Frog Hospital Shirts

My friend, Fred Owens: local coffee-shop personality, blogger, have-funner, historian, and contemporary commentator (I think that's redundant with blogger), asked me to design a graphic for his shirts he's selling.

The shirts were for his blog, Frog Hospital, and he told me what he wanted.

"A frog. But nothing about hospital. Some years ago a woman created a frog with crutches for me, but it didn't look right," he told me over coffee. "Also, green and blue, like the Seattle Seahawks."

After talking ideas some more, I got to work. A week or so later I sent him a few sketches of frogs and styles so he could choose from them.

He liked the variety, and I told him once he chose a frog look I could clean it up and make it look better. He ended up sending a cropped version of the big, blue one in the center to the printer and ordered shirts. (My money was on the little buy next to Big Blue).

Now you can buy them from him, or order them from his blog. I'm going to be doing a redesign to a more logo-looking graphic this time around. Maybe I can make something as awesome as this!

I'll post links and all that good stuff when the reboot version is up and hopping.

Tulip Graphic Reveal!

Alright, as promised, I have revealed the tulip-themed design on Wednesday. It is now 12:02 am, Pacific Time at the moment I'm typing.

So, the saying "Nuke the Tulips" isn't in any way my creation--it is a local phrase that has been uttered since the day locals despised Tulip Season. Also, the idea of making shirts with this phrase has been done before, according to Google-ing "Nuke the Tulips".

[Of course tourists bring economy and all that, but a lot of locals still sigh heavily, and lock up their doors for all of April anyway.]

I haven't seen this image on a shirt before, so this is why I did it; as well as for the anti-tulip-sympathizers in the Valley.

I don't mean disrespect to anyone that likes tulips--I myself think they are awesome colors and inspiring in those huge fields (red especially)--but I also whisper "Nuke the Tulips" when the first batch of tourists drive in.

And so, I proudly announce my new graphic for T-shirts!!
[None of the graphics are expandable,
you have to wait until the shirts/other products]

Now, the graphic might not be available for print as you read this--it is 12:09 am, and I work this morning--but it will be available definitely before April. (I can't promise before tulips bloom, because I don't think anyone can guarantee when that will be this year) I will include links to said items once they're available.

EDIT: Here is the link to said items. This will be available through orders to my email, as running a CafePress shop wasn't worth it with low volume sales. It has also been slightly edited to look better on shirts.


Short version of the process:

I first sketched out a very basic explosion and tulip field from the angle I wanted. I didn't sketch with pen, it was entirely my tablet and stylus from start to finish this time. I used a transparent brush on GIMP (Free/awesome version of Photoshop) to start off the sketches. From here I roughed out the lineart for the nuclear explosion. The tulips were later and on their own copy-version. I kept the explosion in the background so I knew how to space everything.



The tulips were definitely harder to finish lineart for. I had many layers going with different parts of the plants and everything. It was a mess, but I knew what I was doing, and I don't want to bore people. At first they looked like moosh (above), and then once I had lines and colors sorted out they looked good (below).


From here, I took the JPEG versions, and threw them over to my awesome (and also free) vector graphic software: Inkscape! Each of the colors above were on their own layers, so I could load them in separately. This may be time-consuming, but it's the way I found works for me. (The layers went as follows: Yellow, red, purple, white, green, dark green, pink, and lineart).

The reason I used Inkscape was to get all the edges very smooth and curved, so they'd look nicer as a final product. Also, each color is its own shape, so I could control the end result for each color very well.

The same process was used for the background: the explosion and sky. The layers used were: blue, cloud shadow, orange, yellow, dark gray, and lineart. The red was added on the final product.



I put everything together on one Inkscape document, lined it all up, tweaked, and voila! Now it is finished, and I am off to bed!
(12:39 AM)

Tulip Teaser!

I've been really driven to create more designs for my Cafe Press shop, and I've been wanting to do a particular design for a long time.

In the Skagit Valley, there's a large tulip-themed festival every spring. Of course, this brings lots of tourists plugging up streets, so there's a lot of controversy/debate over everything. In a way, I'm putting in a new perspective.

I started creating the image yesterday afternoon using Gimp and Inkscape, and a lot of hours for working. Just about done too.

Here are some teasers. The full image will be released later this week.

-Enjoy!

New Shop

I've just recently started a Cafe Press account, and have been thinking up ideas for designs. At the moment I have one finished that's Easter themed.


More holidays and other things are to come.


If you're interested, I suggest looking through the batch I have up at my store.

This store has since been removed due to low volume sales.

Vectors!

Okay, I am going to run a little experiment. Basically, here's what I'm going to be doing for other people if they donate some $.

-------

From real picture, to vector graphic

Now, because this process is more technical than creative (unless the commission is to add certain features, colors, etc.), I don't expect to get much money each donation. Like probably a minimum of $5, just because it takes time for each one.

If you are interested, please send me an email with the Headline being "Vector Commission." Also, attach the picture you would like for me to vector--nothing too big, just so its easy to load, etc.

I don't want to be vectoring anything that's overly graphic in nudity or violence, go ask for that somewhere else.

Also, please note that every month I will be posting thumbnails of all the vectors for each month to showcase. By default, each thumbnail will not be able to be enlarged, unless you give permission to.

That's Cute...

Just recently rediscovered my friends' band they have on MySpace. It's not a true band, like a band-band, they remix different songs together. I still like it, anyway. I thought I'd share their music and the image.

The other night I was bored, creative, and had my computer. So I got cracking, and whipped out a playful little vector image for them. After I emailed it to them, they happily used the graphic.

Their band is called That's Cute, I Remember My First Remix (with corresponding MySpace link). By the way, my favorite song is My Drinking Team Has a Dancing Problem...and possibly Boner Jams.

Also, their other mock-band, Whores Behind Doors has some snazzy music! I may make a graphic for that one as well.

The graphic was created on Inkscape (vector-graphics), my Genius tablet, and insomnia.


-Enjoy!

Pea Graphic

I'm behind, but last week there was an illustration that I had done that was published with an article about peas. The farmers of Skagit Valley will have to do without planting peas, which is an important crop in the field cycles.

Anyway, it's a big story, and I will only be talking about the graphic I've done. I wanted to have this out at the same time as the newspaper featured the graphic, but like I said, I was behind.

At the end of last year, I went to pick up my check when my editor asked if I wanted to take on an illustration for an upcoming article about peas. She told me she wanted a picture of a bag of peas, and an open--possibly empty--can of peas.

I immediately started sketching the design and wrote some notes. She then gave me some money, and I bought a bag of peas and one can.



I went home knowing exactly how I wanted to do this: take several pictures with the can in different positions, and later edit them on my computer so it is one image with three cans.

At home, I grabbed big pieces of paper, tape, my camera, the peas, and a clamp-on light. I had an impromptu studio in the kitchen.



I arranged the cans as needed, and took a series of photos at different angles. I also changed the lighting quite a few times. Here are the different pictures that made it.

The tea box was the exact height of the particular can I used.

The final garnishing.

On the computer, I used my tablet and GIMP, and probably about 3 hours or so layering, shading, burning, editing, etc. The sign with "Sold Out!?" on it was eventually erased for the paper.