OilCan Drive-Macbeth Footwear Art

I've decided to finally roll out the OilCan Drive piece I was working on a few weeks ago.

I did this piece for a few reasons.

One, I hadn't done anything OilCan Drive related in a while and it was nice to focus on a single piece after doing so many client projects over the past few months.

Second, it allowed me to do a piece to show the people at Macbeth Footwear, who I had talked to months ago and then heard nothing. I thought this piece might be a nice reminder of who I was and a reason to say hello again.

I was first contacted by Macbeth Footwear a bunch of years ago when I put the OilCan Drive project on MySpace. They saw some of my worked and asked if I was using their shoes and logos on a few of my characters (Ryan still sports an old Macbeth logo on the pick guard of his guitar.) I told them I was and, if it was a problem, that I'd be happy to take them off the art. I didn't want any trouble. But, to my surprise, they said they loved it and put OilCan Drive up on their website under the News section alongside bands like My Chemical Romance and Angels and Airwaves.

I thought that was that but, back in January, right around the time OilCan Drive was getting some radio play in Milwaukee, I got an out of the blue email from another guy from Macbeth. He told me that he remembered me doing the art all those years ago and liked what I was doing. Once again, I wrote back, told them I loved their shoes and told him I'd take the logos and shoes off the art if it was pissing anyone off.

Again, with a sigh of relief, he told me:

"We love that you are using the logo and shoes. Love, love, love it. We aren’t really focusing on the sitting griffin anymore but it says Macbeth which is great.

Thanks for showing me some of the images for the future. Maybe we should do something together? I’m not sure what your goals are with Oilcan or the comic book? I would need to speak to Tom first, but if you want to work together on something, let me know. It’s totally ok if you don’t and it won’t change anything. I understand that this project may be your outlet from the client work, and I know that’s important. "

And that had me on the floor. Because, you see, the owner of the company and the Tom he was talking about was Tom Delonge. Yes, that Tom Delonge. The one from Blink 182 and Angels and Airwaves. The Tom that pretty much, whether he knew it or not, helped me figure out how to play guitar and then go on to learn more about music in general.

So, that Tom Delonge was somehow seeing my work blew me away.

So, of course, I wrote back and told him I'd love to hear what he had in mind and I'd love to do something with them.

And then I never heard anything back.

I emailed once again with some new art about a month later and then let it lie.

Until I had time to do this piece. I figured it would be a nice piece to do and a neat way to reintroduce myself to the company.

But, since I sent it a few weeks ago I haven't heard a thing.

Ah well, it was still a really fun piece to do. It reminded me of old school projects where we'd mock up ads using our art and design skills. It had been so long since I did anything like that that doing something like this was really a blast and I'm glad I finally found some time to do it.

If nothing else, it's another great piece of art to add to the OilCan Drive world.

And, as far as I can tell, Macbeth still isn't suing me for using their shoes and logo. So, I have that going for me. Now if I could just get them to sponsor the band or send me some free shoes all would be right with the world.

I'm a size nine, by the way.