this shirt in JULY! and I cannot believe that I haven't posted this yet. smh @ me. My apologies. Here we have a shirt with Didier Drogba aka the prodigious elephant that I made for a female Drogba fan who was attending the Chelsea v A.C. Milan game (I believe it was) in the summer. Hope you like it....enjoy

(I'm gonna try this new layout, you know, image first, words last. let's see how it works)

Welcome to Owl country...

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 6:23 PM

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What's up? I apologize for not updating in a long time. I really didn't have new content to post and I did not make this blog for the sake of updating on a daily basis with random things that I am doing. I don't believe my life is that interesting...yet lol. Anyhow I have today a hoody I made for a schoolmate. She wanted a hoody that had to do with Temple, but what she wanted did not exist in the bookstore (speaking of, why are the University hoodies always so mundane and boring?) Anyway, I wanted something that mimicked the simplicity of University-issued hoodies but was more interesting, so this is what I came up with...hope you like it.





Oh yeah, it's all hand-painted ;)

LUPE FIASCO & ASHER ROTH at Temple University

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 1:12 PM

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Last night, while at the studio, I was debating whether or not to attend the Homecoming concert featuring Lupe Fiasco and Asher Roth. I'm a semi-big Lupe Fiasco fan and not a fan of Asher Roth so I didn't feel the need to rush to grab a $13 ticket. In any event, I posted on my facebook status to see if any of my friends had an extra ticket. Luckily, my friend Dom had one and the night was set.

Upon arriving at the Liacouras Center where the concert was held, I was somewhat happy to find a mixed demographic in the crowd, but was upset when I realized that I'd be standing next to a loud, obnoxious, and obviously inebriated freshman for most of the night. At exactly 9:01 the opening act came on. This is a first for a Temple University concert. The concerts always start at 9pm but nev
er really start until 10 or even later (see Nas last year.) This was the first local act that opened for the headliners that I was impressed with. He goes by the name Dosage (http://www.myspace.com/therealdosage) and he is very talented. His first song immediately caught my attention and the subject m
atter was not the typical drugs, money and guns. Then it went downhill from there. One of his crew members walks on stage, grabs the mic from him and says "I'm gonna let yo
u finish, but...." Yep, everybody wants to play off the Kanye incident. Too bad they didn't get the crowd reaction they anticipated. Dosage proceeds to call the guy a jerk and you guessed it, he brings on some of his boys to start 'jerking' while he rapped to the 'you're a jerk' beat. Typical.


Then Asher Roth. I can't really say too much about the music quality because I don't really listen to Asher Roth, but the guy has energy and knows how to entertain a crowd. I was especially impressed with his drummer because I'm a drummer also. His DJ was pretty dope. His hypeman, as always, was pointless.
Now, for the man of the night: Lupe Fiasco.
Bravo. That's all I can really say about this performance. From the second he jumped on stage til the very last second he walked off, Lupe's set was all energy. I know it's his job and he is very passionate about it, but man, this guy was all over the stage. I was surprised he didn't have a Drake moment and tear his ACL. It was like a rock concert with Hip Hop music.
He opened up the set with 'The Cool' and I was very impressed since it is one of my favorite songs of his. Then the inevitable happened- my camera died. But that was good because I had more fun jumping around and rapping to every word instead of trying to capture glimpses of a wonderful moment for someone else.


My only qualm with the performance is more with his album title "L.A.S.E.R.S." than with the actual performance. At a point in the show he begins this nonsense talk about how "Love Always Shines Everytime, Remember to Smile"....uuumm, yeah ok. He goes on and on about this love shining down nonsense. I became so impatient that I yelled out, "play that s*** already" to the humor of some people around me. Thankfully, he obliged and 'Shining Down' came on. Bananas! This was the turning point in the concert. The energy level kicked up a notch and even the "sitters" in the crowd got up on their feet and bounced to the pulsating drums and weeping guitars of the 'Everybody Nose' remix.

All in all, it was a great night, I had fun as I'm sure everyone else did. Hope the pictures and video show you guys a little bit of the fun we had last night. Til next time, peace!

