Come Hell or Bywater

The guys over at Dirty Coast in New Orleans came to me with this idea for a shirt they wanted produced. The message is that nothing, not even hurricanes and flooding, can keep the Bywater neighborhood residents down. Here's how the design/illustration turned out!

If you like the shirt, you can order it here.

It's Adventure Time!

Threadless is currently having an "Adventure Time" Design Challenge. Here's my entry!
And HERE is my description:

Treasure hunting has always been a popular mode of adventuring, and one at which Jake & Finn are very skilled. It helps that people wearing bright yellow shirts are often known to hide treasure underneath their clothing. Also, shouting is a very important part of adventuring, as shown here.

Here's the direct link to vote for my submission on the Threadless page: Adventure Time

And, if this illustration pleases your eyes, you can reblog my Tumblr post to help spread the word. I'd love you forever. Let me know if you vote and/or reblog it. I'm going to do a THANK YOU illustration afterwards with everyone who lent a hand.

Thanks, everyone!

Puppet Master of Ceremonies

I was commissioned to design a shirt for the release of New Orleans puppet singer/songwriter Lil' Doogie's new album, "YeahBrahCaDaBrah." The cd release party is at the NOLA House of Blues on Nov. 5.

Pretty fun rush project. Originally I had hand-drawn some smokey magical type, but the client thought it needed to look less scripty. So, this was the reworked version.

Three colors on a blue shirt. Fun use of halftones, which is something I'd like to experiment more with.

Yes, a puppet show at the House of Blues! I wish Slayer would open for him. That'd be SICK, BRAH.

The Creole Trinity

With all the excitement of getting one of my shirt designs printed, I forgot to upload the art to my blog! So here it is, my first shirt printed with Dirty Coast, a t-shirt & poster printing shop in New Orleans, La.

If you aren't familiar with the cooking practices of Southern Louisiana, know that we love our cooking "trinity," which consists of onion, bell pepper and celery. They go into many a cajun/creole dish. Garlic is definitely a close runner up. I personally use garlic more than celery, haha.

Anyway, Dirty Coast asked if I'd like to do a shirt design based on "We Believe in the Trinity," and feature the onion, bell pepper and celery. So this is what I came up with. Cooking IS religious to many down here, you know.

Here's a link to the shirt on the Dirty Coast shop page: Believe in the Trinity

Bon appétit!

Save the Gulf Walrus

This is the second shirt design I've done for Dirty Coast, out of New Orleans. The creative director, Blake, contacted me with the idea "Save the Gulf Walrus," and this is what I popped out of my head. Quite a fun piece to illustrate!

If you aren't familiar with the story, apparently some oil companies released a report right after the Gulf oil leak that stated that the walrus was among the species in danger from the disaster. Well, since there aren't any walruses (walri?) in the Gulf, I guess those companies have some oily egg on their collective face.

Isn't that chubby gryphon adorable? I think he's part weenie dog. Yay, Weenie Gryphon!

The initial response was that they really liked how the art looks. I'll keep you guys posted as to if/when it gets printed.

I have a few more illustrations that I'll be posting soon! :D

Brass Bed - Gramophone Shirt

My friends in Brass Bed asked me to come up with a shirt design! They wanted to have something for the release party of their second album, Melt White, which is coming up on Sept. 10th. That's going to be a super-fun show. Great music, too. Check 'em out!

I did a few thumbnails of different concepts based on the initial thoughts they gave me. They all lit on this direction, which was a horse pulling a giant gramophone; here's the final product. It was a really fun project to accept, and as an added bonus, I stocked up on a few ideas for future illustrations. Woooo!

BURST!

EEEK! Sorry for the lack of posts. Been working on a lot of freelance illustrations. Wooo! OK, so this is a new shirt design that I just submitted to Threadless. Scoring is going on RIGHT AS I TYPE.

It's a fun speech bubble made out of comic onomatopoeias. Wouldn't this be totally fun to wear? WOULDN'T IT? You're right, it totallllly would.

:D

If you'd like, please help it get printed by voting and commenting on the Threadless submissions page.
Here's the link:



Thanks ever so much, friends! OH, and please feel free to leave comments here as well :D

Oldschool Wrap Voting

My design (see post below) just went up for scoring. It'll be up for a week, so please go vote when you can!

