February 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008Derby 31's theme was
Water. A nice broad and easy topic even if text wasn't allowed. The derbyists came out in full force with this one -- tons of high-quality entries and higher vote totals than we've seen for some time. Here's six (count 'em) shirts that I was impressed with -- giving us the largest number of Awards in a derby after last week's fewest. Click on the entry to see the full-size shirt and comments on Shirt.Woot.
The "Seal vs. Clam" Award
TGentry continues to impress with his skills and eye for different perspectives. This time it's "Clam Dive" showing a seal swimming deep while another seal is visible above the water on an ice floe. Amazing what you can get on a shirt with the limited space and colors.
The "Man vs. Ray" Award
BluChez has an artistic entry as well with "Blu Ray vs. Harpooning Diver". Instead of relying on his pun to get the votes he does a beautiful job with water reflections on the ray. Great colors all around.
The "Man vs. Squid" Awards
Cho is back with another quality entry named "Sashimi Hunters" (besides two other entries -- one of which is an expected win). Lots of great details and textures like we've come to expect from him. FableFire's "Terror of the Deep" has a similar subject with a radically different style. You might recognize the shirt from the forums as a daily entry that never got printed or recognize just the squid from her "Creative Thought Process" shirt. Nice to see this "little" guy again.
The "Water vs. Spit" Awards
Newcomer Sokowa impresses with his beautiful hand-drawn "River Man". And RobGlenn tries on the cute with "Water Fall". In both cases, that's not water I want to drink...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
This is the 2nd in our series of "Printerviews". The last one was a
printerview with Amorphia Apparel on SpreadShirt. This time we're talking with Derby regular
SoothedByRainfall about her experience with
CafePress.
Printer Stats (cheapest shirt / cheapest dark shirt / shipping prices)
$8.99 / $18.99 /
$5.00. All shirt prints are Direct-To-Garment (which CafePress calls "
Direct Printing").
How did you get into t-shirt designing?
I studied art in college with a focus on illustration. I've yet to attempt a career as a freelance illustrator but I now that my daughter will be starting preschool, I'll have more time to devote to it. Meanwhile, I had all these paintings and illustrations and designs languishing up in my attic and on my hard drive and one day I thought, "maybe I can make some money off of these things online somehow." So I started up my CafePress shop which motivates me to make more and more designs.
What t-shirt competitions have you participated in?
So far, just
Threadless and the Derby but I plan to give
DBH a shot in the near future as well. I really enjoy the challenge and the feedback I get from these contests and at the very least I end up with more designs for my shop and/or portfolio.
How long have you had your shop?
February 20th was my shop's first anniversary.
Could you give me a ball-park number of how many shirts you sell?
Heck, I'll tell you the total: 140 items (shirts/hats/bags etc) with "Make Everyday Earth Day" being my best seller...which to be honest was something I cobbled together rather quickly around that holiday last year since I saw it was a popular search topic in the CafePress marketplace.
How long did it take for things to start to take off after you started the shop?
I don't know if I can really say that things have quite "taken off" yet, but my shop more than pays for itself.
Any advice to people opening up print-to-order shops?
Check out
statcounter.com . It's a free service that allows you to generate a code that you can insert into your website that lets you track traffic to your shop. Pretty neat!
Any comments on print quality?
The colors are quite faithful and although very fine details can get lost, I've generally found the overall print quality to be fairly good.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
IAmBusyEating is as n00b as you can get when it comes to the derbies -- this is his very first entry. Congratulations on winning on the first go 'round! To make it even sweeter, his shirt sold out in less than 2 hours.
Shirt.Woot Stats? (first derby / shirts bought / shirts printed)
#30 (Leap Year) / 2 / 1. This was the first derby I actually entered. I have been keeping track since about the Invention Derby and the first shirt I saw was "It Might Have Been a Giant" which I regret not getting to this day. Personally I've bought Fablefire's "Say no to Scurvy" which I think is probably the greatest shirt Woot has ever printed and Jack's "Tracking Survival Guide".
