STORY OF CREATING «HOT LIKE LAVA» SNOWBOARD
Story by Misha "Enko" Deruzhsky about process of creating Helipro snowboard
Talented people are talented in everything! The photographer, cameraman and designer Michael Enko Deruzhsky has long been known in the snowboard industry. For many years, Misha was a graphic designer in the «Doski» magazine - the leading portal in the snowboarding industry, skateboarding and surfing in Russia. As an operator, he participated in the project «What is this?» with us in Kamchatka.
Our cooperation with Enko began with design of T-shirts, after we created calendars, books, and then snowboards Helipro.
The Crab design "NATURE STRIKES BACK" was the first experiment.
The second series of limited boards «HOT LIKE LAVA» with the design Misha created made a furor and sold for a few before going to shops. The board owes it success to shape and quality of YES snowboards plus the magical design Enko created.
This is a story about the desigh by Misha:
«I was always fond of unusual things. For years ago a new snowboard 420 by YES captured my attention. The 420 is an absolutely unique board for deep snow. Super short, the 420 plays with volume distribution and get its float and stability from the exaggerated width, a little taper and a custom crafted base profile. I was thinking about it for a couple years, waiting for someone to bring in to Russia but it never happened. However autumn 2015 brought good news: Helipro decided to use exactly this snowboard to collaborate once again with YES.
Firstly I had threee ideas:
1. The symbolic image of a volcano composed of photos of autumn Kamchatka which has an infinite number of colors.
2. Continuation of the last board but this time in the plot involved the skull as a symbol of the hidden forces of nature dressed in a hood which has similarities with the volcano.
3. As additional option I painted lava flows on a black background composed from scraps of Japanese newspapers. On the back it was supposed to print HELIPRO inscription in the style of the magma flow.
Guys voted for the skull and the work began. Two days later I showed an intermediate result, and it turned out that no one expected such a brutal images. The scull was too scary, everybody got frightened!
The Scull idea was pushed away and we were once again at an impasse.
There were a few other ideas such as this under the working title "Party in the helicopter" with skis, snowboards and a box of vodka. I am glad that we did not stop and went on.
I can not remember exactly how I got the idea to paint such a strange story. I like when a picture tells a story and history. I decided to draw a bear the symbol of Kamchatka where as on an Indian elephant rides hare with a fishing rod. All of this flavored with amount of details: skis, snowboards, flags.
After I showed an intermediate option, approval has been received, but some started fermenting in the minds and the guys remembered lava flows from the first three scathes.
And at this moment after all the deadlines our helicopter headed to the lava!
Regarding the initial sketch of the board with the lava there was made a few changes. First of all we have abandoned newspapers to replace them Maxim Balakhovskii gave a few photos of snowy mountains. With a little work on the pictures I got the perfect texture of the rocky breed. A similar method was used in the work on the previous board, the texture of the crab was then synthesized from pictures of bark.
In addition to snow pictures I received a sufficient number of snapshots of lava and had only to put the pieces together.
I wanted to preserve the style of the first board where I used halftone effect. It allows you to change the set of points on the halftone pitch and density of these points to achieve saturation of colors.
Special mention deserves the process of working on sliding surface. The fact that the board is wider conventional and plastic blanks used are too small to form a standard snowboard sliding surface, in the manufacture ones are forced to join the preform that would cover the surface of the sliding board.In addition, the board must necessarily has a circle at the top of the sliding side: a birthmark entire family YES 420 has.
At the end of the work I have accumulated a lot of different options.
Finally it was decided to make the sliding surface like last time but in two colors red and black.
Production of the board took about two months. And you will not believe the factory is located in the United Arab Emirates! I did not fit in my head, I imagined Bedouins in dusty hangars, carefully cutting out a strange thing. However everything turned out very well and this board is so hot that heats all the snow around!
I have already managed to try the board in the French Alps. As for me it is very soft that is why it received а nickname "linoleum". The board tries to run away from you on-piste but in deep snow it is floating easily. That's the best you can come up with for riding in the forest in combination with small dimensions.»
