Summer Love III

It's that time of year again.....summer time!  My favorite season of the year and for the third year in the row I was inspired to do the Summer Love theme (see the past Summer Love collections here and here).  Although it still obviously follows the summer theme, I wanted to do things slightly different this time.  So without further ado:

1.  "Sandy Beach"

One of the biggest staples of summer is the beach.  The warm beach sand and cool water is awesome to be around on a beautiful sunny day with pretty blue skies:

So I wanted to do something that best represented all of those elements.  The shoe I chose to use for this design was the Jordan 5 Grapes (which were recently relaunched):

And here's the finished product:

2. "Tropical Nights"

Decided again to go with the tropical theme as well (to add to the previous Tropical Sunset, Tropical Sunrise, and Tropical Paradise customs).  When I would think of tropical nights, I mostly think of warm summer nights full of energy whether on the beach, a boardwalk, or a cool nightclub strip:

So I went for a colorway that I thought best represented & reminded me of this.  The shoe used for this was the Jordan 5 Fire Red:

And here's the finished product:

And there you have it, the Summer Love III collection!


Both these shoes will be available to order from the online store beginning June 1st 2013.  And here are some things you should know:

1. At the moment, ONLY 10 PAIRS OF EACH WILL BE MADE.  These styles are extremely limited.
2. Both mens and womens/gs sizes will be available to order
3. Each pair comes with a free matching t-shirt (sizes small to 2 XL...you can indicate desired size when checking out).

Where to order:

"Sandy Beach" Jordan 5: http://ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/sandy-beach-jordan-v-custom
"Tropical Nights" Jordan 5: http://ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/tropical-nights-jordan-v-custom

"Exiting the Beach"

While summer is indeed right around the corner, sometime during the season I am contemplating putting an end to the South Beach custom Jordan 4s.  It's been a great run with this shoe design and i'm definitely grateful for all the people who have ordered a pair and all of the new supporters that this shoe alone has introduced to my work but I feel it's time to move on from the shoe.  However, up until that time comes I am still currently accepting orders for the shoe so you many wanna order yours while they're still around:

South Beach Jordan 4s

Mens Sizes: http://www.ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/air-jordan-iv-retro-south-beach-custom

Womens/GS Sizes: http://ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/air-jordan-iv-retro-south-beach-custom-kids-version

Summer Love III Teaser

Doing it again this year.  Something a little different this time around but still keeping the summer theme.  Stay tuned....

Customer Spotlight: Air Jordan 1 "Camouflage" custom

Last week I did a second commission for the client who requested the Aztec custom Jordan 1 retros seen in the previous blog entry...this time for a pair of camouflage Jordan customs.  This custom used the same base as the previous custom (the all white Retro Jordan 1s).

The finished product:

Have an idea for a custom of your own?  Email all inquiries to info@ecentrikart.net.

Customer Spotlight: Jordan 1 Retro "Aztec"

Recently got contacted to do an interesting custom commission.  A customer wanted a pair of Jordan 1s customized with some aztec print:

So after downloading some sample pics to get an idea of how to go about doing aztec print, I made up a little mockup:

This was just a sample of how they would possibly look.  The customer was cool with this design but wanted to use a different selection of colors and gave me a list/photo of the desired colors.  The shoe used was an all-white pair of retro Jordan 1s:

And here's the finished result:

And a second pic taken by the customer on their instagram:

This was a pretty challenging design but the end results came out really good.  The client was happy with the custom so i'm happy!  In fact, the same client requested a second custom which i'll feature in my next update tomorrow.  Stay tuned....

Customer Spotlight: Freddy Krueger Dunk Custom

I'm pretty sure you already know who this is:

Years ago Nike released a shoe based on the famous Nightmare On Elm Street character, the Freddy Krueger SB Dunk:

This shoe, which was based off the look of the character, was a very limited release from the company.  It's long since been discontinued and besides maybe a few on ebay this shoe is a very rare find nowadays.  Well recently, a customer asked me about recreating this shoe for them....a project that I was really looking forward to.

