Illustration Friday: Clumsy

Two Threadless submissions: Vote purty PLEASE!!

I've known about the Threadless T-shirt company for a while now, and never really looked into submitting a design for whatever reason, so I was glad that the opportunity came up in my Vector Art class to work on a design submission. I came up with two ideas I was really connected to and worked on them both, even though I only was required to do one.

The first design I did was based off the nesting doll set I did of Animals in Space. I had this kind of disgruntled octopus character, and thought about setting him in space fixing a satellite and losing track of tools from one of his tentacles.

Clumsy Space Octopus!

Made of Butterflies

This next design was created for the "Threadless Loves" challenge in which the theme is to create a new trend for 2010 (jeez, could they think of anything more difficult to conceptualize for a T-shirt design??). This is a special challenge with a specific theme that I think they do monthly. There is a greater cash prize available for their selection of the best design. The additional caveat of the assignment (for class) was to do a two color design. (EEek! Color limitations!!) Which is actually something to be mindful of, since I read that Threadless tees have an 8 color limit to print.

The sketch for this design started out much different. My initial idea was to have the woman in a disappearing dress that faded into butterflies, but as I started working this one out a little more, i started to like the fact that in the drawing it looked like the woman herself was breaking apart into butterflies, so I went with that instead.

My experience creating entire pieces in Adobe Illustrator has been limited up until this point. I am slowly exploring more of the tools, and learning more about what the program can do. I can see so clearly how piece will turn out when I use Adobe Photoshop--I've adopted my own methods for working within a certain style, and I can visualize when I sketch out an idea how the piece will look finished. I don't feel that comfortable yet in Illustrator--the entire time I am drawing, I feel held back, thinking to myself, "How would I do this?" which leads me to making some different drawing choices, since I feel like I have limitations in the program. Through these different pieces I feel like I have expanded my ideas on what is possible in the program (especially through the second piece--I never knew I could get a weighted line in a single stroke!), and I look forward to making more new discoveries.

Anyways, long story short, please vote for my work (Clumsy Space Octopus and Made of Butterflies) to be printed on a T-shirt! You can create an account at Threadless and vote on other designs too, or submit some of your own designs. You make decent $bank$ if you design is chosen for print. I've really gotten into this site, and hope I can submit something another design soon.