'Visual Feast', the tantalizing artwork of Justin Hampton
Created by Justin Hampton
This 400-page book contains ALL of the posters I've ever designed including sketches, behind-the-scenes photos, and stories about creating them and working with various bands. Bands include Soundgarden, QOTSA, Motörhead, Pearl Jam, Metallica, Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave, Radiohead, NIN, and countless others.
This is THE definitive retrospective of my work, containing ALL of my illustration work over the years, including works for Rolling Stone, Spin, Village Voice, Vibe, Guitar World, Sports Illustrated, and more. 30 years in 400 pages!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Officially Funded!! 🎉 Our Next Steps & a NEW Poster For Primus Announcement!!
almost 2 years ago
– Wed, Jun 15, 2022 at 11:49:15 PM
Well, that’s a wrap folks!
I wanted to share my thanks to all of you who have joined me here on Kickstarter to celebrate thirty years in the industry with my career retrospective, Visual Feast. It’s been a blast sharing this time with you and I hope you have enjoyed my stories, sketches, and shares from the archive. In a few short weeks, you will receive an email with your Backerkit survey link.
That link will help me get all of your shipping information and will give you the opportunity to pick up any extras you may have missed during the live campaign. If you have any questions between now and then (or anytime, really), please do not hesitate to reach out via email to [email protected]
Missed the Kickstarter? Don’t worry. We’ll be keeping the party going over on the pledge manager. Stay tuned for the launch of my pre-order store!
If you would like to be notified when the pre-order store goes live, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of my homepage here. If you want to stay in touch over the next few months, join me on social media!
Thank you all very, very much!
-Justin
Read extras below including an announcement for my NEW Primus poster dropping next week!
If you missed my post on social media here's a look at the video I created of me reading an excerpt of my book from the time I first met Lemmy of Motörhead.
New poster drop coming Tuesday, June 21st!!
Poster for Primus at the Edgefield in Troutdale
In theme with their tour playing Rush's album 'A Farewell to Kings' in its entirety, this is my H.P. Lovecraftian twist on the song: Cygnus X-1: Book One: The Voyage Prologue.
This is a 4 color screenprint with two split fountain ink blends measuring 18"x24". Each copy will have a hand embellishment on the skull moon in white paint pen ink. This will be a signed, numbered & embossed artist edition of only 50 prints!
On sale Tuesday, June 21st at 12 Noon PDT (3pm EDT)
Variant poster for Primus at the Edgefield in Troutdale
This is a 4 color screenprint with two split fountain ink blends printed on White Lava Foil paper measuring 18"x24". Each copy will have a hand embellishment on the skull moon in white paint pen ink. This will be a signed & numbered artist edition of only 25 prints!
On sale Tuesday, June 21st at 12 Noon PDT (3pm EDT)
Our Final 48 Hours & One Last Surprise!
almost 2 years ago
– Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 02:49:15 PM
Hey all!
Can you believe that it’s already been three weeks? With just 48 hours to go, I wanted to celebrate everything we’ve accomplished here with one last surprise addition. If you head to the Add-Ons section, you’ll now find “The Justin Hampton Mini-Print Collection”. Each set includes 14 mini-prints (5” by 7” on average) depicting the art from some of my most iconic poster work over the past thirty years. How many can you identify without scrolling on?
All of your prints will be signed by yours truly. They’re giclee prints on 100 lb museum-quality paper, so this is a great way to display your favorites at an affordable price. That’s 14 signed mini-prints for just $149!
One of the prints in the set is from one of my earliest posters that first put me on the map in the poster world. Do you know which one?
As we head into the final days of this Kickstarter journey, I wanted to share my thanks for all of your support. You guys have been amazing, your encouragement and belief in me have been nothing short of staggering!
Finally, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share this campaign one last time with your audiophile friends and loved ones. EVERY share helps to expand our reach! To make this super easy, here’s a link:
And, before I forget, here are the answers to the question posed above:
Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Bowie, Pearl Jam, Tool, QOTSA, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Primus & The Grady Twins from The Shining (Yep, that last one was a trick question!) The orange monster with the flower(bottom right) is from my 1995 poster for Pavement. It was probably my very first super iconic poster that garnered me a lot of attention in the early Art Rock catalogs.
Thanks again, and let’s make these last few hours rock!