What are you tools of choice?
I have a copy of
Photoshop CS3 and for this design I used a trial version of
Illustrator. I've always wanted a
tablet (maybe I'll buy one with my winnings). Some times I use pen and ink just to get my ideas out there but my hand drawing skills are embarrassingly bad.
What is your typical process for going about a design?
I really just started this so I'm making up a process as I go. When I see the theme I don't usually think of something immediately, so I carry around a sketchbook and when an idea comes to me I'll just jot down a quick visualization of it. Then I either use the Photoshop brush or pen and export those paths to Illustrator or draw directly with the pen tool in Illustrator.
What design or art experience do you have outside the derby?
I have a little Photoshop experience and I recently started entering the Woot Photoshop contest. A lot of my practice comes from making random stuff for no reason. Other than that, not very much experience at all.
Would you like to do art/design full-time? If so, what is your dream job?
I would like to but I'm way below the necessary skill level. Right now I'm a freshman history major at college, but if I could choose any job in the art/design field I would probably go with something in the video game field.
Any plans to sell your designs outside Woot?
Nope.
What advice do you have for new derby artists?
If you have an idea just make it to the top of your ability and throw it out there. You have no idea what could strike a chord. I honestly didn't even think my shirt would be in the top half of entries. If you have any questions or problems don't hesitate to post on the forums, the people there are friendly and nice and will probably sort you out.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008Derby 30's theme was
Leap Year. Probably one of the toughest derbies in a while. I appreciate that Woot wants to challenge us with difficult topics. But next time they also need to ask themselves if people are really going to want to wear shirts that commemorate that topic. I would think with "leap year" you'd want your shirt to be as barely relevant as possible in order to make it wearable more than once every four years but Woot rejected those shirts that weren't clearly leap year related. Here's a couple (yup, just two) that managed to walk that fine line. Click on the entry to see the full-size shirt and comments on Shirt.Woot.
The "15th Century" Award
Josephus' "Aztec Stonemasons hated leap day" is clever and attractive. A nice mix of live traced and hand traced. Nice work.
The "19th Century" Award
Another clever idea and good integration of clip art in HazelNuts' "It's a leap year". Good colors and appropriate font choices.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008Going to
GoodStorm sends you to
Zazzle now. For the handful of people who had GoodStorm shops linked from the gallery, those links have been removed. If you create a new store somewhere else or want me to put up contact info for you on your page, please let me know.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Shan24 has been here since derby #1. This is her 2nd print but really her first true derby win since her shirt, "See-Sawlitude" was one of the extra shirts printed from the first few derbies when Woot switched from printing one to three shirts per week.
Shirt.Woot Stats? (first derby / shirts bought / shirts printed)
#1 (One) / 11 / 2. I started with week #1. I've been there from the beginning, seen all the controversies, started a couple myself. The world was a different place then, innocent and naive. Now we are all derby zombies who stay up designing too late and throwing stuff up on the wall to see what will stick. Actually for the most part everyone has been very supportive of one another and it's a fun community.
What are you tools of choice?
I mostly use
Photoshop CS3. I tried
Inkscape but couldn't really get into it. I have a
Wacom tablet, I love it and I use it in place of my mouse a lot of the time even when not designing. I have used pen and ink before but usually I sketch things out in Photoshop with the paintbrush and then go back over it with the pen tool so it's in vector.
What is your typical process for going about a design?
I brainstorm with family and friends. Everyone always has a different take on the theme, and it helps me step away from my way of thinking and see the theme in a new light. The "Anatomy Test" shirt was actually my husband's idea so he should get most of the credit for that one! Then I head for Photoshop and plot it out with the brush tool.
What design or art experience do you have outside the derby?
I have designed some websites and really enjoy creating something from scratch. I submitted entries in Woot's Photoshop contest for a couple of years and that was a great creative outlet until I agreed to be one of the judges of that contest. So I was thankful that Shirt.Woot came along; learning about vector art and mastering the pen tool was a foreign thing.
