sticker sale!

thanks to a really great sales day at tee fury, and the interest shown for my plaidinum stickers, i have them on sale for a limited time!

buy here!

now 17% off, plus extra stickers shoved in to each order envelope!

sale runs until 5/19 at 11:59pm est

mario is dead?!

i am very pleased to have an older design of mine up for sale on teefury.com for the next 24 hours:

click here to buy now.

tee fury is also currently running a promotion to win some free plaidinum stickers:

click here to enter on teefury, or click here to bypass the uncertainty and buy yourself a set.

a lot of folks on tee fury have expressed interest in my star wars themed side art (or as the tee fury word filters have retitled them, "dancing with the stars" themed) i would love some help with my design tatooine trash on threadless:

last day! nope, voting is over.

hello ripters!

i figured it'd be nice to put together a specialized message to the new folks visiting my site from my may 12th sale of my construct-a-trooper design at ript apparel.


if you're way into star wars, i have some stickers that might interest you:


and another shirt:


and another design up for vote on threadless:


check back soon, i have another design up for sale next week on tee fury.

the yin and the yang.

i had an interesting day.

i worked from 9am until 10pm, and that really wasn't any fun. missed spending time with the family, relaxing after a normal sized stressful day, etc.

but in an effort to balance out the boo-hoos, the cosmos delivered unto me 3 things:

montana flash!

this is one of those overly-expensive rock band figurines that are carved from ceramic by a 3d sculpting/painting machine. and that alone is pretty keen. but even cooler is that this character is a doppleganger for my father circa 1970. my dad was nicknamed "montana flash" (hence the custom shirt graphics i created for him) and it was a shirt design i made for my dad's birthday a decade ago that piqued my interest into the legacy that is, montana flash.

so that was pretty cool.

and on top of that, i finally received my monster league baseball playing cards!

the pre-orders are shipping out, click here to order yours today!

and lastly, my wife surprised me with new tank tops. this is fantastic solely because of the unexplainable lack of them in our area outside of the summer months. i know i live in wisconsin, but there weren't even any wife-beaters in the walmarts... that's absurd. so the 3 month wait is over.

you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. the facts of life.

awesome!

i recently complained on facebook that the city of duluth was featured on the awesomer before any of my work was.

then, yesterday, my design, "plaidinum." went up for sale on teextile.


and i finally got my wish, a small 300x250 pixel stake of real estate on the awesomer.


this has been a dream since i first found the awesomer following a link from a dick firestorm shirt. now if only i were as awesome as mr. firestorm...

come to the plaid side.

if you missed your chance at getting my "plaidinum." design on tee fury last year, here's a second chance!


click here to buy now!

this design sold well enough to get into tee fury's top 10 selling designs last year, so i am hopeful that having this design available for a full week at teextile (maybe more?) will at least match the level of awesome it did there!

sales bonanza.

huge edit! feel free to read the post below, but these shirts are no longer on sale. i was either unlucky, or scammed. i'm hoping it was the former. this company just folded a week after opening, and will be refunding all purchases made. that seems legit, but this company now has my print ready art for the shirts seen below. so my designs may show up in china or malaysia (hot spots for stolen designs).

the tshirt vault site is now live, and you can buy my shirts!





i am thrilled to have these designs on sale, especially the butterfly/glasses design. a buyer from fueled by ramen (or a manager) contacted me interested in showing the design to the band paramore, but they passed. and i've always had a lot of interest in my "the death of super grover." design when in the sidebar art on tee fury, so i'm hoping that parlays into a lot of sales.

what's in it for me? besides seeing the smiles on the faces of the children? i take in $3 per shirt sold, and i have a chance at getting a chunk of a $10,000 prize if i am one of the top 5 designs sold on that site. so, please, tell your friends. order 12 in case 11 of them are destroyed in a chemical fire. it could happen!

3 new prints coming soon!

there is a new competition in town that is raising some eyebrows. well, some brows are being furrowed.

tshirtvault.com has a new contest model that awards designers $3 per $19 shirt sold, and the top 5 designs sold get a portion of a $10,000 prize.

why are brows being furrowed? some find the setup incredulous, and even i feel like i am gambling as i submit designs into the competition. the detail that is concerning artists is the fact that you have to send it print ready art from the word go. the first rule of design is to never send the print ready art until you have cleared the check. and for tshirtvault.com to start selling your designs, it's a necessity to have this art up front.

the fear is that these designs could end up being ripped off. the company is brand new and hasn't had the time to build any trust with the online designer community.

i am throwing my hat in only because i see other respected designers taking the same gamble. and if we're ripped off, i will commiserate with good company; if that's any consolation.

now that i've waded through the uncertainty, i'll speak to the perks. barring rejection from tshirtvault.com, these designs will definitely be available to purchase on march 1st:



this eliminates a lot of work for designers. usually, when a design is finished, a designer looks at the different competition communities threadless, emptees, design by hümans, tee fury, shirt.woot, etc.) and guess which one is the best fit. then you submit and cross your fingers for prize money or 24 hour partial sales compensation. all tried and true systems, no doubt.

tshirtvault.com operates more like the old bountee.com (now a different company, hence no link) where every design submitted is available for sale, there's no uncertainty. and unless you win one of the top 5 sales spots, you retain your designs artistic rights and can pull the design at anytime to sell elsewhere (which raises the issue of the bigger design competitions not accepting previously printed designs, no matter how low the quantity, they're tainted.)

so i'm hopeful, and i have selected designs that are particular to tshirtvault's printing process and have been favorites when featured as sidebar art on sites like tee fury, but have never been printed. so please, spread the word. make my gamble worthwhile and help me get in the top 5 printed designs!

sha-na-na-na-na-na knees, knees!

