TARANTULAS

A Quick Peek, As of November 2011

2011-11-03T21:12:00.001-04:00

As some of you might remember, I posted a blog a while ago (partially) revealing how my list of Designs that Need Doing was looking as of that time. Currently, it is looking something like this;

Designs that Need Doing:

* I saw a gun in her hand (LIGHTS)

* ~~Food pyramid~~

* Devil dog beta type

* ~~Next needs up (demon)~~

* ~~Any backstabber~~

* Any blood burst

* ~~(something with spiders!)~~

* ~~A spider ate my homework!~~

* "SPIDER BOSS"

* 4 Horse Men

* ~~Davilaisms~~

* *BIGGEST* FAN!

* REFRESH!

* Cupid Kills (Male/Female)

* [omitted] Ninja (!!)

* "The Creation of Next"

* "I'm [omitted]"

* [omitted] can be deceiving

* NEXT's face

* Next Needs Up spider's face

* Girl with headphones, and [omitted]

* NEXT NEEDS UP tribal

* "SPIDER"

* You can't [omitted]

...yeah. I know.

These are all either very general, or censored to the point of illegibility, but it's for a reason. As I mentioned in the previous "quick peek" post, I'm kind of protective of my ideas, and more so if I feel like they're pretty original, so that is what's behind the omissions. Sure, some are spelled out pretty clearly, but for those I believe that either no one would be able to figure out what I mean by that, or that no one would visualize it in the same manner, thus making them irrelevant to protect.

Something I feel I should note, is that I've created designs since that were never on this list. They were designs which I felt inspired to create right there and then, and literally did, so I had no reason to scribble them down on the list. Others, which are text based, I've already begun working on, and left saved for later. Their nature of starting out as lines of text made it so that I simply opened a new Illustrator file, pasted or wrote in the text, saved them, and closed them out for later.

I can't tell exactly what design my next blog will be going over, since....well, I'll have to look at the design creation chronology to figure out which is next in line, but I can say a little about the design I will be working on next, and the image to the right, used only for research (and not referencing) purposes, is one of the obscure hints that I am willing to give at this time. It's going to be a pain in the ass, and I don't know exactly when I will be done.

The reason being that I will be trying to make a very modular, almost global design. It's very obsessive, this idea, but I don't feel right making it otherwise. So, as you might know, the thing with modularity is that many parts have to be made in preparation, and just the thought of that is what I'm hung up on at the moment. I'll probably get over it once I actually start to crank it out. Currently, I'm still stuck in the drafting stage, concepting, brainstorming, researching, consulting with artist friends,and deciding what the best route forward will be.

(I write a lot, don't I?)

Anywho, that's about as much obscure nonsense as I feel like writing for today. Stay tuned. Things should get interesting! Carry on for now.

J, out...

RELOAD! Reactions

2011-10-27T04:05:00.001-04:00

(Reactions besides immediately reloading...)

Click image for larger version

This is a family of designs that I feel gets...less reactions than I would like. As much as I might tout my obsession with my arachnophobia, RELOAD! is kind of my flagship design. And even when they do get reactions, I always get a sense that the people reacting to it are not fully aware of what it is that my designs are depicting. As some of you may know, the whole premise behind my RELOAD! designs—which up to this point include the GI1911 2.0, GI1911 1.0 (pictured here), and another which I've yet to present in a blog—feature semi automatic pistols with their slides locked open, signaling that they've run out of ammo. It's that little detail which I feel people don't quite understand, which is fine, but still an unfortunate wasted of human visual recognition capabilities. I think people would enjoy or appreciate it a little more if they were able to connect the text with the imagery.

I suppose that Hollywood is partly to thank for its continual depiction of pistols who only indicate that they are empty when the trigger is pulled and they go click. But mostly, it is the reality that most people don't have any real understanding of how firearms function. I mean, Hell, even during my time in service, a majority of us were taught only as much as we needed to know about the firearms that we handled on a daily basis. Even the manuals I read incorrectly stated that Condition Two "does not apply to the M9 Service Pistol". What?!

But, it's Ok. I understand that most people might never need, or care, to know all of these things. Like the cycles of operation (firing, unlocking, extracting, ejecting, cocking, feeding, chambering, locking), or the differences in between a recoil operated gun and a blowback operated gun, as examples. I get that not everyone's brains are sponges for information. But with that rant (and my revelation that I've got a bit of a hard-on for the guts and inner workings of firearms) out of the way, I think you might have a better understanding of some of the...validation that I felt when the following happened. These are the exact words that I posted as a status on Facebook on the 12th of this month, minutes after it happened:

"So, I'm walking to get my mail, and I notice two Sheriff's patrol cars parked up ahead. I notice that one of the deputies has his passenger side's door open, and he's pouring some kind of solution onto his hands and scrubbing away. (Probably just got done busting someone's head open or something.) Anyhow, as I get closer, he faces in my direction, and then keeps starring at me. I can see he's squinting his eyes even. So I'm thinking 'Grrrreat! What now?...', and right when I'm about 10 feet away he says 'Nice shirt!' So I respond 'Thanks!' while thinking 'Whew.' Figures though, that it would take someone who carries a pistol around all day to appreciate my 'RELOAD!' design..."

Hahaha. I'm such a little kid, huh? The specific design I had on was the one pictured above, in all white and on a black t-shirt, so it's what I'd call high visibility. Speaking of, I've actually been thinking of updating the 1.0 design, since it was one of the very first for Flex printing vector designs that I've made. I've gotten working within the restrictions down to more of a science now, so feel like I could do a better job. I'll probably leave it alone until I've cranked out several more of the designs on my list though. I've got enough on my plate just with those as it stand. Well, that's about all I have or this update. Be sure to swing by the shop if you want any of these designs for yourself, and to see what's new. (I'll probably get around to updating the look in that place soon here as well.) So, until the next time, y'all get out here!

J, out...

Next Needs Up: "Demon(s)"

2011-10-19T04:12:00.002-04:00

(Have I mentioned how much I love titles? Coming up with and giving them to things, namely? You should see the files in my computer. Sometimes [...] sits here trying to find my pictures so she can reminisce on something and she just gets frustrated at how little sense it all makes to her. Haha.)

Anyhow, here's the first design entry in the Next Needs Up series. (But be sure to stop by and read this post first, if you haven't already gotten acquainted with Next Needs Up's origin story.)

Click image for larger version

Here, to the right, is the official (*cough*!) design document...

