TheLegendsLeague

A Photo A Day by Tim Okura: January

I’ve been sleeping on posting these, so I’m just gonna post months at a time. lol.

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Aside from being one of the O.G. contributors to TheLegendsLeague from the start and one of my favourite designers, Tim Okura has a pretty crazy eye for photos that are dope just for the old school sake of being dope. Not making them victims of an abusive Photoshopaholic father, he’s decided to take 1 photo a day for the entire year on his point and shoot Pentax Optio camera and lay them into a vintage style photo frame for the sharing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have them at my finger tips to share with you.

Enjoy. Daily.

And feel free to let us know what you think, feel, taste, and smell when you see them.

Love&Respect as usual.
be. (on behalf of Tim)

Ever since I saw photographs of Stash and Futura taken by Kevin Marzo, I’ve been dying to do illustrations of both of them. The character that is captured in these simple portraits is brilliant and I couldn’t resist drawing them.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I do my illustrations, and a few have claimed that I use “Live Trace” or trace photographs. They can fuck off. Some have claimed that the fact that I use a stylus makes my job easier - this is true - but can they deny the work I did before I got carpal tunnel and was using a mouse just like everyone else? They too, can fuck off.

I decided that I would do something I haven’t done before in Illustrator, and I used the pen tool as I would a pencil, to sketch the image of Futura, which was placed next to my artboard on my screen. I took screen captures along the way to show the progress and to prove that I was in fact drawing every single aspect of this illustration and ZERO “tracing” was done.

It was a huge pleasure doing this illustration, and I look forward to starting on the Stash image.

Shout out to Kevin Marzo for the dope photographs.
Everyone else - “Come out with your skills up”.

Enjoy the step by step pics.

(more…)

On Friday morning, me, Los, Skam and his homey John took off to Vancouver to catch up with the Vancity LiveStock staff, talk a little business, check out the new store on W 4th, have some fun, and take a short weekend getaway. It was chock full of adventures, wizardry, blue seduction, booze, red light specials, and long time no sees.

There’s a lot for me to post, so while setting everything up, I thought I’d hold you guys down with my favorite pics from our 4 days out in Vancouver.

It’s nice to finally have a point and shoot camera back in my possession after breaking my old one. Getting into photography is something that I’m really serious about doing and I can’t wait to learn the craft to the level of some of my peers that I greatly admire - ie. Che Kothari, Greg Washington, Sean Getti, Matt Barnes, and yes, even my boy William Nguyen. To set the record straight, yes - I bought a digital SLR finally. But because I knew there was gonna be some partying going down out west, I wasn’t ready to run the risk of bringing it with me. So the following photos were taken on my point and shoot Sony Cybershot joint.

I did retouch most of these slightly. But I only changed the levels and the saturation, making sure to not fuck with filters, blurs, and any textural brushes. Something that my boy Che told me once will always stick in my head, and that’s that you need to capture as much as you can using the camera. Anyone can fuck around in Photoshop. I wanna be like the above mentioned dudes and know how to take a good photo when I see one.

I hope you guys like these. The full post is coming soon.

My favorite shots from Day 1 in Vancouver

My favorite shots from Day 2 in Vancouver

My favorite shots from Day 3 in Vancouver

My favorite shots from Day 4 in Vancouver

Stay tuned for the full story one our mission out in Vancouver.

A Photo A Day by Tim Okura

—————————————

Aside from being one of the O.G. contributors to TheLegendsLeague from the start and one of my favourite designers, Tim Okura has a pretty crazy eye for photos that are dope just for the old school sake of being dope. Not making them victims of an abusive Photoshopaholic father, he’s decided to take 1 photo a day for the entire year on his point and shoot Pentax Optio camera and lay them into a vintage style photo frame for the sharing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have them at my finger tips to share with you.

Enjoy. Daily.

And feel free to let us know what you think, feel, taste, and smell when you see them.

Love&Respect as usual.
be. (on behalf of Tim)

Everything I do is inspired by life and the things we experience. Last night we experienced our generations version of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” in the form of Barack Obama’s Presidential speech.

“Yes We Can” is an illustration that I just finished minutes ago, dedicated to commemorating the amazing event that occurred yesterday.

I congratulate Barack Obama on completing yet another step in the direction of positive global change.

Welcome To The Legends League

A Photo A Day by Tim Okura

—————————————

Aside from being one of the O.G. contributors to TheLegendsLeague from the start and one of my favourite designers, Tim Okura has a pretty crazy eye for photos that are dope just for the old school sake of being dope. Not making them victims of an abusive Photoshopaholic father, he’s decided to take 1 photo a day for the entire year on his point and shoot Pentax Optio camera and lay them into a vintage style photo frame for the sharing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have them at my finger tips to share with you.

