The Blob Blog

Portrait by my good friend, Jonnie Craig.
 
Hi, I am Sam Taylor, I’m 23 and I live in London. I like skateboarding, Die Hard and Holsten Pils, and my hard-hitting new column will be about all three of these things (though not exclusively). A few weeks ago VICE interviewed me about my blob illustrations. They seemed to love them, I certainly love them, and somehow this turned into The Blob Blog, which really comes into its own when you're too overwhelmed by the world to watch another amazing documentary about Eastern Europe or Africa. Every week, I am going to take an article from the magazine that lacked illustration and illustrate it. Maybe it didn’t need an illustration at the time, maybe photos were more suitable, but the Blob Blog doesn't care about what’s suitable, what makes sense or what’s relevant.

As well as illustration, this blog is going to act as a dumping ground for my photos; from skateboard trips/ video premieres/ general adventures.

This blog is also a great self-promotion tool (actually, that’s the main aim of this blog; shameless self-promotion). Anyway, enough explaining, here is post number one:

Screen grab by me (is screen-grabbing a valid artform yet?)
 
The 5Boro video that came out a while ago on the Thrasher site has some really cool bits. Two guys nearly get ran over and Jordan Trahan does an amazing BS powerslide down a hill to drain ollie. It definitely got the biggest cheer out of the whole video at the premiere (from me, anyway). I’d never heard of Trahan before, but he fucking rips: BS powerslides are the bomb. The video also has a sick soundtrack, so go watch that now.

It’s only 25 minutes long, so it won’t encroach too much upon the time you’ve dedicated to onanism (which is a fancy word for wanking).

We found this bank spot on some estate in South London. It fucking sucks. The top is rough and short, and the bank is made out of uneven cobbles. It even took out Smithy, and he’s one of the UK's gnarliest pros. If you ever skate it, make sure you put on some bigger wheels!

 
Trombone was filming Knox do a trick into it. Once Knox had landed the trick Trombone realised he had been standing in dog shit the whole time; another reason to not skate this spot.   After a day of skating some rough-ass South London spots we went bowling.

It was Tom’s 21st birthday, so everyone got very drunk on jugs of beer.

 
Tom and his girlfriends' bowling balls, get it?!

 
Bowling is really fun, everyone was saying "we should do this every week" but obviously everyone was drunk and making promises that they would never fulfil.

 Cometh the day, cometh the man. Happy birthday, Tom!

 
OK, so here’s the main event.

One of my favourite articles in the Fashion Issue was "Doggy District". Obviously it’s a photo article, but imagine if I had had the chance to illustrate it.

Well, you don’t need to imagine it any more, because I’ve done it… The blob has engulfed the pervert dogs. It is a metaphor for something I don't understand yet. Email me, tweet me or comment on here if you have any suggestions for the article I should illustrate next week.

Right now, it's between the Baby Jesus Suits, Andes Masks and Fox Fur articles.
 
See you next week, blob lovers (unless VICE cancels me after one post).

Follow Sam on Twitter:
 
 @sptsam