So, Ok, maybe it isn't so "official" looking. Or even very clean and thought out! (Excuse alert! Brace yourself...) But I'm not on a "team", so I've got little need to create accurate visualizations of what I have in mind for anyone else to follow. I've pretty much got what I want fully visualized in my head, so a quick, messy sketch like this one, with the only "corrections" or "revisions" being substituted by chicken-scratchy notes works perfectly.

If you took a second to read said notes (if you can read my handwriting...), then you should be getting an idea of what Next Needs Up's "essence" is. If I had to put it into as few words as possible, I would have to say that it is tension, discontent, confusion, and anxiety, overall. He's a character that I've always imagined would look shaky and jittery at all times, stopping to look over his shoulder every so often. It's possible that it was born from my arachnophobia. (Which, I should probably note, a friend mentioned that she doesn't believe that I'm scared of spiders very much anymore, after spending the last few years obsessed with them. She might be right.)

Click image for larger version

And here is Next's full body, simplified "icon" rendition, based on the above shown sketch. Not that it wasn't already a streamlined character, but these lines capture the basest essence perfectly, I feel. I am pretty happy with it as an icon for Next. I called this design "Demon"...at first. If you noticed, the title makes mention of there being a plurality of this "Demon".

Some artifacts, that come from my design process when working with vectors, created some questions in my mind, as to which "Demon" version I should choose to represent Next with. I will attempt to explain this as plainly as possible. Basically (you know you're in trouble when I start a sentence with that word), to make the negative spaces that form the eyes and the fanged frown, I used curves with no fills and strokes set to about 0.04 of an inch (Spreadshirt's minimum size for space between elements) in size. With them, I made the circles for the eyes and the lines for the frown and fangs on a layer on top of the solid shape that I had set down for the body. I then flattened the transparency to turn the strokes into outlines, then selected them and the body shape and merged them using the pathfinder window. (Found under "Window > Pathfinder", or by hitting "Shift + Ctrl + F9") The strokes were colored differently from that of the body shape, so when I merged their outlines on top, everything on the body shape that was underneath them was subtracted. And, since they were a different color from the body that they were merged to, all I had to do was select them on their own, with the "direct selection tool", delete them, and voilà!

Here's how the design looked by this point. The leftover circles in the eyes, and the triangular shapes in the fangs are the "artifacts" that I mentioned. Next, again with the direct selection tool (shortcut key "A" in Illustrator), I proceeded to select the circles in the eyes and deleted them. No qualms there, since the big, empty eyes communicate what I wanted the design to perfectly. But then, I selected the triangular shapes, deleted them, and stopped and thought, "Hm...does it look better with or without the triangular shapes filling that space?" So, I undid it and stared at it for a while. Then deleted them again. And undid. And deleted again. Finally, I copied it over to compare them side by side. Still undecided, I took a picture of them with my cellphone and sent it to several of my friends, in hopes the they would help me defeat my indecision. (One of them being Adlyn, of course. With her being Next Needs Up's "godmother" and all...) The verdict was mostly mixed, but one of the people who replied asked why I couldn't use both. Brilliant! Why couldn't I think of that?!

So I uploaded both, naming the one with negative space for eyes and fangs "Demon Alpha", and the one with shapes for fangs "Demon Beta". Not long after, I decided to also make one with shapes for both its eyes and fangs, and one with only shapes for eyes available, and renamed the whole bunch. Here they are, from left to right. Demon Alpha, Demon Beta, Demon Delta, and Demon Gamma. What a happy (but tense, confused, and anxious) family, huh?

Click image for larger version

They're currently available as Flex prints as either singles, pairs, or trios, grouped by type, and arranged horizontally. (For example here's an example of a trio of Alphas.) That's all I have for this one. I'm not making any promises or predictions, but I'm going to try and crank out as many posts as possible so I can catch up to all of the designs which I've yet to cover. Feel free to swing by the shop if you want to sneak a peek at any of these. (Or purchase a t-shirt or accessory with the design on it to see it in its full glory.) Until the next time, y'all carry on, I'll be going to sleep!

J, out...

Next Needs Up: The Origins

2011-10-16T23:54:00.000-04:00

(Some needs must be met, as some origins must be known...)

This post has been coming for a long, LONG time. Not only that, it's been a while since my last post. I've actually been sitting here and reading back through some of them in an effort to get myself back into the groove of it, so please bear with me.

This is a tale of a creature that was born in the depths of my subconscious. How it got there is somewhat mysterious. But even more mysterious than that, is why it got its name. That is something that in all honesty, I am still unaware of to this day, and I am almost certain that it is a question that I will never be able to answer. Its name is "Next Needs Up"...

Click image for larger version

I cannot say exactly when it came into being, since I do remember there being prior instances of me drawing it which I do not have on hand, but the drawing on the cover of this notebook, which I began to use for a "Contemporary Ethics" class in early October of 2009, is the earliest recorded instance of its appearance that I have available. This "face" came from a smiley that I began using regularly around that time. Some of the girls in school and I would text back and forth a whole lot back then, and we'd always invent these crazy looking smileys. The one that this creature came from is ":E". As you can see, it's got the beady eyes, and the distinctive three fangs.

The next known instance is found as a doodle on a loose sheet of paper with all sorts of scribblings on it. The presence of a doodle labeled "duodenum" on this page leads me to believe that it was all done during "Intro to Human Anatomy", which I was taking during the same quarter as the aforementioned ethics class. Those doodles and scribbles are how Cindy and I communicated (don't ask) during many of our classes, hers being in pencil and mine in ink in this example. As you can see (as if I hadn't make it plainly obvious), the creature is present again, and with a whole body this time. The changes that it has gone through up to its final iteration are not many. It is basically more rectangular now, as seen in this instance (whose original file I cannot find) found on my Facebook, dated November 22, 2010.

Now that Next Needs Up's (Adlyn and I began calling him "Next" for short.) physical origins have been explained a little, I'd like to get to the subject of its name. The mystery surrounding this is something that interests me greatly, since my curiosity for it will never end, and it has probably given Next a lot of appeal for me. Just the origin of its name is something that has pushed it into being a character that I will continue to proliferate, maybe in hopes of growing to understand it. Anywho, on to the name...

Click image for larger version

It was a chilly night, and I was having many, many drinks with friends. The occasion: My friend Adlyn had lots of left over alcohol, and she enlisted my help to try and get rid of it...properly. In the morning, while we were all sitting around eating breakfast and laughing about the previous night, she showed me something that I had doodled the night before, and she was laughing at how strange it was. It was on a page on the very back of one of her school books, and it is the image you see to the right.

