After the 1981 release of his second solo album, Diary of a Madman, the former Black Sabbath vocalist hit the road for a tour nicknamed "Night of the Living Dead." Onstage, Ozzy pelted his audience nightly with 25 lbs. of pig intestines and calves' livers. Fans began bringing meat, and then dead animals, to throw back. One night in Des Moines, someone threw a live bat onstage. Stunned by the lights, the bat lay motionless. Osbourne, thinking it was a rubber toy, bit into its neck.

James Sullivan - Rolling Stone Magazine

Artist Spotlight - Rodrigo Ferreira

Can you tell everyone a little about yourself?

Hi! My name is Rodrigo Ferreira and I live in Belo Horizonte - the 3rd largest city in Brazil - and I'm 32 years old. I work as a graphic designer and illustrator and I love to make people laugh with my designs.

How did you come up with the idea for The Dark Bite design?

I was reading the Rolling Stone's "Rock's 10 Wildest Myths" and the 2nd place was "Ozzy Bites Head Off Bat". The whole story is creepy, funny and too good to be true. And then I started to think "Hey, what about Ozzy bitting BATMAN's head off" on the stage? So, I started to doodle and this was the first sketch:

I don't know, I don't like heavy metal but I love music and Ozzy's character. He's a legend and this story is awesome! Batman is a source of endless inspiration. I was lucky to be able to add these two icons in a fun design.

Did you like how the t-shirt turned out?

I was in Sao Paulo at a indie rock festival with some friends and one of them told me "Hey, I got your Ozzy t-shirt and it's amazing!" - I asked Rocco (of T-Shirt Vulgarity) for a few shirts and he kindly sent some to me and my friends - and I was "What? Did you get the shirt first?". After a couple of days my shirt arrived and blew my mind away. You guys did an AWESOME job on the shirt!

How long have you been designing shirts?

Officially? 2 years. I mean, before that I used to do my own band and movie shirts - first I tried handmade shirts and before that silk screen. It was - and still is - very hard to find this kind of shirts here where I live, so I made my own. Then I discovered the designing shirt websites and I started to develop my own ideas.

How long does it take to do a typical design? What's your design process (what do you use)?

The fastest design I did took 15 minutes. The longest... I'm still working on it :P It takes 1 or 2 days. I usually make a sketch of the idea on paper but mostly is done directly. I use Corel Draw, I work with this software for years so I'm pretty good at it and draw reallly fast. I don't use photoshop in the designs, I'm a vector guy. Recently I bought a tablet and I loved it! :)

Why do you like doing t-shirt designs, after all there are plenty of other mediums for an artist?

I love making people laugh with my work. And with the shirts, the jokes get more exposure, thus more people laugh. Imagine a guy in Spain walking through downtown wearing "The Dark Bite" shirt. Now imagine how many people will go through him, see the shirt and giggle or even laugh?That's why I chose this media:)

Is it hard living in Brazil and doing so many humor and pop culture designs?

Living in Brazil doing art is tough. Almost impossible. But it's a great place to live. It's hard for me to make designs using brazilian humor because the joke is limited to the brazilian audience. That's why I do my jokes in english. It's universal. The north american pop culture is universal, you can make a joke and people from other countries will get it - like the Ozzy + Batman thing. And most of the t-shirt websites are from the USA. So, answering your question: YES. It's hard living in Brazil and doing humor designs. Maybe I should try doing some comic strips :P

What's your favorite curse word and why?

"Puta que o pariu". It's usually used in exasperation in the same manner as "Fuck" or "Damn" but literally, "the whore who gave birth" but "Mother fucker" could be a good way to translate it . I like the way we speak this word, sounds like... "Put a keep at you" or something like that.

You're trapped on a desert island and you can bring 5 t-shirts and 5 movies what do you bring?

Tough question... ok:

Movies:
1. Magnolia
2. High Fidelity
3. Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind
4. Before Sunset or Before Sunrise
5. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Yes! Im cheating!)

Shirts:
1. My Wilco shirt
2. "The Skyscrapers" by Michael B. Myers Jr.
3. "Video Games ruined my life good thing I have 2 extra lives" by Lawrence Pernica
4. My printed shirt at Threadless
5. Of couse, my "The Dark Bite" shirt!

Anything else you want to add?

Just want to thank you for printing one of my designs. I'm very happy and proud of it. Keep up the good work!