Nice work! He could achieve the same effect in Photoshop using a repeating pattern, light & cloud filters, and drop-shadowed text with a bevelled edge, but that's not as much fun as getting a welder in to mess about with real smoke.
I'd like to see him taking some existing images that were created digitally, from commercials or posters for example, and recreate them using manual techniques. Could be an interesting project for a website.