This...confused me. A lot.

(I'd like to note that I just took a break from typing to stare at the drawing, laugh a whole lot, and to yell "What does it mean? What does it MEAN!?" It is truly baffling...)

So I just looked at her as if to say "What the fuck is this?!" From top to bottom, you have some crazy monster thing (as I named it) with the words "basic needs" in parenthesis. Next down the line, you have my recurring character, which I labeled as "next needs up" in parenthesis. But what does that mean? If it is the next needs up from the previous...thing, which I labeled basic needs, then why is it below it in line? Was I referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs? And if so, does that mean that I meant for it to be a physical manifestation of the "safety needs"? But why would it look like some monster/demon thing? UUGGGHHH!... Next down the line, is some...really stupid looking thing, which I labeled as "wut?" in parenthesis. Yeah...exactly. (Interesting to note is that these three, if looked at from top to bottom, have progressively less fangs showing from one to the next. Wonder what that could mean...)

I was positively blacked out while I drew this so, of course, I have no idea why I drew any of it, and lack any recollection of what was going on in my head, or around me, during this time. So, after a moment of inspecting it some more, I began to ask her questions. "Why did I draw this?" She didn't know. "Well, what were we talking about?", "Nothing. You were just laying down the moment before." "Well...was I saying anything?!", "No. You just dragged the book over to you, pulled out your pen, and started drawing without saying anything..."

Fucking. BAFFLED! It's, like, the perfect mystery! I could try to attribute some kind of meaning to this, but it would just be a lie. I have no freaking clue! So, that day I just decided, "Well, I guess that's his name! Next Needs Up!" and Adlyn and I have just run with it ever since. I kind of love it now! Hell, I feel safe in stating that I am as obsessed with Next Needs Up as I am with spiders and my own arachnophobia. (And hilariously enough, here is a merging of both!)

Since this post has run a bit longer than I anticipated (really now?), I will be turning it into its own post, and linking posts which contain Next Needs Up related designs back to it, for anyone who cares to read about its messy origins. Thanks for reading this far. I know it's a lot of craziness to read through. Until the next time, take care of yourselves, and carry on!

J, out...

2nd Departure: Double the Cross

2011-05-15T15:21:00.000-04:00

(Double the Cut)

So, it's time for the next "variations" blog post! Someone pointed out that "deviations" is what they call things on deviantART, so I figured I'd call it something else...maybe.

Anyhow, as with the 1st of these, I will be going over designs that are derivatives built from the components of some of my other original designs. In this instance, it is the main components of the first two backstabber designs; the KA-Bar and the tanto. The origin of the following is exactly the same as the origin of the "Twins!" designs linked at the top of this paragraph. I was playing around with the solo KA-Bar design, and thought "Hm...This would probably work better if I put another one in there..." And, voilà! That was it. That's some exciting origin story, huh? I hope to give my future children origin stories about themselves that are just as exciting. Hahaha....

So, here they are! The KA-Bar Cross and Tanto Cross (Click image for full size)

Again, as with the "Beaut(y/ies)" designs, I chose to combine these to make the design possibilities cheaper to purchase. Initially, only the "edge out" versions existed, but as I played around with them, I realized that an "edge in" variation would look better if the design is flipped tips up, and thus I made and uploaded an "edge in" version for both of these.

And, actually, one of the reasons why I've delayed as much as I have with this blog post is because I've been fighting myself about several other two-blade design arrangements. Fighting, because part of me is lazy and doesn't want to do it, and because the other part of me is all like "Dude, it's too late. You already thought of them, you might as well arrange them and upload them to Spreadshirt!" But I decided to just make an addition to this post when I get around to that. It would take less than half an hour to work on the arrangement and so on, but I'm just not in the mood at this moment.

Also, I've yet to find any sort of caption to add to these. Like, putting "Twins!" at the bottom of the Beauties design just made sense. Here? I'm kind of drawing a blank. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to share. Just know I won't compensate you for it. Haha...

That's it for that one. By the way, that brand redesign that I had been blabbing about (WOW! That was all the way back in January? FML!) for a while got finalized and produced at last, a short time ago. Either I was going through some sort of creative block that just kept me from visualizing it, or I am undermining the genius of the idea and what the minimal amount of effort required was going to be, just to get close to visualizing such a nebulous concept. Either way, it doesn't matter anymore. It is done (For now. I am meaning to tweak some minor things.) and I can move on to visualizing and producing the next twenty concepts ricocheting around in my head. So, until the next time, I leave you. Carry on!

J, out...

Sex Sells

2011-01-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

(But is that what I'm selling?)

Been a while since my last post. I'm, like, Opposite of what I say-Man. When I'm all, like, "I'll try to post more often!", I definitely do not. And then, when I'm all, like, "I'm gonna be falling off of the face of the Earth for a bit" I come back and post something the very next day. How about I just don't comment on when I will and will not be able to post more? Sound good? Great. Moving on...

About the title of this post; I've noticed that my girls (including the singles) have been selling pretty regularly. That makes me think about how some of the future designs that I'm planning to add to my "Davilaisms" section also have to do with the, um...gender. They'll be fun, so stand by for those!

I'm also thinking about (it's more, like, I've already made up my mind, and am thinking about when to sit down and crank it out) redesigning the brand. I predict that it won't be the last time, either. Anywho, I feel like what I have in mind will look pretty fucking wicked... I just have to get to it.

That's about all I wanted to say for now, I think. So yeah, until the next time (which I refuse to predict when it'll be), y'all carry on!

J, out...

Once a Backstabber, Always a Backstabber; The Tanto

2010-11-18T22:07:00.004-05:00

(you can count on that)

Upon sitting down to start preparations for my next "deviation" blog, I realized that I hadn't actually gone over one of the designs that I would be featuring a deviation for. Obviously, that's no good, so here I am!

For this post, I will be (briefly, I predict) going over a "Backstabber" variant, this time (if you had't surmised as much from the title) featuring a Tanto. As mentioned in this follow up Backstabber post I plan on making several other Backstabber variant designs, featuring all sort of pointy objects. With as many ideas as I have coming into my head, it's difficult to actually execute on very many of these (and yes, I have a long list of Backstabber variants already). I won't even mention my time constraints (but I did)!

