Steel Pro Wakeboard

This is Steel Lafferty’s first official Pro Model Wakeboard. Connelly had given him unique graphics in the past but this is the first board shape and construction that was uniquely his. When creating graphics for a pro model we often try to consider any ideas the rider might have, but in this case Steel didn’t have any direction going into the project, and he was open to seeing what I would come up with.

Because I didn’t have any direction going into this project I wanted to provide a wide variety of styles to figure out what Steel likes. Steel is also sponsored by Melin, so I wanted to mimic some of the colors, textures, and branding they use. I also personally enjoyed the work of Mike Parillo in his Synchronicity Series. Some of the other concepts we ones that I had laying around that I thought might be a good fit for his board.

After the first round of concepts, Steel had a small amount of feedback to provide. He wasn’t super excited about most of them, but really gravitated towards the black board with blue/green tiger-like stripes. I wanted to further explore the characteristics he liked in the previous set of concepts, but also wanted to branch out because he wasn’t over the top about any of them. Palm trees have always been a large part of his imagery so I made them more prominent in this round of concepts.

Steel wasn’t really excited about any of the concepts I had provided up to this point, so I needed more specific feedback and examples of other artwork/graphics that he did enjoy. He really liked this RT Surfboard with artwork by Zuno Electric Tattoo.

I do like the classic tattoo style of illustration used on this board but I wanted to make sure to approach it with my own unique style of illustration. For subject matter I included things that Steel enjoys and surrounds him in Florida. I also tried a variety of different coloring techniques to further separate the graphic from the RT surfboard that was used as inspiration.

Steel was really happy with the final product. It was a long process that took a lot of experimentation to land on a graphic that everyone liked. In addition to the wakeboard I also got to design the boots and vest to match. I’m really happy with the way this graphic turned out, and it remains one of my favorites in the 2022 product line.