Nick DenBoer

Controlled chaos meets baroque decadence in “Bouncy Castle x Tommy Lee”, a striking surrealist collaboration between Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and award-winning digital artist, director, and animator Nick DenBoer (aka Smearballs).

The work originates from DenBoer’s widely published animated project featured on Stash Magazine, where his signature “CG chaos” aesthetic was described as ranging from festival openers to high-profile music collaborations.

Set inside an opulent, gilded interior descending into manic absurdity, the composition explodes with exaggerated versions of Lee and other figures suspended in anarchic motion - levitating bodies, chaotic domestic debris, theatrical luxury clashing with irreverent satire. DenBoer’s hyper-detailed digital surrealism transforms rock-and-roll excess into a cinematic fever dream - part Renaissance palace, part punk hallucination.

The work embodies both artists’ sensibilities:

• Tommy Lee’s unfiltered, rebellious mythology

• DenBoer’s darkly humorous, hyperreal digital distortion.

For this project, DenBoer did:

• 3D photo-scanned Tommy Lee’s tattoos

• Captured hundreds of images for photogrammetry

• Built a digital model of Lee

• Animated the scene at 150 BPM

• Passed the rough cut to Tommy, who composed the track

• Launched the project shortly after — “and the rest is history.”

This print is titled “Bouncy Castle x Tommy Lee” and dated 01/12/23, signed by Nick DenBoer on the lower right.

Most notably, the verso bears a personal inscription from DenBoer to Tommy Lee: “Great jamming on this with you bro! xo Nick”

This inscription elevates the piece beyond a standard edition print — it becomes a direct artifact of collaboration, documenting the creative exchange between the two artists.

For collectors of music history, contemporary digital art, or culturally disruptive collaborations, this work captures a moment where legacy rock mythology collides with modern visual experimentation. It is irreverent, theatrical, and unmistakably of its time — a bold artifact of 2020s pop-surrealist culture.

Overall dimensions: 17 X 25 inches

Image: 13.75 X 15.5 inches