So, the same as with the KA-BAR, I created a Tanto "icon". The process was pretty much the same. The reference image used was this one. I like it. It's plain, clean, sharp, and gets the message across (that being "Hey, look! I'm a tanto!!"). Next I opened up my Backstabber "work" file (I save the "work" and "finalized" versions of every design separately. Makes it 79% easier to go back and make any fixes or revisions), removed the KA-BAR, and readjusted the blood a bit. Once the Tanto design had been completed (you can't really tell, but I'm pretty anal about these designs, and the final appearance betrays the attention to detail that goes into it), the rest was pretty much just about orientation and what-not.

Anywho, here's what the "Tanto Backstabber" looks like. I'm considering (meaning, I will...just not yet) creating some "Backstabber" text of my own (meaning not from one of the template Illustrator fonts), so I haven't actually gotten a t-shirt of my own with this design on it yet. With as many Anime/Japan geeks as there are in my school though, I'm sure several would stop and ask me about it if I wore it (sure, the KA-BAR Backstabber that I wear every now and then gets reactions, just...y'know).

In other news, a recent gaffe involving a digital direct print has halted some of my Spreadshirt shopping progress. Basically, I want to wear this damn design (done right!), so I'm waiting until the return gets back to them and they credit it to me before trying again. Until then I'm gonna sit here (not the whole time, mind you) and wait for the email with the digital coupon code. I understand that they'd recently become very backed up (some partner's shop was getting a massive amount of orders for digital direct printed designs), and they had to up production by adding more personnel and working throughout the week, so I'm attributing it to that (especially since the t-shirt that I ordered with my "GI1911 RELOAD! 2.0" printed on it over half a year ago looked awesome, and still does after many washes!).

Well, I'll stop boring you with my personal problems now. I'm gonna try a little harder to at least do one of these a week, so that I can finally get caught up. The designs featured in my shop with a blog post of their own are currently outnumbered by the ones without, and I'm not exactly happy about that. It sort of dissuades me from getting to cranking out some of my other ideas, because that will just back me up more on this end, and that's not good if getting more designs into my shop is my goal. That's enough for now. Until next time, carry on!

J, out...

Biggest Fan Reactions

2010-10-23T21:01:00.006-04:00

(Post last updated 10/30/2010)

Hey there. I just felt in the mood to post something, but not enough to get to my next "deviation" post, so I thought I'd go with something that I can wrap up quicker.

It's been about 2 months or so since I ordered a "*Biggest* Fan" tee of my own to wear, so I thought I'd share, briefly, on its reception by the "audience" that's been exposed to it.

Honestly, I had a doubt or two about this. But after seeing that 4 sold soon after I had made it available on Spreadshirt, as mentioned in the design's introductory blog, the doubt began fading a bit. So, I ordered my own and patiently waited until it came in the mail.

The reactions to it have been varied, but positive overall. One instance that sticks out in my mind was that of an acquaintance from school. When she initially saw it, her first reaction was to roll her eyes and say "Oh my god..." but it was followed by laughter, so I thought "Alright, that's not ALL bad, I guess." Later though, I ran into her again as she was talking to a group of her friends and she went, "Oh my god, y'all have to look at his shirt, it's *epic*."

..."Epic?", I thought, "Didn't she roll her eyes?"

I figured I'd just go with it though. I mean, it is pretty silly, so I suppose a roll of the eyes to the self-assuredness of a claim such as being the *biggest* fan is the appropriate response to expect (can you tell that I didn't ponder what the response to this would be as much as I did with my "Backstabber" tee?).

[1st Update, 10/30/2010]

Just a few days ago, I had a few more reactions to my *Biggest* Fan t-shirt that I thought I'd report, one being a reaction of my own. This first reaction might also be a "note to self", as this could be avoided in the near future (but would I want to?). So, I had some stuff to take care of at my apartments' leasing office, but as I began to state what my business there was, the lady just busts out laughing! So I'm standing there, giving her a bit of a confused look she goes "You are always wearing the funniest t-shirts!", at which point I look down and go "Oh...right. So, anyhow, as I was sayi-", but again, I was interrupted by more laughter. It took a few more moments of this, and of her asking which one I was wearing the last time (it was the "Meat Pyramid" one, by the way) before we could get to talking business. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I had a sense of urgency about things, I would have found it very amusing. I guess next time I wear this thing out, I'll try to keep the fact that I'm wearing it in mind, so there aren't too many surprises, which directly relates to this next "reaction".

The next reaction, which was more of a thought, came from myself. As the day went on, and I returned to my normal level of self awareness (contrast from self-conscious), again I found it curious that more people than normal (thus making me consciously aware of it) were staring at me with odd looks on their faces. I was having dinner with a friend that night, and after returning from a trip to the little boys' room I sat and told her "Y'know...I should probably try to remain more conscious of what I am wearing when I'm out and about with these on. I keep getting these funny looks and forgetting why..." She agreed.

[end 1st Update]

Most times the response is a smile with a shake of the head, but I haven't actually worn it very much, so I guess I'll wait and see some more. I think that's about all I have for that one. My next post should be on the next "deviation", and for those of you that keep up with what's currently up in my designer shop, the next design should actually be a digital direct design that'll be sure to flare up my phobia. So, until the next time, don't eat that, and carry on!

J, out...

1st Departure: Are Two Girls Better Than One?

2010-10-16T12:24:00.000-04:00

(...many seem to think so)

But I'm not here to make a statement or to educate anyone on latent (??) sexual preferences (heh). This is about a deviation (sounds more fun than calling them "variations") born from another design, and the first of its kind.

This first one was born from a part of the Danger & Beauty design. One third of the design, to be exact. The following four deviations came from the "Beauty" design. Both the original one, and the negative space bikini one were used. They're no surprise, so I'll go ahead and show all four of these puppies, and then expound on how they came to be. I believe it will be easier that way...

(Click images for larger versions)

Unless you're half blind (or spatially challenged...), then you've probably noticed that the girl on the right of each of these pairs is simply a mirrored image of the one on the left. No voodoo magicks there...

The way that first pair (without the "Twins!" font) came about was from my messing around with combining designs to display as examples of what anyone browsing through my shop could arrange themselves, to put up in the shops "product examples" section. As I might have mentioned before, each part of my Danger & Beauty design is available to buy/use individually.