Futbol vs Football

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 6:13 PM

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I know this post is going to cause a stir, and rightfully so: discourse is good. So as a fan of both American Football and futbol (soccer) I have to say this: Futbol is a much more enjoyable game to watch (and play) than American Football for a number of reasons.

First of all, there is an inherent finesse to the game of soccer that I believe does not exist in American Football. Even if you don't watch soccer often or at all, whenever you see a clip, you are amazed at the things that soccer players can do by themselves. For instance, I've "wowed" people just by myself on the corner of the street or in my alleyway juggling the soccer ball and doing tricks. I'm yet to see someone do something breathtaking by themselves with a football. Usually, you are wowed by a running back juking the crap out of a linebacker or safety or a wide receiver making a leaping catch over a cornerback. As amazing as it is to see someone get "Mossed" or Ray Lewis knock the wind out of Ochocinco, I find it more amazing to see a freestyler do an around the world 10x in a row or to see Ronaldinho juggling the ball solo.

Now, most people who I've debated this with always bring up the fact that in a futbol game you will be lucky if you see two or three goals scored. And to that I say that if you watch futbol, as a true fan of the game, it isn't about the goals. Goals are great to see, but I've watched some games that ended in nil-nil draws that have been far more entertaining than games with two or three goals scored. I doubt any American Football fan would leave the stadium happy if the game they just attended ended 0-0. Furthermore, I feel as though there is a culture that surrounds futbol that isn't found, or if so, very little in American football. If you were to take a journey to the most remote parts of the earth, what game will you most likely find the kids playing? you guessed it, futbol. Most importantly though, the biggest sporting event of a single sport is the FIFA World Cup. Some might rebut and say, "well that's because it involves all countries" and my response would be that that is representative of futbol's appeal on a global scale.

Ultimately, they are both great sports that have die-hard fans the world over. I choose futbol. What about you?



Maison de Verre

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 6:41 PM

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Project 2 begins! I'm excited for this project. We were divided into teams of two (my team ended up with 3 people: myself, Rajesh Jose and Matiss Nigals). This phase of the project is to tear apart an existing house and diagram the quality existing within and without. Our house is "Maison de Verre" or House of Glass by Pierre Chareau. In short, this house is beautiful, and I thought I'd share it with you all. In the coming weeks I'll be updating with the progress of the assignment. For now, I'll leave you with pictures of this masterpiece located in Paris, France. Au revoir mes amis!





The Art of Evading

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 11:47 PM

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Yesterday was the review for project 01 of studio. The project essentially began with us being assigned a human trait, mine being "evader" and progressed into us defining the trait, making a drawing about it and then surveying a site with instances of the trait being manifested in the site. Once this site mapping was completed, we were to begin to design for an inhabitant of our choice and to program the space.

My inhabitant was a government secret agent whose identity is meant to remain secret from the public. Thus, I designed an inhabitable space for him that rests primarily underground with a garage as an entry point. Then came the tough part. Initially, it was "pedestrian" as my professor so eloquently put it: it was simply an underground apartment. The intervention needed to inherently manifest the trait of being evasive. So I designed my ass off. Quality of space became the most important thing. Low ceilings, concealed points of entry, and walls that acted as obstacles rather than simply barriers all became the language I employed to make the space evasive.

Ultimately, the review went well with the critics giving suggestions as to how I can carry the design further. I remember little else of what was said because I was so tired. Hopefully I articulated my ideas well enough to them because all my work would have been pointless if I didn't do so. Too many times I've seen great work by my classmates and their presentations suck because they do a poor job of articulating their ideas to the critics. Til next time....

ZOMBIELAND

Posted by Ebun | Posted in | Posted on 7:06 AM

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No this post isn't about the movie coming out soon. This post is about Studio Life. The time is 7:08 am in Philadelphia, PA, sun is rising and no I'm not just waking up...I've been awake all night. in studio. designing. and building my model. I'm not the only one here, I'm accompanied by some of my other classmates. Our first "jury"/review is at 2:40pm today. That's approximately 7 hours away. I'm HOPING to get some sleep, but we'll see how that pans out. For now I'll leave u with some pics of what I've been working on for the past few days. Enjoy. oh, and please pray for me, thanks.