Architects (UK) "Early Grave"

Always love a great video with a concept and nice performance footage!

Akumu Ink Gallery

I don't know if you're like me. But my first 8 'bookmarks' are all blogs that I like. Every day (sometimes twice a day) I will go through my list of blogs in order to see if any of them have updated it with something worth reading. I always feel accomplished when I go through them and there was some good info and updates, but I feel like I wasted 5 minutes when I went through all of them ot find that no one updated anything.

today we went to a local boutique to see if we could sell our shirts to the shop. We brought samples in to show the owner. It was funny because the girl working there did a double take at our shirts and asked "Do you have some shirts in Perfide (Perfide is a boutique in Montreal that we actually do wholesale with)?" Apparently she owned one of our shirts for some time and really loved the print which was a plus for us when talking to the owner. We talked over some things and then we were asked if we'd be interested in taking part in a creating some canvas paintings for a show in July to introduce our line. It would be like a gallery within the store. So if you're in Montreal and would like to be part of this let me know as I think it's by invitation only. I will update you with photos and in progress work as we get closer to the date :)

Steampunk Tales

I posted this on facebook but I feel this needs a better look. I did this cover for an iphone app called Steampunk Tales. Every few months an issue is released that includes 8 original steampunk related stories written by some award winning writers. And you get my lovely cover for keeps on your iphone/itouch for $1.99. So check it out and tell your friends about it if they like that kind of stuff.

The Investigation Featurette

One of our customers mentioned to me that this design was abstract along the lines of our Faceless and Ripper design. Which is a good way to look at it. I came up with this idea during the summer at an anime convention. It never felt right to just release it on it's own, but as part of a collection I think it works really well. It's in line with the Steampunk essence we were going with for a while. I think my style lends from all these different concepts without actually being a part of a specific one. I've been wanting to do something that included a curly mustache without it being comical, or completely about the mustache. Hope you like it.

Devil Within Featurette

The Devil Within was inspired by some photographs I found online of old statues in Rome that incorporated drapery. I'm blown away by the talent Renaissance artists had to chisel out massive rock to create draped cloth on their sculptures that look no heavier than real fabrics. I was also looking at tons of images of gargoyles and paintings by William Blake (The Great Red Dragon) and somehow mixed all these concepts into this one demonic figure.

Death Before Dishonor Featurette

Death Before Dishonor I'm going to say is my most intricate piece that we've put out so far. It was the last design I sketched up and approved for this new collection, but it was the first one I began to finalize out of the 4. As this piece came into being it showed that Akumu Ink could have a new mature look, I was pushing the look away from what we had previously been doing so far. It also helped that I had been drinking absinthe and watching Japanese horror movies night after night, and listening to deathcore music with the blinds shut day after day. Really closing myself off and doing nothing but focusing on these designs and making sure every detail came out exactly as I wanted it to.

In the past our designs were created after I came home from work or on weekends, but this time around I had devoted all my time to making these something I would be proud of and making Akumu a look that wasn't seen done by other brands.

Inspiration for Death Before Dishonor: I knew I wanted to come up with a Geisha version of Marie-Antoinette. You can even see the cut around her neck from where she was decapitated by guillotine. I had this idea to have her looking at herself in a mirror. I was watching these awesome documentaries about Aleister Crowley and Nikola Tesla which got me thinking of using something crazy like symbols as the contours of the mirror. The symbols I ended up using were those of the planets in our solar system. They had a very demonic look to them, that of a ouija board.

Hope you all like the look of Death Before Dishonor. Feel free to leave your comments or thoughts as to how you perceive the design :)

Carmina in Wonderland Featurette

Here is the Carmina in Wonderland design. An intricate gold print with fantastic detailing. I placed both La Carmina and her cat Basil Farrow in the roles of Alice and the Cheshire cat at a mini tea party. I even switched the classic British style of tea pot and tea cup for a more Eastern look. There's even a small throwback to an older Akumu design, you'll notice the pendant on Carmina's necklace is the skull from 'Never Say Die' and 'Sip of Death'. Hope you like it, there's more little features to come. You can read more of La Carmina's blog here.

Standing Banners

This week has been pretty crazy. You guys are loving these new designs! I haven't even had a chance to update or blog like I planned due to the orders :P Keep it up!

So this just came in from Indonesia. Two standing banners we had made for a show we're doing in Vegas. We might be bringing them to future conventions depending on how they fit in our luggage. Don't forget if you're in a band, or know someone who owns a store, or anyone who would need some kind of banner we can hook them up with a great deal. Quality work for a great price ;)


Also we were hired to create two 5 foot paintings of Tokyo Massacre. So as those progress we'll take photos and post them all up when they're done! Talk to you soon.

The Lost Soul Featurette

Here are a few photos of the Lost Soul print. Inspired by both our Tokyo Massacre and The Storm designs, I really wanted to continue creating my (morbid) version of cute Japanese styled characters. It's kinda like a continuous story of these characters that are evolving into something greater as I figure out more about the Akumu Ink world.

