Why be bored in school? Go to a Skateboard School! This Toronto District School Board alternative school design program helps students earn high school credits and graduate by creating their own brand and running a skateboard business / professional design studio. OASIS SKATEBOARD FACTORY (OSF) "ON THE GRIND": TDSB's ART & ENTREPRENEURSHIP O.G.s since 2006!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Dragon


This is my first year at OSF and my first board that I have built here at the factory and I'm very proud of it so far. It was inspired by my love of dragons. Since I was a kid, I would always draw these beastly monsters. I decided to switch it up a little and make it a little more self-reflecting. I wanted it to be a bit of an ironic design, because dragons are known as jagged and frightening creatures. My design has a dragon that’s friendly looking and has a bubbly personality.

The materials I used to make my pintail longboard were 8 layers of maple hard wood and I vacuumed pressed them to seal everything to a nice tight finish. The board features both unique designs and bright colours that blend across the board. My inspiration for my board was a board I kept seeing everywhere in stores that sold skateboards and longboards: an image of Bob Marley and a lion head intertwined. I used some of my favorite colours and negative space in my longboard graphic design. I thought that the infamous red, yellow, and green would look nice with my simple graphic and it created a nice contrast with the black creating an oblique crisp design for my board. I think my board is unique because I worked backwards on the colours; unlike most stenciled boards I put the colour on first and then placed my stencil on and covered the rest of the board with black spray paint.

This board is a design I'm very proud of because all the lines turned out clean and the board overall came out the way I had planned it to from the beginning. Personally I think that this was a great board for my first creation because it was simple yet intriguing. I think that this is the first stepping-stone for future boards where I can work on making my designs more complex and creative.