-Justin Hampton
This Week's Art Drop! 2003 Queens of the Stone Age Atlanta Original Art & Poster
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:44:30 PM
This week, I'm offering the hand-drawn and inked original art for my 2005 Queens of the Stone Age in Atlanta poster. The original art was created in pencil, India ink with a brush, and technical pens on illustration board that measures 20"x 28". It also comes with a copy of the original screen-printed poster. This is a three-color screen print with two split fountain blends, one from dark metallic silver to lighter metallic silver and another from black to red. The poster measures 25"x 33.5". The band wanted a dark fairy tale vibe for this tour of the album ‘Lullabies To Paralyze’. This design is an amalgam of Grimm's tales meets Eastern European lore with a twist of Blair Witch. Baba Yaga has Hansel and Gretel under her power and in a trance.
Queens of the Stone Age in Atlanta 2005 poster
The original hand drawn and inked artwork for my 2005 QOTSA in Atlanta poster
Pic of the original art and Hampton in the studio.
This pack will be going live this Friday at 12 pm PDT for $2,750 and will include a copy of Visual Feast. Serious look aside, I was really happy with this one. For my fellow QOTSA fans, what was your favorite song from this one? Let's get a jam session going down in the comments.
KISS poster handdrawn original art, print, and more!
almost 2 years ago
– Thu, Jun 02, 2022 at 04:47:31 PM
For this Friday's original art drop we have something very special. My official commemorative poster for KISS!! The original art is a one-of-a-kind item and the purchase will come with a copy of my very own variant print on silver metallic flaked paper and a copy of Visual Feast for $2500!
For those of you who aren't looking to break the bank just yet, there will also be a reward level add-on for just the poster itself. I'm offering it for less than the original sale price as an incentive to buy one along with the book or add one to your already existing book order at just $100 per poster. Both of these drops will be happening at 12 pm PDT tomorrow, Friday, June 3rd.
Right, now that we've covered the details, it's time for a story!
When I was approached to create this official commemorative poster for KISS I knew exactly what I would create. To me, the penultimate song that encapsulates the band is undeniably 'Detroit Rock City' from the 1976 album; 'Destroyer'. The hot rod racing toward you in perspective was inspired by the lyrics of the song. I depicted the band in their full regalia of that tour down to the last detail. In the background, you can see the stage lights overlapping the Detroit skyline. The text is incorporated into the design to create a sense of depth and urgency. The poster has metallic silver ink to reflect the band's iconic color scheme. After completing this poster and turning in the final art I was informed that Gene Simmons' review of the poster was simply "Badass". I'm not gonna lie, I have to admit that was very gratifying to hear.
Here's a look at the original pencil sketch with grey tones and text added for the pitch of the concept. This was approved on the 1st sketch.
My hand drawn in pencil and inked with a brush original poster art on bristol paper.
The final screen printed poster variant on silver metallic flaked Stardream paper.
Creating a cover? It's a family affair!
almost 2 years ago
– Sun, May 29, 2022 at 09:18:15 PM
The history of the cover for Visual Feast began with a Ween poster that I designed for their performance at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in 2009. The fact that the band was playing in San Francisco inspired me to create my own take on Jefferson Airplane’s song ‘White Rabbit’ with this twisted Alice In Wonderland image with hidden references to a multitude of Ween album and song titles.
It was a huge hit and sold out at the show, as did my personal copies on my website. I put a ton of work into the original poster but always wanted to create an art print of this image without the band name on it as I had a vision to take this one even further. In place of the band's name, I would add a giant Alice herself looming over the rest of the tea party revelers.
As with a lot of posters I’ve designed for bands over the years, there’s only so much you can add and nuance on a hard deadline for a gig poster. There’s a limit to the time you can spend as quite often gigs are assigned with a month or less to complete the design, get it to the printer on time, and deliver it to the concert via courier.
It was finally brought to fruition when I decided to write my retrospective book and to use the updated Ween artwork for the cover. Visual Feast was an easy title as I had already used that name for an art show that I had in Portland at a friend's wine shop in 2009 not long after creating the original Ween poster. We used that image on the promotional postcards!
The time had finally come to create this newly realized version of the artwork. It was 2019 and the timing couldn’t have been better as my daughter had just turned 10 years old at that point and was the perfect age to pose for me as Alice. She’s quite the little artist herself and has a flair for the dramatic (future actress?). Maya is a typical kid who loves all things fun and artsy but she also has a penchant for all things twisted like her dad. I wonder where she got that from? Hmmm.
In fact, one year we went trick or treating as Gomez and Wednesday from the Addams Family and she absolutely slayed it! She was in character all night and people ate it up! Needless to say when I asked her to pose for the art print and cover of my book as a twisted Alice she was giddy with glee! Not only did she rise to the occasion, but she also posed with the passion and embrace of the character like a professional actor/ model. The photo reference of her holding the fork and knife still cracks me up whenever I look at it. Here’s a look at the pic, the sketch, and the final art. She’s very proud of her dad and she couldn’t be more excited to be on the cover of my big retrospective book!
