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.

more e.t., merry kwanzhanamas!

if you missed your chance to order this shirt from france at the beginning of the month, here's another chance!



tee invaders will have this shirt on sale for the next 24 hours only. if there's anyone on that christmas list you've been holding out on getting a gift for, nothing says "i had no idea what to get you!" like an e.t. parody shirt!

some designs on the horizon?

i have a design coming up on the new site tee48h.com where, like teefury and their business set-up, shirts are sold for a very limited time.

tee48h gives you doule the amount of time to pick up their shirts, and they're based out of france, so if you're from that side of the pond and you dig this design:

it will be up for sale this upcoming thursday and friday (12/3-12/4... or the correct european parlance, 3/12-4/12 from what i understand) for only 10€

i am also crossing my fingers, there may be a few cool things happening this month if all goes well.

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!

100th post extravaganza!

well, not really much of an extravaganza to speak of, per se.

i do have a new shirt up at loiter



i also have updated my website (dannmatthews.com), and if you dig around in the updated site, you can find out a secret of a future print (really, not a lot of digging has to be done).

i was really happy with the look of my 07-08 website, but i went with something more minimal (which you may have noticed the color changes on my blog set to match my site) and ultimately, easier to update than the train.

let me know how you like/dislike the new site, and let me know of any bugs you encounter!

this marks the end of the 100th post extravaganza.

great job!

well, my batch of 22 designs up at loiter finally paid off.

even though the votes on my design in their submissions section didn't pan out very well, it seems that the owners of loiter know a good tie in to a hilarious show when they see one.

that's why this shirt is now on sale.



confused? let youtube school you:



all from the show, "tim and eric awesome show great job" one of my favorite shows.

part of me is stoked because i finally got to order my very own channel five shirt. the other part of me is stoked because, thanks to loiter's set-up, i'll be getting 20% of every channel five shirt sold for life!

i just made $6.01 buying one for my wife and myself.

gorgeous george.

a new threadless design.



i am also currently submitting designs to teefury.com. they have a shirt.woot kind of set up, where there's a new shirt every day, only unlike shirt.woot, you can't buy it after the 24 hours is up, and there's no contest element to it. which i kind of like. although i love threadless to death, the voters there are primarily comprised of teenagers with their mouse hovering over a vote of zero. it's nice to be able to enter somewhere the staff of design minded people just pick whatever tickles their fancy.

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

new threadless print.

the title is misleading, as this is my first threadless print.

a design i had made back in december, was purchased by threadless.



the actual print is a little smaller, as i'm certain they had to scale it to fit girls extra small as well as 3xlarge, but i still think it looks dynamite.

if you're so inclined, you can buy the shirt here.

i was introduced to threadless and started submitting designs a mere month before i began schooling for graphic design, so there's a definite arc in the quality of my work (that i'm nowhere near the end of), and it's really vilifying that the designing playground that i got my start at finally liked one of my designs enough to nab it.

i promised myself i wouldn't cry.....

if you're tired of reading my attempts at wit here, threadless also conducted an e-mail interview with me where my charm continues to fool no one.

gold, silver, bronze... tin foil?

i recently placed fourth in a jones soda t-shirt contest... possibly.

why add possibly after a dramatic use of elipses? well, after 1st place and runner up, there are 6 honorable mentions, and i'd like to imagine that they're in order, making me fourth place.

unless they're not in order and i got third, i'll accept that. a bronze medal is better than a tin foil medal any day.

here is the design i had entered:


how could aquanet lincoln not have taken home the prize? he could have been jones soda's new spokesperson, rivaling the burger king! (despite being a different market entirely, they would battle regardless... war doesn't have to make sense [it has to make dollars! hahahahahah. {i'm sorry if that joke was insensitive, oh my! i'm into my 3rd set of parenthesis! i should probably back out now}])

to celebrate my 4th place near-victory, i command everyone to go out and purchase a jones soda green apple soda and drink and be merry and use to many "ands" in your sentences.

i have to applaud the threadless bloggers. we were directed to this competition from this blog, and after looking at last years winners, we decided to make it our mission to win this. 5 of us entered and we got the top 5 slots. super congrats to wotto for the 1st pace win.

pots 'n' pans rocker.

grab you wooden spoons and pray for a tolerant mother...

it's time to rock!





got a little nostalgic for annoying my mother, and thought of what the ultimate pots and pans drumkit would consist of.

a wok hi-hat, pan snare, cauldron kick, stewpot toms and a lid for a cymbal.

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.

two shirts for sale.

a few months back, sharp shirter bought a couple of my designs.

"bring it"


"african animal alliance"


the second design is still on preorder (even i haven't recieved my shirts of the second design as part of the acquisition yet, so i'm guessing they're yet to hit the presses)

bring it was my first off center design i'd put together that i thougt worked well. african animal alliance had preceeded bring it by a number of months, but i only had that placement off center as it looked boring centered. and as far as i'm aware, sharp shirter plans on printing that off center as well.

african animal alliance was one of the few designs i'd created fully rasterized, usually i like to work with vectors. i did turn aaa into vector art for dan over at sharp shirter, but only to aide in getting it printed easier. this design had initially run in the threadless competition, and a voter had asked if it was influenced by donkey kong country, and as i can remember it now, they did indeed ride ostriches. even when i'm trying not to be influenced by the 80's and 90's, i fail.

skulls and zappers.

this is my latest non-paycheck design.



created for threadess, this design is for a specific competition. usually threadless has an ongoing competition with no boundaries and no themes. with a prize pack of $2,000 for a well scored design.

this design is particular to a competition titled "e for all", a video game themed contest.

so i dug out some clichés.

many voters on threadless hate guns and skulls and video game designs. but i liked the aesthetic these had together and i decided to pander to my own interests. i think this design in particular may cater to a different crowd, but threadless has been very open minded and awarded an array of different styles.

at any rate, i'm late to the game in posting this, as there's only a 7 day windo to vote... i've already lost 2 days.

so if you're not a member, join up. threadless has a great community of designers, even non designers who just dig design tend to hang out. but please vote on my piece and let me know what you think. too often i don't have many comments, so i have very little to learn from (outside of people not liking skulls and guns)




in the future, large versions of the images outside of the threadless template will make their way into this blog. so it will at least be more visually interesting to look at later.