Would you like to do art/design full-time? If so, what is your dream job?
Right now I'm loving what I do! I work from home and I have a 3 year old who stays home with me; it is so nice to be home with him and my 8 year old when he gets home from school. I design websites but mostly I do a lot of website updates as an independent contractor with a major online travel agency. I prepare many of their weekly email newsletters, one with a recipient list of almost 1 million, the other with a recipient list of over 200,000.
Any plans to sell your designs outside woot?
I would love to get a store set up somewhere but I have been waiting for the best design site to rise to the top. Every site has their pros and cons, I need to pick one and go with it! I have some older designs here on BestLosers, I need to update those and get to work on having some of them printed elsewhere. I have received some emails through BestLosers expressing interest in some of those designs which is always a nice compliment.
What advice do you have for new derby artists?
Keep trying, keep plugging along, you never know what will hit with the Woot voters. I almost didn't even do the sticky note shirt, I had talked myself out of it but the next day I said "oh well, let's just see how it would turn out" and I was more shocked than anyone that it took off and rose up the charts so fast. I had higher hopes for my "Robot Revealed" shirt, but you just never know. New derby artists should always go to that derby's forum for advice on their design and the people there will always give suggestions and tips. Good luck!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008Derby 29's theme was
Trompe L'Oeil. Trompe L'Oeil is French for "trick the eyes". The way I read the rules is that the shirt had to trick the eyes and also turn the shirt into something else. It seems a large quantity of designs simply used the shirt as a 3D canvas that just happened to have a hole in it. It looks like Woot was pretty flexible with their rules and only rejected for the more typical reasons they always reject for. That's just as well since many of my favorites weren't that strict in following the rules. Here's the ones I liked the best. Click on the entry to see the full-size shirt and comments on Shirt.Woot.
The "Claw Chooses Who Will Go and Who Will Stay" Award
SoothedByRainfall was busy this week. A total of four entries -- one that is all-but-guaranteed to be printed and three other excellent contenders. All of her shirts did wonders with halftones to achieve pseudo-gradients for the realistic look that Woot wanted. I think "Win me a prize" had the best combination of execution and idea for me. I really liked
this one as well but it would make a better wall print than shirt.
The "Lightningy" Award
Artulo wins another Loser Award with "throw me the cheese". This one has a great rat escape story with a nice realistic hand-drawn style. A lot of varied styles and obvious skill from Artulo -- I'm sure I'll be interviewing him in the next few months when he wins a derby.
The "Scary Monsters Don't Have Plaque" Award
Nice to see EdgarRMcHerly back in the Loser Awards and steadily improving his style, accessibility, and number of votes. "Monsters and things climbing your shirt -- ah!" has 5X the number of unique Edgar creatures so you can't go wrong.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
My shirt
Cat Carrier just got reckoned from Shirt.Woot. For some time when it was first for sale, Woot had the title as "You sunk my cat-tleship" and people were asking where the cows were.
Well, a friend of mine dared me to make
that shirt so here it is (and, yes, those are cows not cats). If you like it, it's for sale on
SpreadShirt. The nice thing is that this is a
fluffy puffy flock print which is higher quality than the normal Direct-To-Garment printing.
Thursday, February 07, 2008Derby 28's theme was
quitters. Text is OK again this derby but was surprisingly not overly used -- many of the highest ranking shirts had little or no text. Again I have to say that I really like that Woot picks and sticks to a theme every week -- it gets all of us to think a little harder and produce things we wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Here's a few quitting shirts that I wish the voters didn't quit on. Click on the entry to see the full-size shirt and comments on Shirt.Woot.
The "Another Brick in the Wall" Award
Patchitect's "Quitters never finis..." has some great detailed little sketches in each letter in the design. Bold primary colors make you forget we're limited to six colors. Beautiful.