So after finding a good base shoe to use for the custom:

I proceeded to get to work, using pics of the original shoe as a reference.  Here's the finished result:

Later, I was sent this awesome email from the customer:

"Absolutely amazing job on the Freddy Krueger Dunks.  I was blown away.  Thank you and I look forward to placing another order in the future"

It's things like this that motivate me to keep doing what I do.  I genuinely appreciate all the love and support from you guys.  As always, more to come!

Have an idea of your own for a custom shoe?  Email all inquiries to INFO@ECENTRIKART.NET.

The unreleased "13" Project

Around late summer-early fall of last year I was teasing an upcoming project called "13" that was set to release at the beginning of this year.  The project was going to be a unique concept which would feature 13 different shoes named after some of my favorite drum & bass songs (DnB is one of my personal favorite music genres).  Many of the actual designs weren't necessarily going to be directly related to the song titles, just some ideas I came up with while vibing to these particular songs.

Well, during the months leading up to the planned release of this project, I ended up taking on other projects as well as taking care of commissions for customers (I always put them first!).  Between those two things, I never got around to finishing the project and ended up only making 5 of the planned shoes (still have sketches for the others and may or may not make them down the road).  Anyway, I figured i'd share the stuff that never got released...2 of which I decided to make available for ordering (links to items included):

1. "Aries Maze"

Named after the song by DnB artist Paradox (Paradox "Aries Maze").  The vibe of the song makes me vision a full moon on a warm summer night with tons of stars in the sky, but at the same time has this heavy uptempo energy.  So in the design I incorporated a full moon image with a silhouette of a castle along with night stars and a spacey pattern throughout the shoe.  I guess you could say that if you could see music then this is what the song would look like.

Order "Aries Maze" Here: http://www.ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/aries-maze-air-force-one

2. "Baltimore"

Named after the song by artist Photek (Photek "Baltimore").  Although not directly related to the city, I did decide to go with the colorway of the Baltimore Orioles MLB team.  I had this graffiti-influenced style in my head for a while and thought it would go best with this design.

Order "Baltimore" Here (only a handful of this shoe will be made): http://www.ecentrik.bigcartel.com/product/baltimore-air-max-90

3. "Krush"

Named after the song by artist Hive (Hive "Krush").  This was another graffiti influenced shoe...even more so than the previous shoe.  I actually ordered a Nike iD shoe to use as a base for this project (and anyone who's ever ordered a Nike iD shoe knows it takes them a good 4 weeks to produce it since they're basically constructing it from scratch).  I went that route because I felt like there was no other available model out there that would fit with this concept....plus I always wanted to work with a Nike iD shoe at least once (lol).

4. "Manslaughter"

Named after the song by artist Rufige Kru (Rufige Kru "Manslaughter" (this version is a little sped up).  For this shoe I wanted something that reminded me of the old horror/slasher flicks (although I don't follow the genre now as much nowadays).  The energy of the song plus the visuals in some of Rob Zombie's work in horror films inspired this shoe in a big way.  This shoe was actually available for a short period of time but is not going to be made again at the moment (really want to take orders for more but unfortunately the base shoe that I used to make them isn't currently available by Nike....may do it on a different shoe but don't know if it'll have the same look).

5.  "Maximus"

Named after the song by artist Dom & Roland (Dom & Roland and Klute "Maximus").  I love the intro for the song with the "Maximus" chant...it reminds me of the gladiator flicks when the warriors are fueled with energy before going into battle.  For this shoe I used the same base shoe used to make the Manslaughter shoes.  I wanted something really gritty, so the main detail I incorporated was the cement style crack pattern throughout the shoe (which was engraved into the shoe using a woodburning pen).  Also I included the black & white speckles to resemble concrete.  And the white drips on the side...well, that's just something thrown in at random.

I have another shoe I wanted to add from the series called "Ark Angel" but haven't physically done the design yet (it uses the Nike air force one as a base and I may still do that one just because I really love the design).  To be honest for the most part this particular project was something I did just for fun & for my own personal tastes I guess (if that wasn't already made obvious...lol).  Every so often it's nice to break from the "popular" designs and go against the tide & do something different and this is what I set out to do here.  Although I would've loved to finish the project i'm definitely grateful for all the other projects I decided to take on and even more so for the support that people have been giving me and allowing me to create product for them that they can love and appreciate.  As always, more things to come soon!