This Harley Davidson Road King CVO illustration was created for a customer who wanted to use it as a design for merch and a display for bike shows in which he entered his bike.
The owner of this motorcycle spent 30 years in the oilfield, offshore most of his career, the last several years in West Texas, and wanted that written into the illustration: pump jacks, desert scrub, and the kind of sunset you only get out where the mountains sit on the horizon. The phrase “It’s Good to Be the King” was worked into the design as a nod to both the Road King name and the years that earned it.
The process:
Reference photos of the bike, rough sketch, digital illustration, shown above as a short time-lapse of the drawing coming together.
The bike itself is a heavily customized CVO Road King, built out with air ride suspension, Carlini apes, a Siouxicide Choppers sissy bar, custom driving lights, and a long list of one-off touches down to the laser-engraved covers. Rather than list every part, the illustration focuses on the details that give the bike its silhouette and stance, the pieces a rider would recognize their own bike by at a glance.
The Result:
Artwork built for multiple uses a t-shirt, a canvas print for bike shows (displayed on a tripod stand next to the bike itself), and a design flexible enough to eventually work as a full back-piece tattoo.