i have a new design going up for sale on teefury tonight at midnight titled "use your illusion." (hence the comical title to this blog)



if you're having a hard time deciphering why i think this design is interesting, start looking at it knowing that it's an optical illusion. your mind has just been blown, courtesy of dann matthews.

this sale, like all teefury sales, is only for 24 hours, and it's dirt cheap. so go pawn your dirt!

paris 2600.

i have a shirt on sale today at teefury.

a note for anyone unfamiliar with teefury's set-up.

the design is on sale for 24 hours only, then it's gone (from teefury) for good.



now you too can be the nerdiest tourist in the louvre!

angry lizard!

i have a design up for sale at shirt.woot!

shirt.woot keeps a new design on the front page for 24 hours, then moves it into the archive, where only the top 20 bestsellers stick around. So buy 13 each and every day to see me smile.

here's my original design:

click here to see full design.

shirt.woot had to pull the color count down a bit (originally had 8 colors) and i dig it. i miss the shading i had done, of course, but for a cheaper printing solution, i think this works in spades:


click here to buy.

edit: i just got my overnight gojirawk shirts (that was unnervingly fast) and i have to admit, i was unsure about the colors from looking at the mockup on the shirt.woot sale page, but it really turned out sweet looking. i am really proud of this print!

father's/president's day sale!

i had a new shirt up at ript apparel for 24 hours only. (father's day) and it is now sold out.



it's done up in beautiful silver ink! you know you have always wanted a large print silver inked shirt of george washington looking like a badass! now your chance is gone :(

ten dollar tees!

threadless just began another annual summer sale, with shirts as low as ten smackers.

this is a perfect time to nab my winning design:



*please note that my shirt is twelve dollars, not ten

the great going out of business sale.

i have been shopping some of my old threadless designs around the 'net.

i decided to put together a page for potential clients to nab some dusty designs that threadless passed over.

i plan on making the page a little more user friendly and eye catching (and removing all the threadless logos) so it may be a bit more fun to peruse in the near future.

i'm currently working on some t-shirt design work for a couple of brands, i'm feeling a little sheepish as normally my work ethic has me banging out a design in a couple of evenings, but i threw my back out at the theater watching juno (that's right, threw my back out while sitting for an hour and a half) so i haven't been as comfortable at the computer chair as i usually am. i hope to have those finished soon to share.

buy my shirt.

i've been designing for multiple shirt competitions all over the wide wild net.

but bountee gives designer's a chance to make both the company and the designer a little bit of scratch. they sell the shirts for a set cost, and the designer can create the mark-up to see what they take home.

on bountee i'm only taking in about $3 per design sold, but i'm not upset by that. i'm more pleased at the opportunity to spread the love.

the design i've put up for sale is an oldie but a goody:



this is another one i had originally entered over at threadless:


well, iffin' you're in the mood for a bright colorful shirt, and my "fruit luips" word play made you smirk, toss me $3 (and bountee $17)

thanks.

righteous robo roundup.

as a huge transformers fan, i've always been keen on robots of all sorts.

i decided to run through some vector designs i'd made over the past 2.5 years and was actually suprised at their numbers.

here they all are, titles and explanations after the images. and if you like any of these, they are all for sale currently.



#1 a radom sketch of a robot "peeing" on a fire hydrant like a dog. this was done prior to the transformer movie's polarizing scene of bumblebee doing the same thing. this was one of the first pieces of vector art that i completed from sketch to screen. i created it as a possible threadless design; but i blogged about it as a work in progress and it wasn't well recieved so i shelved it.

#2 this guy is my favorite and he made it into my personal portfolio. toastor! he made his rounds through threadless

i was very pleased with the execution, especially since this was the first sketch to screen vector i shared with the masses. this little guy also has a backstory:

"TOASTOR
'I will butter the charred chassis of my enemies... then sprinkle fresh cinnamon on their remains!'
Toastor is the maniacal leader of the evil Appliance Defiance squad. In battle, his strategies are unmatched, leaving many of the Utensil Defense soldiers sent to the dishwasher of doom. After burning one too many slices of toast, society tossed him aside. After emerging from an alleyway trashcan, he amassed an army of the disposed, and ever since, the "Appliance Defiance" has been taking over the world... one kitchen at a time."

#3 here's a design titled "seekers" showcasing the 3 generation one transformers jets making up the team by the same name. i wanted to place their sihouettes against a very vintage looking sun design. never did anything else with this one.

#4 a transforming ipod. modeled after soundwave, one of the more popular generation one transformers that changed into a tape deck, i thought this was a novel idea... but wait a few years, and it exists. as big a fan of transformers as i am, i had to hold back on an overly expensive mp3 player, when i already have an ipod stuffed with 6,000+ songs

#5 "rock monster" this guy also ran his threadless course:

just an abstract idea i had that i wanted to see come to life. this was the first time i played with swatches (for the smoke and fire) and got the swawtches to work well.

#6 and lastly, "back burner" another soldier in the appliance defiance. i had fun making him, but after toastor scored so low on threadless, i decided against adding him to the competition. he has his own story as well:
"Back Burner
The once proud stovetop oven cooked thousands of family meals. After his owner's house sold to a young couple, they opted for a "less drab" color scheme in the house and tossed him to the back curb. It was there that Back Burner met Toastor and joined the ranks of the Appliance Defiance. The muscle of the group, he remains quiet and stoic, and loyal to Toastor's cause. He has been known to overkill "innovative" appliance's, like refrigerators with LCD screens, during raids; a rage issue Toastor secretly hopes he never has to reign in."

so there is my vector robot collection (paling in comparison to my plastic robot army, taking up real estate in 9 large tubs in my closet).

again, these are all for sale, if anyone loves robots as much as i do, let me know.