CLICK ABOVE.

So as 3rdSpud last posted, I gave him a hand providing some artwork for Avon Union’s CD. He also posted some black and white line art that I done-did. I originally had a bigger more colorful vision for the finished piece, but we were pressed for time, and the simpler black and white version you saw was more than enough. So I handed it over to 3rdSpud, who handed it over to the band.

Now, the band had free reign to work with the artwork and put on the CD however they wanted. Over the weekend I got a copy of the finished product in the mail, and let me say I happy with the changes they made. Luckily for Avon Union, their drummer David Mayman is also studying Graphic Design and with limited time he threw down color and photoshop to help bring the art to life.

As an illustrator, you often have no idea how the work you turn in will be manipulated or presented. Fortunately, there are plenty of times when it turns out well. Like now. For instance. Check it out.

My God the Colors.

Welfare State has nothing to do with this.

Venganza Final Design

The Submission

Experience our first collaborative Threadless.com design submission.

Like Voltron, the frognuts worked together to produce this design, and with any luck it will garner enough votes to be printed and sold on t-shirts by Threadless. A message to our friends and family who read this: Go check out threadless.com, and if you like the shirts they sell sign up for an account, then if you please, go to the ‘participate’ section and vote that you would buy a shirt with our design plastered on it.

Now for some background on this graphic.

The way I remember it I was enjoying some food at frognuts’ house when almost out of the blue he starts with, “I’ve got a great idea for a t-shirt…” I think he was interrupting nacho consumption, but I can’t be sure. However, his idea was delightfully wicked and simple: have piñatas beating up on a kid.

I liked the idea enough that I went to work and sketched out an initial version…but this sketch turned out kind of violent, check it out by clicking on the image below.

First Sketch

The sketch shows a kid on the foreground being beaten by a piñata while a crowd of piñatas looks on. I think the consensus was that it looked too brutal. Looking back now, it reminds me of a gang beating, or police using excessive force. Considering that we wanted our t-shirt design to appeal to everyone’s sense of humor, and not horror, I had to redraw it.

So redraw I did. Check out version two below…

Second Sketch

Once more, my efforts were met with shock/revulsion by the other frognuts. Apparently hanging the kid from his neck is too gruesome. I guess so…but at least I was getting closer because taking the kid off the ground was an improvement. Another improvement was not actually showing the beating.
A suggestion to reduce the gruesomeness was to hang the kid by one foot instead. That sounded good to me, so I drew it yet again.

This time things were better, however there was knowledgeable dissent from Ponder who said that the kid and characters should be simplified because it was going to be printed on a t-shirt. That is, there should be fewer lines and the shapes more pronounced so that it has more impact when worn. I agreed. The final drawing iteration that followed is found below.

Final Sketch

I scanned the drawing and sent it over to Ponder. Here’s where Ponder threw his weight in, with some digital production design. He took my ink drawing and with the power of knowledge and creativity, turned it into a colored art piece ready for contest submission.

I tried coloring the black and white art myself but I was unable to kick any ass there. Chalk it up to lack of color theory and practice. After working with my scan Ponder came back with a colored version of his own, check it out by clicking on the thumbnail below.

First Layout

Yes, he took my drawing and made it better. He added little sweat drops and the spotlight effect along with a bunch of subtle effects. But, while I liked the colors, I didn’t like how the pants or shoes were not defined. The reason they weren’t was because Ponder was hoping to accentuate the spotlight effect, but it wasn’t working out. Ponder went through a few color revisions before hitting pay dirt with the final version.

Color was the most difficult and I would say crucial part of the process. You see, threadless only allows four distinct colors in a design apart from the color of the t-shirt. That means five colors total, it can be challenging but fun figuring out how to work those five colors so that the design doesn’t look limited in the end. I think Ponder pulled it off well. Even though, I personally don’t like the shirt color as something I would wear, majority ruled and since the overall color scheme worked, it was chosen.

Why develop this idea for threadless.com? Well we like the way Threadless does business and the shirts it offers. We also like creating, so participation seemed natural to us. Lastly, the cash-money prizes don’t hurt either. If we win most of the loot will probably be blown on booze and tacos. At any rate, this is the first of a couple of t-shirt ideas we’re going to develop; hopefully some will end up on t-shirts.

Here’s the project contribution breakdown:
MEMBER – CONTRIBUTION/TOOLS
frognuts – Concept/Brain, Hubris
deadlymarxist – Illustration and Concept development/Pencil, Pen, Paper, Nachos
Ponder – Digital Production Design/Laptop, Adobe Illustrator, Mad Skillz

Cesbot’s Profile Portrait.

Check it! A monumental moment.

A brief relaxation of your defenses. Let your eyes believe what they are seeing, they aren’t lying this time around. Let your mind do its thing even if it is taking awhile.

It is Cesbot’s profile, for you bro.

What does everyone think?

Rocha’s Backhoe Service’s New Logo

Rocha’s Backhoe Service: Official Hats

A logo for ThirdSpuds dads’ company. When I went down to meet Thirdspud at his place I didn’t realize his place was huge and it had a great view. It was cool seeing the Backhoe in action. What a monster.

This was one of the toughest logos I have created simply because it demanded to be both recognizable as a Backhoe and simple enough to be embroidered.

The hat version of the logo came out pretty good. Hats off to the embroidery place where they were created.

CLICK ON ABOVE IMAGE

The poor thing didn’t deserve what I did to its picture. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t care. I thought this up during work (I was on break dammit) after seeing the original image on cuteoverload.com. I made a photoshop file with the kitty and the words, then rednop came in and changed word color and put a red frame around the whole thing, which I think made the difference.