So what I did was take two and stick 'em on a shirt, then I horizontally flipped the one on the right and voilà! There it was! But...I noticed that the price on the product with two designs on it was too high for my linking, so in the spirit of keeping the cost down as much as possible for any possible customers who might like that arrangement, I went back into Illustrator, replicated what I had done in Spreadshirt with both the bikini and bikini-less designs, and uploaded each back into Spreadshirt as two color, single designs!

Next, during another session of messing around with the Spreadshirt product designer, I added "Twins!" underneath the girls and placed it on a t-shirt to display on the product example window. As any of you who've gone and at least messed around on Spreadshirt know, adding font adds to the cost. Things remained that way for a while after...

Fast forward to this post, and while simultaneously messing around with my designer shop and writing the blog, finding the whole "Twins!" thing funny enough to keep around, it came to me that I should probably unify the two girl design with the text myself, and upload it all as a three color design (meaning anyone can change the color on either of the girls and the text independent to any of the other elements), thus what you see just above. Hm...

(stepped away and wrote down a bunch of new ideas)

Anywho, that's about it for how those designs came to be. There is no philosophy that fueled these designs, or any crazy revelations received while hanging out in a cave, simply opportunity, and my aim to keep my designs affordable. You can find these designs under "Twins!" and "Beauties", "Alpha" for the the ones with bikinis and "Beta" for the bikini-less. I'll have posts on other deviations coming soon. Stand by.

J, out...

Never Take Your Eyes Off the Goal

2010-10-15T15:57:00.000-04:00

(And whatever you do, don't look down!)

It's been a while. Actually, I'm pretty sure this has been the longest lapse of time in between posts yet. I'd apologize, but I've never promised frequency or volume. Plus, it isn't like I've been lounging around this whole time, either...well, not all of it.

I've probably said it before, but my social life and school work take precedence, and the latter kept me very busy during the final weeks of this past quarter. Enough, in fact, to make me want to take a real break from anything art or design related for that whole week that I had off. And yeah, that included posting anything here. And, actually, the last design I uploaded to Spreadshirt was on the 19th of August, and it is the design directly related to this post, so yeah, it's been a while since I've designed anything.

And then, there's today! I recently learned that that "11.8inch x 11.8inch" size limitation only applies to flex printing. The size limit for digital direct printing is closer to 15inch x 15inch (or "3,000pixels x 3,000pixels" at 200dpi)! What this knowledge has done, is open the floodgates of my imagination, and I've got all sorts of crazy ideas spilling out. BUT!...that's an issue because I'm far from catching up on my "design journal" posts on here for what's already available.

So, I'm kinda having to rededicate myself to this blog again. As I've explained before, I'd rather be making designs than sitting and writing about them. But...it's why I started this blog, so I migth as well. Can't be going and half-assing things, it ain't my style. I'll start as soon as I can work up the motivation to. Until then, carry on...

J, out!

Variations and Deviations

2010-08-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

(but aren't they all deviations?)

This is just a quick update. So, I feel like I am at a point (as far as catching my design blogs up to the available designs) in which I can start rolling out some of the alternate versions of some of my main designs. Less of a variation from RELOAD! 2.0 to 1.0, and more like the difference in between the KA-BAR Backstabber, and a Backstabber featuring a different knife. And then, some of these are combinations of elements from other, multi-part designs.

I'll be starting to post some of those soon, so be on the look out for them! That is all. Carry on.

J, out!

The Biggest Fan

2010-08-21T19:49:00.000-04:00

(like, ever)

S'been a week since my last post, so I think I'm ready to make a design related post now! Here's a design which I had actually been meaning to make for a long time. Lemme put it this way; that conversation that I describe in my [Backstabber] post, in the second paragraph? The receipt I pulled out to write that "Blades & Blood" idea down on had a sketch for this design already on it.

(Click image for larger version)

So, lemme give you the backstory to this one. Before she moved, I'd hang out with my friend Adlyn about once a week to bullshit, catharse, watch a movie, or whatever.

Well, one of those times, on my way out, something caught my eye. So I pulled a receipt out of my wallet, popped the top off of my pen, and began sketching. When Adlyn asked me what I was doing, I told her I was sketching her ceiling fan and began rambling some nonsense.

To put it plainly (probably plainer than how I explained it to her), there was something about the way the ceiling fan looked that gave it the appearance of a character to me. Like it had eyes, y'know? Well anyhow, that's the original sketch to the left. That thing had been sitting in my wallet for a while...

I can't tell when or where the receipt is from, only that whatever it was cost me $8.03. Knowing me though, it was probably sitting in my wallet for a while before I even sketched on it (I like having makeshift canvases like this available, to take ideas down on should nothing else be available, so I keep such things stored in my wallet).

Fast forward to April 13th, and on the way out of Adlyn's I decided to get a reference photo of her ceiling fan, so that I could be prepared when the time came to crank out the design. Not too soon after, on June 29th, after finalizing a few other designs, I began work on it. Strangely enough, I also prepared and posted a blog on the same day, mentioning that I was actually in the process of finalizing the design near the end.... Geez, creating a design and writing a blog at the same time? I guess that could give y'all some idea of the way my mind works at times. At this point I remember wishing that I had taken a picture of the ceiling fan with a better camera (i.e: anything other than my cellphone) and with better lighting (i.e: anything better than with the lights off...at night). By then my friend Adlyn had already moved out of that apartment though, so that wasn't possible. Well, enough of my blabber. Here it is!

(Click image for larger version)

Pretty silly, huh? Designing this was straight forward enough, even though I began with a different vision of what it would be in my head. Still, I like this much better. After I sent Adlyn a text with a shot of it though, we kinda got into a little back and forth on the font choice.

Basically, it all boiled down to her not liking the asterisks. I informed her that they were there for emphasis, so she told me I should italicize the word. When I told her that I didn't want a design in which just two words were in use to have differing looking text she told me I should use all caps then. When I replied that all caps took away from the readability, and that the emphasis was of a quiet, self-assured type (with the all caps being more of a yelling type), she... Well, actually, I think she left me alone at that point.

It's alright though. I've made the ceiling fan design, sans the type, available as well. So anyone that doesn't like my font choice, the asterisks, or even the message itself can add in their own. Interestingly enough, some folk must not mind the font or the asterisk, as someone actually purchased 4 products with the complete design on them! I thought that was pretty cool. Also, I showed a friend a few days ago, and she couldn't stop laughing, so I'll take that as positive feedback. Or maybe she was just high? Most of y'all reading this probably are also, so maybe I've found my audience? Hahaha! Ah, what an asshole....

