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!

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