Thanks a ton, everyone! :D

-burt

Oldschool Wrap, Resurrected

Hey everyone! I finally got around to finishing up the submission process for my Oldschool Wrap shirt design for Threadless. They months-long delay was due to the fact that I did not own a brown shirt. I'd always think "I need to go get a brown shirt so I can comp up my design and submit the entry," but I'd always forget instantly afterwards. Until this weekend! So, finally, I submitted the design to Threadless.

The description I included with the design was along the lines of "Represent the Middle-East Side," in addition to the actual ink and shirt specs. Because, really, one can't have enough mummy puns.

Haha, doing silly things like this is really fun. I should do more. Hopefully, one of these days a submission will get printed!

I'll post a link to the shirt when it goes up for voting. Thanks in advance for the support! :D

Old School Wrap

Here's my latest shirt design. It was originally supposed to be for the last Illustration Friday theme, "Wrapping," but I missed the deadline. It's alright, since I wanted to make it into a sweet shirt anyway.

Meet T-Mummy. He is the oldest-school rapper on record. Though his lyrics are often unintelligible to the living, he was very popular amongst the Undead. There were a few deranged necromancers who were avid supports of his, so you COULD say that he literally had a cult following.

T-Mummy never did a gig without his ceremonial backwards hedjet and golden sundial necklace. And he always flashed the "M" hand gestures. You can guess why.

I'll let everyone know when Threadless puts it up for voting/scoring, in case you want to help support the design.

Thanks! Word to ya mummy.

Deep Sea, Deep Space

Here's my latest t-shirt design. It's actually been completed for a while; I just haven't been able to comp it up on a shirt until now.

The shirt concept is a logistical nightmare: having a drive-by high-five between an astronaut and a scuba diver. But once they figured it out, the high-five was totally necessary.

I spec'd it to be glittery gold and silver ink on a black shirt. Black for deep space AND deep sea. Two blacks for the price of one shirt.

Let me know what you think! I'll submit it to Threadless soon and keep everyone posted on when the scoring starts.

Here's a detail shot:

The Apple Tree

At the request of my roomate-sister Ashley, pictured above, and because my friend Allison loved the illustration so much, I went ahead and turned my An Apple A Sketch booksketch into a shirt design.

I just uploaded it to Threadless, as well. So I'll keep you all posted on how that goes. And I'll need all the votes I can get to help it win!

In Memoriam

This design is dedicated to all those who have fallen whilst providing us with fuel for our fires.

If you watch LOST (the TV show), and especially if you listen to the Jay and Jack and Dharmalars podcasts, you'll know that we're almost out of Log Carrying Guys. I recently found out, thanks to Ralph at the Dharmalars (and also thanks to The Lost Initiative Podcast) that the LCG count is down to approximately three. THREE.

Look, I know we can't save them. They are smoke-monster fodder. Or flaming arrow targets. My initial concept was to push to save them, but I have realized that is futile. Instead, let's just remember them. No need to get our hopes dashed along with those randos' lives.

The design is a dark brown on top of a red (of course) shirt.

Socrateeth the Philosoraptor

Socrateeth was my second attempt at submitting something to Threadless.com. I believe it was around August of last year (2008). Originally inspired by my friends Tim and Rachel, who wanted me to help them design a shirt for the UL Philosophy Club, Socrateeth was birthed from the pun-track mind of yours truly. Pun-track mind? How do I do it??

This shirt was also passed over by Threadless, but the demand was so high that I had the design printed locally on a short run. I might have to do that with WereWaldo!

Now, if I can only get my own screen press set up. Then I'd be in business!

Funapeeling

Funapeeling was my first foray into shirt designs. The title, of course is a play on the word "Unappealing." It'd be unappealing to be the astronaut in the illustration, no? And "peal" is spelled "peel" for pun's sake.

Of course.

Anyway, it didn't get selected to be printed. It was interesting how many people got hung up on the astronaut's foot bleeding off of the illustration. As if I just forgot to draw it or something. It's a design element to lead you into the drawing, since people read from left to right, from top to bottom. Well, in English, anyway.

Hmm that last paragraph began and ended with the word "anyway." Interesting. Hmm.

WereWaldo?

Jumping to the present day, this is a t-shirt design that I recently submitted to Threadless.com. Even more recently, they sent me a rejection letter, stating that they would rather stay away from pop-culture icons in fear of lawsuits. Which I wouldn't blame them for doing, except that they already printed this. If you risk incurring the wrath of George Lucas, I don't think you fear anything. So what's up now, Threadless?

It's ok; I have several more shirt designs that don't involve copyright infringement.

PS - After five attempts to get a decent resolution posted, I've succeeded. I think the internet likes PNG files.