Drop on in by my shop every now and then. There's new stuff coming in irregularly, so look out for that stuff. I'll try to crank more of these blogs out, possibly even catch them up to the corresponding designs available. That's all I had for this one. Y'all carry on.

J, out!

Spiders Gotta Eat Too!

2010-08-14T18:15:00.001-04:00

(...and I'm fine with that, s'long as it ain't me!)

Another quick update, since I'm still too busy to sit and prepare a full on blog post. Been really busy, too busy, to bother paying attention to the priorities in my life lower down on the list (sorry, but this is definitely nowhere near the top). School has kept me busy enough this quarter, and a lil' someone (the same lil' someone who thought this design needed more cock) has been occupying more of my time.

Anywho, I paid my eldest sister a visit about a week ago, wearing one of my t-shirts (with a design I've yet to blog about) so the conversation headed in that direction and I was reminded that I had promised my nephew one. Specifically the [...] t-shirt, which was one of my very first ideas (and the first I attempted, before realizing that it didn't fall within the strict standards for vector designs on Spreadshirt). So, with that brought to my attention (I have a hard time with letting kids down) I've rededicated myself to getting the design to work, so that I can get him the t-shirt that I promised!

My sleep cycle is thoroughly fucked at the moment (thanks to the same aforementioned things that have been keeping me occupied), so I planned to come home and pass out, last night after class, but instead I sat and started roughing out some ideas on paper. I felt like I had it down, after 7 or 8 sketches, so I got it scanned, digitized, and dropped into Photoshop for a quick crop of the specific rough that I wanted to work on top of, in Illustrator. And then...something happened.

Basically, I'd recently updated my touchpad (Yes, I'm seriously working off of a laptop touchpad. Will purchase my own tablet later) driver, and it reset all of my settings, so I went through, quickly, and set everything as it was before (I HATE IT when a touchpad can be used to click. I cannot stand that!). Or, so I thought.

So, with the freshly cropped image dropped into Illustrator to work over, I zoomed in and attempted to move the image around to survey the landscape and get a good idea for how I would do this, and to find a good spot to start off on....but it wasn't moving. Now, I don't like having to press "H" to choose the "Hand tool". I prefer having whatever tool it is that I'm using and holding the space bar to quickly switch it to the hand tool, and then letting go of the space bar when I'm done to have it revert back to my previous tool. But when I would go about it in that manner, it wasn't working. Holding the space bar caused the pointer to freeze in place. I fought with it for a while, going through tool settings to try to resolve the issue myself among other things, to no avail. So after much frustration I gave Adobe a call...

WELL...after a total of 63 minutes and 27 seconds (I wish I was lying, this is so embarrassing), the nice Adobe support specialist, after telling me shut down Illustrator and having me attempt to move the mouse around while holding down any key, and making me realize that it wasn't the program, kindly directed me to call my computer's manufacturer, as this seemed like an issue with the computer itself, completely unrelated to Illustrator. Well, after 32 minutes on the phone with them, I learned about a little option, called "TouchCheck" (something I'm sure Bobby Boucher's mother would rightly refer to as The Devil), which locks the pointer from being moved while any key is held down. Yep... That's all it was. Nice, huh? By the time I got done with all of that being put on hold, troubleshooting, and direct-connecting through the internet I was freaking done, so I called it a night.

Still, I'm kinda excited about getting this design done. It will actually be my first (public, these don't count!) spider design, and with a shop named "Tarantulas" I probably need about 20 more of those!

(*reads back over blog*...)

Wwww-OW! Some much for that "quick update", huh? That's why I gotta try to stay off of these rants that I jump into. It's not good, in the interest of time. Well, that's about as much as I should have written for that one. So with that, I leave you. Carry on.

J, out

"Beautiful Strokes"

2010-08-05T13:32:00.000-04:00

(I just like that name, I don't know why...)

So I just upgraded to CS5 last night, but I've been too busy to try playing with any of these new things yet. My school is still on CS4, and was on CS3 when I started there in the Summer of '08. I can't say I ever took the time to learn what was new from CS3 to CS4, but I'm taking a little more care to find out about some of these things now. I figure knowing about these could open the door to many new possibilities in my head, at the least, and with just about everything I do starting there, that would be optimal.

I still remember how my imagination exploded with ideas and possibilities when I first learned about and began to understand the concept of "layers". It may sound silly, but I didn't sleep much that night. My mind just kept cranking out idea after idea after idea and I couldn't get it to shut up!

Folk who know how I go about creating digital art (which, admittedly, I don't create enough of and working within the restrictions of Spreadshirt greatly tones down some of these ideas I have. BUT!...that stuff is for a later time) know I'm BIG on layers. Like...BIG! They just make things so much easier! But...I'll leave it there. I gotta watch myself, lest I got off on some random rant. I don't really have time for that today. I'll try to drop by soon to post some more t-shirt design process blogs. But until then, feel free to visit my designer profile and look through my shop and designs from there. Y'all carry on now...

J, out.

Meat Pyramid

2010-07-25T18:31:00.001-04:00

(No, not that kind of meat, pervs!)

So, about a month ago, before I began writing the blog for the GI 1911 RELOAD! 2.0 design, and idea popped into my head. This even excited me enough to mention it at the beginning of the blog! Now, I won't claim that it is my most original design idea yet, but I designed it myself and I've yet to see anything like it on Spreadshirt. But, let's cut the gibber-gabber and get on with the blog!

The concept: The idea for this came from a pretty mundane source. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but the origins of human behavior are of high interest to me, and I am someone who believes that we should do our best to live in a more..."natural" state, for the sake of our bodies and of our minds. So with that said, I am completely opposed to the idea that being a vegan or vegetarian is better for you. That shouldn't be that much of a surprise. I mean, I just posted some blogs about a design which includes a hot chick, a gun, and a car. Would anyone really think I'd not be a meat lover after those little revelations?! I'd think not.

I don't want to go off into a rant, but I'll say this much; A friend of me who was mostly vegetarian quit recently after seeing her health go progressively south, and after finding out that soy products are just about the worst substitute for meat, in relation to health. I had been telling her about that for ages, so my gentle "I told you so" kinda sparked this idea in my head. I hadn't made any very provocative designs up until this point (what a damn liar!) so I thought I'd take a stab at it! You could say this is my blatant, offensive way of letting the world know that I enjoy eating other animals very much. If you agree though, then you might also find humor in it.

The execution: First, as always, I began by hunting down some reference images. I got myself a hen, a piggy, and a cow.

