Scrap Bike Cover Illustration

An colorful illustration on a magazine cover. The drawing shows a bicycle skidding and kicking up dust, the bike is made of scraps and garbage.

Goal

Create a cover illustration for an Adventure Cyclist issue about building bikes from scrap parts. Take the concept to an extreme, with vice grips and cardboard tubes holding the frame together.

Role

Illustration

More Info & Credits

I was honored to illustrate this cover for Adventure Cyclist Magazine. This issue’s cover featured an article about the culture surrounding bikes built from scrap material. Not everyone can afford a brand new bike, some people need to get scrappy.

Credits

Magazine: Adventure Cyclist

Art Direction: Ally Mabry

Illustration: Levi Boughn

Skids 4 Kids (& Magazine Covers)

Signpost bike frame, patchwork panniers, branch thru-axle, and 2x4 pedals? Who knows if any of this would work, but I wanted it to be an extreme hyperbole of scrap-built bicycles.

An colorful illustration on a magazine cover. The drawing shows a bicycle skidding and kicking up dust, the bike is made of scraps and garbage.A detail image of the cover illustration, showing the bike tire skidding and the bike chain slapping from the speed.A detail of the cover illustration, showing a bicycle pannier made of scrap pieces of cloth, held shut with a bungee cord.Detail crop of the cover illustration, the bike frame is held together with a pair of vice grips and rebar scraps.An crop of a bicycle illustration, the crop shows the bike's head tube and handlebars, the bars are held on with a c-clamp.

Process

Initially, I was shooting for a looser feel for this cover, but as it progressed, a super refined and detailed look felt right.

A photograph of the initial concept sketch for this magazine cover.A digital sketch of the concept for this magazine cover. The sketch shows the bike skidding and dust.A more detailed sketch of the concept for the cover illustration. This shows more detail in the scraps building the bike.A more fleshed out sketch of the cover illustration, with all parts of the scrap-built bike laid out with sketched lines.Another progress image of the cover illustration process. The line work on this is final, and ready for color and texture.A process image of the cover illustration, this has all the bike shapes filled in with solid blocks of color. The color scheme to be defined later.