Enjoy. Daily.

And feel free to let us know what you think, feel, taste, and smell when you see them.

Love&Respect as usual.
be. (on behalf of Tim)

Download the mix HERE

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TheLegendsLeague + DJ Lissa Monét Present:
The Difference

A mixtape dedicated to the life of Shakir Stewart and the promise of change provided by Barack Obama.

“What makes us the same may just make the difference”.
- be. (TheLegendsLeague)

I’m honored to have had the incredible DJ Lissa Monét work on this mixtape for TheLegendsLeague. Her track selection was so on point I felt like the idea behind this tape was something that we had been working on for 2 years.

I’m very particular about the music I listen to - not the genre, but definitely the quality and the emotion behind it, and Lissa was able to select tracks that speak directly to me, my experiences, and I’m sure you’ll find out as well, the lives, loves and lows of my ‘readers’ and supporters.

The timing could not have been more perfect, with the history of the world about to take a huge turn tomorrow night with the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election coming to a close. I will definitely be watching with anticipation as the tides turn, for better or worse, and our futures unfold before us. I admit in whole - I fear the results.

There are so many questions to ask. If Obama loses will there be riots? I think so. If he wins, will there be riots? I think so. Will someone attempt to assassinate him? I fear it. I fear it, but I do think so. But I watch him and I’m amazed. I’m amazed at how genuine he is. How much he seems to really care about the only thing that matters on this planet - humankind and kindness. He breathes it. And beyond that, he shares it and commands it within people. We see light in him. We have faith, hope, trust, and are awaiting a change from the governing powers that we as individuals have been trying to evoke in our actions for so, so long. And while I’m no longer religious, I promise you, I will be praying to a higher power for justice and the victory that needs to continue. Because he has already succeeded. He has already scored a win on so many levels in my mind. And should he lose tomorrow, I hope that we never forget the change that he has already provided us - one that says hope is only the precursor to action, and the combination of the two breeds the power to turn your thoughts into voices, and your voices to chants, and your chants to a chance to be heard. He deserves our thanks, and our admiration, and beyond it all - we deserve to provide him with our support.

Enjoy the mix ya’ll. And expect a re-press of the Obamas Time tee to pop up at TheLegendsLeague Shop.

Welcome To TheLegendsLeague

About 10 or 12 years ago I did an illustration of a young dancer who had just won the Vibe Magazine B-Boy battle. It was a nearly random drawing that was accompanied by another illustration of a young upcoming turntablist who is now more commonly known as DJ Craze, (google that motherfucker). Both of these drawings were just exercises in line drawing that I gave myself in order to refine my ’skills’ back in the day, and I had NO idea what kind of impact these two individuals would later have on the Hip-Hop world.

I remember a while back when Cloud started battling with bandanas tied around his hand and wrist, his hair spiked and a dress shirt on. A lot of people were on some shit saying he was just a boy band dancer, and he wasn’t a B-Boy. But he has since been able to effortlessly transition from B-Boying as a passion into dancing as a profession, now serving as Madonna’s Lead Dancer. I don’t understand how anyone can hate on this level of success.

This video of Cloud (Skill Methodz) is a quick compilation of some of his sets from 07-08. And I don’t think it’s too hard to see why he’s one of my favorite B-Boys/dancers of all time.

For those of you who know him, I know there’s a TON of mixed feelings about Cloud. For those of you who don’t… enjoy.

I Welcome Cloud To My Legends League.

note: watch it all the way through. brilliance.

A Photo A Day by Tim Okura

—————————————

Aside from being one of the O.G. contributors to TheLegendsLeague from the start and one of my favourite designers, Tim Okura has a pretty crazy eye for photos that are dope just for the old school sake of being dope. Not making them victims of an abusive Photoshopaholic father, he’s decided to take 1 photo a day for the entire year on his point and shoot Pentax Optio camera and lay them into a vintage style photo frame for the sharing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have them at my finger tips to share with you.

Enjoy. Daily.

And feel free to let us know what you think, feel, taste, and smell when you see them.

Love&Respect as usual.
be. (on behalf of Tim)

A Photo A Day by Tim Okura

—————————————

Aside from being one of the O.G. contributors to TheLegendsLeague from the start and one of my favourite designers, Tim Okura has a pretty crazy eye for photos that are dope just for the old school sake of being dope. Not making them victims of an abusive Photoshopaholic father, he’s decided to take 1 photo a day for the entire year on his point and shoot Pentax Optio camera and lay them into a vintage style photo frame for the sharing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have them at my finger tips to share with you.

Enjoy. Daily.

And feel free to let us know what you think, feel, taste, and smell when you see them.

Love&Respect as usual.
be. (on behalf of Tim)