The more I design and print these shirts, the more I'm figuring out how to create some fun compositions. The goal for me for this image was to create a full composition with a character, and an environment, with our logo (almost like it was a movie poster) and make you feel like there was a sense of depth to the whole scene even though I only used one colour. I hope you like it, I'd love to hear your feedback on each individual design.

Screens

As I work on the next post check out this photo of all our new screens.

I Am The Trend TV

A few days ago we were mentioned on I Am The Trend TV. It's great to see people express their love and excitement for our product rather than just reading a blog post about it. See their excitement in the video below. They mention us around 00:09:00.

La Carmina Post

Also over at La Carmina's blog there was a great little feature about our new collaboration. In the next few weeks I will be adding photos of her in the shirts and describing the reasons we came up with what we came up with. More to come.
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I Am The Trend Review

Thanks to I Am The Trend for this great post. They've been big supporters of our brand since we came on the scene 2 years ago. If you're interested in knowing what's happening in the current tshirt community check out their website. They have interesting video updates and interviews with the hottest indie tshirt brands out right now.

New Collection Up

So the NEW 2010 collection went live at 10am (eastern time?). So far the response has been great! You guys really make all this worth it.

So far we have two great blogs that mentioned the new line. Which I'll post about soon.

Bare with me as there's still a few things I need to tweak, some pages might be missing pictures or headers, but all that will be fixed soon. If you see something let me know and I'll fix it right up. I was up till 4am last night photoshopping and preparing just under 60 individual items to either be released or updated. It was a huge undertaking for our small company.

We've also added a 'Hoodie' section to make the main page less confusing.

Also all the new items can be found in our 'packages' so spoil yourself and save some money at the same time ;)

Ok more posts describing the individual designs, and more photos will fill up the blog in the upcoming week. So have fun browsing and buying the new stuff, if you have any questions you can find me here.

Thought it was Thursday

I thought we were Thursday today so I was preparing to release everything tomorrow...then I realized today is Wednesday...lame... We all have to wait! It's going to be totally worth it though I promise you that. And all items will be available to purchase in our 'Package' deals so get all the new stuff you want and save too! I hope to hear all your reactions on our Facebook page or here ok? Let me know what you think of our new stuff as your opinions are much appreciated. Ok, I gotta go back to work for now and print some shirts.

Btw, someone broke into my car again :( Didn't smash the window this time thankfully, but everything was removed from the glove compartment like they were looking for something. Probably a GPS, that I don't own :( Oh well when you live in a sketchy part of town I guess that's what you get, hopefully if this year is good to us we can move out of here and somewhere nicer where we don't get robbed twice in a month!

2010 Akumu Ink Logo

In case you haven't noticed there will also be a NEW Akumu Ink logo that will be launched alongside the 6 new designs starting this Friday. This white logo will replace the previous one that was printed at the bottom of our tshirts and vnecks. The hoodies will continue to have the silver razorblade. We wanted to have something bolder and more original, so we came up with this. Hope you like it!

Out of Stock Items?

Are you looking for Akumu Ink items that we no longer carry in our official online store? If so you might want to check out these sites that are carrying our stuff:

Size available: Army M
Cost: £21.99



Sizes available: Rasp S, M, L
Cost: £21.99



Sizes available: Women Black S, M
Cost: 2,300 Yen




































Sizes available: Men Black S, M
Cost: 2,300 Yen

Homemade Mocha Frappe

As most of us start off the day with a delicious coffee (reminds me of the Mindless Self Indulgence lyrics "I like my coffee black just like my metal"). Sometimes I feel like experimenting with flavours. I had some Cool Whip in the fridge and some Hot Chocolate powder so I decided to treat myself to a Cafe Mocha Frappe? I don't regret it :P

Tracklist Revealed

As many of you have been excited to see where we are taking the brand in this new year. I've compiled our current finalized tracklist (in random order) for our newest collection releasing January 15, 2010. Featuring 2 guest spots by fellow Canadian and lover of all things Japanese as well, La Carmina. Hopefully these shirt titles will inspire you and make you look forward to their release:

1- Death Before Dishonor
2- The Investigation
3- Lost Soul
4- Devil Within
5- (Currently Untitled) feat. La Carmina
6- (Currently Untitled 2) feat. La Carmina

Colourful Closeups

Just thought I'd post a bunch of pics I took of some of our newer colors. All these images and more can be found on each item's product page.

Snow Removal

Thought those of you who don't have much snow where you're from would be interested in seeing this. A day or three after a huge snow storm the city sends trucks to clean one side of the street because there's literally too much snow that we can't park on the streets anymore. Also as it gets colder the snow hardens making it more difficult to park where there is snow. So first they send a sidewalk plough to push whatever's on the sidewalk into the street, then this plough passes scooping everything into the middle of the street. After this I got bored and couldn't be bothered to stay and photograph the industrial snowblower that picks up everything and blows it into a dumptruck. Oh and the orange sign on the street sign is put up 24 hours prior to snow removal to let us know that between such and such times not to park there or they will tow your car to another street and fine you. Yay, winter....