Kozyndan

"Domo Arigato Mr. Nakamura"
2002 pencil, digital

What we said about it at the time: A little experiment in madness - 3 weeks staight of painting in Photoshop...often times attacking this 15,000 pixel image with a 1 pixel brush to achieve detail that is lost here on the web (you have to see the large canvas print). Basically we liked the shit that Eric is pimping over at his wonderful Giant Robot shop on Sawtelle in LA, so we decided to draw it. Then we added some customers we wish we could be shopping amongst! Seriously - everyone should check the place out - especially since our work can be seen there now!

Looking back: With each piece the format of the panoramics became more solidified. In this piece the commitment to adding our own characters to the pieces becomes dominant, and the first sets of recurring characters (the school girls, and the two clunky robots) show up. Also this is the first piece where we moved away from flat coloring and began to really "paint" the panoramics.

More importantly though is that this piece is really what enabled us to have a career in illustration and art. We came into GR and asked Eric Nakamura if we could illustrate his store, and he said "Sure!" We took some reference photos and came back a month later with a nearly complete version of it and he really liked it. He soon contacted us to ask us to illustrate for Giant Robot and then asked us to do a show at the shop. 2 weeks after graduating college we became the first artists to ever show at a GR Store (there was only one store at the time), and the attention his promotion for the show garnered us got us illustration jobs and basically introduced us to the world. We owe the jump start our career had entirely to Eric.