(Click image for larger version)

I started with the hen. This was pretty straightforward. I think I wanted to go a little less detailed with the silhouette, but...well, it is what it is! The only thing of note that I can think about with this design in particular is the change I made with the legs. If you haven't noticed, this design is not a perfect copy of the reference image I have linked above. The first silhouette was, but that rear leg just bugged me to no end, so I chopped it off!...and then copied the forward leg, dragged it back a bit, played around with the orientation and there you have it! I personally think it works a lot better now.

(Click image for larger version)

Next, we have the piggy! Same as the hen, It was pretty straight forward, but I feel like it's the least detailed of the bunch. I mean, it's got a pretty plain form, but I guess I can blame the reference image for that. Same as the hen though, I altered it as I saw fit to get the message of "Hey, it's a pig!" across loudly and clearly. The more obvious of the two is the third leg back. If you note the reference image, you'll see that its hind legs are close together. That just wasn't working for me, so I took the first leg, added more leg to it and moved it back into place. The next change (which I consider the least obvious, but it probably depends on the individual viewing it) is the extra piggy ear. In a true silhouette of the reference image, you wouldn't see that second ear, but this was something else which I felt would help solidify that this is, in fact, a pig. So, there you go!

(Click image for larger version)

And last but not least, we have the cow! This was a little tougher to get done in a simplified enough manner. On one of the initial runs (I have to create an outline for these from start to finish, and it's difficult going back and fixing something midway through) I was going too detailed so I had to start over from the start. Later I realized that I didn't have a clear view of the hooves, so I had to leave those alone, find a separate reference image for cow hooves and then return and make some while playing it by eye. So yeah, those hooves are a definite edit made by me that wasn't found in the original reference image. Next, is that utter to the left. As you might have noted, there's a calf suckling the one in the reference image, so I had to play around a little with that. That's about all I did with the cow design.

Next I created a triangle, played around with the distances from animal to animal, and then with the distances in between the animals and the horizontal dividers...and then with the sizes of the animals and the width and height of the triangle itself. Getting it all sized and spaced to where it felt good and right was a pain in the ass! That problem took the most use of my braincells (I might have even stopped the music from playing on my iTunes so I could concentrate, haha). So, here is the finished product!

(Click image for larger version)

As you might be able to tell, the animals are not perfectly centered, but that's because it felt wrong when they were. The alignment I used was by eye and based on the proportions of them instead, and I think it worked much better. There was just something...unnatural about having them in a symmetrically centered fashion. Even though the designs were centered, their weight wasn't. Also, I mirrored the cow to face in the opposite direction. It would have been weird having both the pig and cow facing the same way in sequence when the hen wasn't, so I alternated them all by simply having the cow face left. I actually just got a version (I chose a red pyramid with white animals) of the t-shirt in the mail a few days ago and it looks great (this photo doesn't do it justice, but I have no better lighting to work off of. Also, the pyramid really is red, but the light is reflecting off of it and making it all kinds of different colors in the photo).

In relation to the "disclaimer" calling y'all pervs at the start of this post, it's related to something that happened the same night I received the t-shirt. I had a friend over, and before leaving to have dinner she jumped in my bed and noticed it laying there, so I took it and hung it out in front of me for her to get a better view and said "I call it...the 'Meat Pyramid'" but before I could say another word, she replied "You should make it have a huge cock at the top instead of that chicken!" (typical), so I told her "That would match your diet very closely. I'll be sure to make one like that just for you..." in my most sarcastic tone.

With that in mind though, I have considered making alternate meat pyramid designs (no...not with cocks), but have come to the conclusion that these animals are satisfying enough eats for now. Maybe, in the near future, I might get a clearer vision concerning other alternative food pyramids to design, but for now this is all I got! Interesting to note is that this design is still the only one that comes up when one searches for a "food pyramid" on Spreadshirt. I think that's pretty cool!

Well, that's all I have to say on this design! Remember to swing by my designer shop from time to time, as new designs will continue to drop in irregularly. Now go on, get out of here...git!

J, out....

Danger & Beauty: Last Half

2010-07-20T18:04:00.000-04:00

(Surprise surprise?)

I swear I wasn't trying to fake anyone out when I posted this just yesterday. I actually didn't expect to start up on this until like, at least, a few more weeks. But!...circumstances have presented themselves that have allowed me to sit and prepare this post. So....let's wrap this two parter up!

In the first half, I went into some personal philosophy and over the process that spawned the girl in this 3 part design. So let's discuss the next design in the compilation. In truth, this was actually the first design of the three which I undertook, and the one which I thought would be the more complex of the three; the gun. As you might know from some of my past blogs, I'm kind of a fan of the 1911's design. With that said though, having already made a more complex, 1911 vector design, churning this one out was actually easy enough.

(click image for a better view)

See? Not very complex at all, but it had enough divisions and negative space in it to push Cindy to nag me about the girl standing out for being to simple, in comparison to this pistol and the car. I agreed...

(click here for the 1911 parts guide)

Anyhow, the source image used was that of a Taurus PT1911 that I found online. I wanted the profile of a "modernized" 1911, and Taurus's version includes pretty much everything, externally, that you see on modernized 1911's. Things like the skeletonized trigger (which I did not depict here, because the dimensions of the holes and all wouldn't have gone over well with Spreadshirt's vector design restrictions), the flat mainspring housing, the sights, the "beaver tail" grip safety, and the ring hammer (of course, there is much more to it, but I'm only concerned with those which show on the design).

If you have an eye for detail, then you might have noticed that the hammer on my design is different from the hammer on the reference image. The reason for that is that the other hammer wasn't looking as good as I wanted it to. It's no biggie though, since the hammer that I improvised actually looks closer to the hammer on a stock PT1911. As with my other vector 1911, the negative space between the grip panel and frame, and the negative space in between the slide and the frame are subtractions of forms that were overlaid. Aside from some tweaking with the placement, and the fact that I mirrored the design so that it would face to the right, there's not much else to mention about it.

The next and final design to speak of this day, which was actually the second task undertaken for this compilation, is the car. I've had a thing for the Infiniti G35 since I saw one roll by, so it was a no-brainer when it came down to choosing a vehicle.

(Side notes: First off, that's actually how Infiniti spells its version of the word. Secondly, I'm aware of the existence of the G37, but it just doesn't turn me on as much...)

