British illustrator Maxwell Paternoster’s drawings look like what would happen if R. Crumb’s brain took a bath in gasoline and LSD—equal parts unhinged, hilarious, and strangely moving. Instead of Crumb’s balloon-chested pin-ups, Paternoster floods the page with sweaty robots, laser-eyed skulls, and vintage motorcycles twisted into surreal cartoons. Born in rural Suffolk and now working out of London, he makes a living turning “awesome doodles” into full-blown custom paint jobs on everything from café-racer tanks to the occasional chainsaw.

In a recent interview with Iron & Air, Paternoster traced his style back to a childhood spent devouring underground comics and surreal British comedy. “I’ve always been a bit immature,” he admits, citing early obsessions with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as well as the heavy machinery that surrounded him in the countryside. “There were farm tractors and all the mad farm equipment,” he recalls. “I got an old motorcycle to ride around the fields on when I was a kid, and I just started drawing bikes and cars.” The habit stuck, and commissions from riders and builders carved out a niche that mixes two-wheeled culture with gonzo illustration.

His latest fixation—custom-painted chainsaws—started as idle sketchbook studies of the aggressive, angular tools. After discovering that only a single Hello Kitty-painted saw existed online, Paternoster dug deeper, uncovering the adrenaline-soaked world of competitive timber sports. Videos from Stihl Timbersports and other events revealed methanol-swilling, expansion-chambered monsters that can chew through three massive logs faster than most people can sneeze. Some saws even use motorcycle engines or V8 car blocks and require two operators.

To build pieces that felt faithful to that scene, Paternoster hunted for donor saws that matched real competition displacement. Most homeowner models top out at 35–55 cc, so finding 100 cc-class hardware proved tricky. Salvation arrived in the form of a forgotten 1980s 60 cc Sachs Dolmar he literally yanked from the weeds in his father’s garden. Mid-project, a second Sachs—this time a 95 cc model from the same era—popped up for sale, so he grabbed it and built a matched pair. Geoff Cain at Co-Built Fabrication hand-formed the twin expansion-chamber exhausts that appear to aim straight at the user’s face but actually vent sideways.

When asked how motorcycles became such a dominant theme in his work, Paternoster points again to rural roots. “Being a typical kid drew me to this stuff,” he says. “I started to draw bikes and cars in my illustration work, and it got noticed.” The result is a portfolio where piston heads sprout eyeballs, fuel tanks grin like death masks, and vintage BSAs fly apart in mid-air, all rendered in crisp black line work that feels like graphic-novel graffiti.

Despite the menace baked into his imagery, humor is the engine that keeps everything running. “I enjoy a good turn of phrase,” he says, and his captions prove it—snappy one-liners that read like stand-up comedy trapped inside a fever dream. Even a throwaway question about potatoes versus squash turns into a two-minute monologue on semantics, hunger, and the British aversion to pumpkin pie.

For personal transportation, Paternoster keeps things modest. His daily rider is “Lazer Death,” a rigid-frame BSA M20 grafted to a 500 cc B33 engine running early Gold Star internals. Hand-built piece by piece, the bike wears one of his trademark skulls on the tank, lightning bolts crackling from the eye sockets. A 2002 Skoda Fabia handles boring errands, though he jokes about adding a jet-powered Razor scooter to the fleet.

Looking ahead, he hints that new projects are percolating, mainly in video form. “There are a few things at a very early stage of development,” he says, offering no details beyond a sly grin. When pressed for the meaning of life, he gives the only answer that fits his universe: “Forty-two.”