Motor City Cribs

SinTex’s crib, where he keeps the notebooks

By Doug Coombe — Even if you don’t know who the hell Detroit’s master graffiti artist SinTex is, you’ve seen his work. It’s all over Detroit, even gracing the Black History Mobile 101 Museum.

The 26-year-old SinTex (born Brian Glass) has been rocking the spray paint for more than 10 years. Dude studied commercial art at Detroit’s Crockett Technical High School (where he also captained the golf team!) and went on to study at Pratt and CCS. SinTex’s kinda like Glenn Barr’s long-lost brother, but one who grew up in Detroit listening to hip hop.

Besides illustration, animation and graffiti art, SinTex recently taught himself 3-D computer rendering and began making wildly imaginative action figures of Detroit hip-hop stars. He’s got one of Phat Kat completed, with action figures of Black Milk, Guilty Simpson and Danny Brown in the works.

His graffiti pieces are typically large, vividly colored and retina-saturating tributes to hip-hop and African American icons, B-boys and B-girls, and the occasional kung fu figure.

“To pull the details off with aerosol you have to work large,” SinTex says. Typically the guy can pull off a floor-to-ceiling piece in a few hours. SinTex pays the bills working (and frequently flying to Europe) for Plutonium G spray paints. His studio’s conveniently around the corner from his Madison Heights digs.

Stored beneath SinTex’s drafting table are more than 100 notebooks filled with years of character sketches. “One of my Crockett teachers told me never to throw out a notebook, because you don’t always appreciate when you have a good idea. Mr. Corbin, if you’re out there, I still got ‘em all.”

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