Mikey Burton’s Barrel Body Illustrations

Mikey Burton’s Barrel Body project returns to the blog, and it is easy to see why. A caped stunt rider launches off a striped ramp above a bed of dark green foliage, four flag-topped mounds lined up behind him — flat, two-dimensional, and drawn with the bold dark outlines of a retro comic.

What lifts it above pastiche is the finish. The colour areas carry a visible grain and the ramp’s stripes a halftone dot, so the whole thing reads as a risograph or screen print rather than a clean digital file. Noise is the hardest thing to fake, and Burton gets it right.