The "Mexican Radio" Award
DerekFilley's getting all voodoo on us. His entry, "Voodon't" is a dark and spooky voodoo doll with great textures and colors. The red heart and talk bubble give it a splash of color and humor. Woot always seems to find something wrong with Derek's entry and this time it was a barely noticeable gradient in the 240x detail image. I frequently put gradients in my detail image as well but obviously Woot has put their foot down and that is not OK anymore.
The "Don't Fear the Reaper" Award
Gargrazz strikes again with another great idea. This time it's mourning over our child designs that don't quite make out of the crib. "Won't Somebody Think of the Children!" is a nice mix of sketchy and stylized elements. He also did a nice job with the composition avoiding a completely square and centered design that would have come naturally for this graphic.
P.S. I've made some formatting changes to the site. If anything looks odd, please email me (address in sidebar).
Tuesday, February 05, 2008GoodStorm will be closing its doors on February 15th. If you are one of the handful of people who have a GoodStorm shop linked in our gallery, I will be removing the GoodStorm link on that date. If you'd like to continue to have a print-to-order store, please create a
SpreadShirt or
Zazzle shop instead. If you don't have time to create your new store by February 15th, you can also email me to post an email contact or website on your artist page so that interested customers can contact you.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
AlvinPing is another old-timer -- here since the 2nd derby. This is his 2nd shirt and his first #1 win. Here's some more about him.
Shirt.Woot Stats? (first derby / shirts bought / shirts printed)
#2 (Heat) / 4 / 2. My first Derby entry was for Derby #2. It featured a bundle of flames on the bottom left and smoke curling up on the top right. If I were to submit the design nowadays, it'd be rejected for transparencies! This will be my second printed shirt, the first being the Coupons slogan tee. Back in the Consumerism Derby, my first design didn't do as well as I would've liked, so I tested the waters with the Coupons shirt. Before I knew it, it rose to the Fog and eventually pulled third place. I was glad to see the previous, non-text entry for that derby make a return in The Big Do-Over.
What are you tools of choice?
Paper, pencil,
Photoshop. I'd love to get a
tablet and learn
Illustrator sometime soon.
What is your typical process for going about a design?
Typically, I'll brainstorm on paper and eventually sketch up a very rough concept or design. Any elements that need to be hand drawn will be sketched, cleaned up, scanned in, and cleaned up again. When using pre-existing elements, such as those incorporated into "What Dreams Are Made Of," the cleanup process quickly becomes very tedious as many of my sources are low resolution or otherwise unusable as-is. The elements I need for my designs are almost always part of a larger source image, and none are vector. After extracting the sections I need, I use various techniques to "match" the art in terms of crosshatch shading, light/dark separation, etc, and then bump them up to printable resolutions. Once everything is ready to go, I reference the earlier sketchup and put the elements in place. When doing abstracts, composition is absolutely crucial in the overall look of a design, so the positioning of objects can take me a few hours to get perfect. Even just a percent of scaling or few degrees of rotation can make all the difference. Next comes layering and color, the latter being quite difficult when working in Pantone colors (the cloud behind the fairy in What Dreams Are Made Of used to be a dark green, but had to be changed last minute due to potental visibility problems on the shirt itself).
What design or art experience do you have outside the derby?
Mainly B&W photography, manipulation in Photoshop (e.g. old photo restoration), and a little web design here and there.
Would you like to do art/design full-time? If so, what is your dream job?
If I could make a comfortable living doing design full-time then yes, absolutely. Not quite sure what my dream job would be, however. Maybe to work in professional advertising campaigns, or something.
Any plans to sell your designs outside woot?
No plans as of yet. There are some incredible artists out there; it'll take me a lot more time to get to the artistic level of many of today's designers. Until then, I'll refine my techniques, submit to the Derby if a concept hits me, and see what comes.
What advice do you have for new derby artists?
Determination is imperative. If a design you've worked on for 8 hours straight only manages to collect a handful of votes, do not be discouraged. It takes time to find out what voters want, and being a regular submitter has its perks. Your name becomes recognizable, you get more feedback, and also a little well-deserved attention.
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