(click image to view larger version)

This was the chosen design in the end. The search for a suitable reference photo was almost as tough as the search for the girl's reference photo. And actually, I had a completely different idea in mind when I originally envisioned this compilation. I wanted a profile view of the vehicle, and had decided on this photo as a reference right up until the point when I lined the 3 references up. The G was just too wide and too short compared to the girl, which is thin and tall, and the pistol, which was somewhere in between.

So, I decided to go with a perspective shot instead. This proved to have several advantages over the old idea. One, was that its diagonal direction, from upper left to lower right, matched well with the pistol's, which I had pointing diagonally from lower left to upper right. Another was that it's height and length were closer to that of the pistol's as well. It brought the rest of the design together, I thought, with the opposite diagonally pointing car and pistol flanking the girl.

I still don't feel like it is perfect, and I've changed the design of the G35 a bit from what it was originally a few times already, so only time will tell how much this latest design will last. Construction was pretty simple on this as well, although that front, passenger's side tire was a PAIN! I messed around with that thing so much, and I still don't like it! I got a notice of commission earned from someone using the individual design for a product of their own recently though, so someone liked it enough! Hah....

But, without much further ado, here is the visual manifestation of my aphorism;

(Click image for closer look)

That's all I had for this one. Don't forget to drop on by my Spreadshirt designer profile and my designer shop from time to time to see what's really new. Until the next time, this is J, the birthday boy, signing off.

Out!

LYPHE

2010-07-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

(Also known as "life")

So!...things like school (and the beach, and drinking fishbowls full of alcoholic beverages, and discussing art with friends) have kept me more that just a little busy these past few weeks.

(*checking out when my last post was made*)

Holy Hindu cows! June 30th, huh? (*cringe*) O.K. so maybe it's been a little more than just a few weeks. But, what can I say? I like for these design posts to be nice, clean, and well put together. So while I could just drop in, post a bunch of images and say "There ya go!" it would be incongruent with my M.O. Half ass-ing (stuff I'm into) is definitely not my thing.

You could say that I've gone a bit art heavy on my chosen courses this school quarter, so I will be busier with that stuff regardless. But also, the first few weeks are busier to boot. It's the time when I have to make several adjustments to my schedule, acquire books and supplies, and get my mind in the game.

So with all out there, I think it's safe to say that I won't be making any significant posts for at least a few more weeks. I don't like leaving a two part post all alone by itself like that, but it is what it is!

Still, there are new designs available beyond what I have featured in this blog, so feel free to check out my Spreadshirt designer profile, or my designer shop, for peeks at those. I know, I know! The designs are not as pleasing to view in their small size on there (which is kind of the whole point of this blog!), but it'll have to do in the meantime. That's about all I had for that. I have a lot of drawing to do for class! So, until next time, carry on!

J, out!

Danger & Beauty: First Half

2010-06-30T16:53:00.000-04:00

(Partitioned for the sake of the readers)

So, let's talk some philosophy. As anyone else in this world, I've been shaped and educated by my own life experiences. These experiences have made me come to find many of the things that the majority of people consider "Dangerous" as Beautiful. I've also come to learn that things such as a rose, nature...or a woman, which are often considered to be "Beautiful" by most, can be Dangerous. So with that idea in mind, I came up with (what I'm proclaiming as) an "aphorism" of my own; Dangerous things are Beautiful... Beautiful things are Dangerous.

I don't believe that because something is or can be dangerous that it should be avoided. No, in fact, I believe these are the things that we should all strive to "master". Master how to interact with a beautiful woman (and keep your heart intact), how to survive in nature, how to wield a deadly weapon....how to drive a powerful car!

But...the reaction that I got from my friend Cindy when she saw the compilation of reference pictures that would make up this design was nothing short of hilarious! I'll cut to the chase a little and say that the design consists of a car, a girl, and a gun. I really couldn't have come up with an arrangement that was more macho, and possibly sexist, than that, but I hadn't seen it that way until I got the immediate (and whiny) "JUAN!" out of her! Hahaha, that still has me laughing. But let's move on to discussing the design process!

We'll start with the Girl. Finding a reference image for her was a nightmare! After about an hour of searching through photo after photo of girls in bikinis (how horrible!) Cindy decided to help from her computer. My requirements were for a picture of a woman with decently sized hips, for her to be standing (if in a pose that would be a plus) and for the image to show all of her body. I don't remember what the Hell it was that Cindy entered into the her search, but she had an image that I found suitable within minutes. I don't have the original, but this is what it looked like after I erased some of the rest off. It was a group of four, and none of the other girls really caught my eye. Well, Ok, so one other did. We called her "pale girl", and you'll probably agree if you see part of her arm in the right of that image. The reason she stood out was because she was so pale and her hair so dark, compared to the rest of them. Cindy thinks the reason she stood out to me is because she's convinced that I'm into really pale girls, and that might be true, but that wasn't it, promise!

Hahaha...Anyhow, this is what the finished silhouette looked like. (click the image for a closer look)

I thought I was done there, and I even went on to finish the other two designs, but before I could call it a day, Cindy had to step in and start pointing out things that bugged her. Top of her list was the girl's right foot. It went something like this; "Ew! What's wrong with her foot?", "What are you talking about, that's how it looks in the picture!", "Well give her a heel!", "A heel? But her other foot doesn't have a heel on it!", "Just - do it!", "Fine!"

So, I gave the girl a quick vector heel and Cindy, of course, thought it looked better. I strongly disagreed though. I thought her having just one heel was pretty ridiculous, plus I started thinking that maybe her bent right arm made her appear like an amputee, so I scrapped the whole the thing and started my search over. It wasn't too long, and I attribute this to lots of random luck, but I was able to find this lovely young girl!

It wasn't long after that I had another silhouette done, and this is how it turned out! (click image for a closer look)

A distinction from the source image is the hair. I like curly/wavy hair, but I felt that my simplified version of hair got the message across better. Another distinction is her right arm. I wanted to show off her curves, and the arm was in the way of that, so I took it out of the equation. The next distinction is her breast. If you're reading this, lovely girl, know that I have no problem with your cup size, I just needed this to be emphasized a little more!

Something else that is different is her height. For some reason, Cindy thought that the shorter, slightly wider version appeared "too young" (don't even ask me for the logic in that one). So, yeah. I made her taller and she thought it looked better. I personally didn't see enough of a difference in it to bother fighting her some more over it...but that doesn't mean there weren't more fights (there's a reason I'm splitting this blog)!

So, the next point of contention had to do with uniformity and simplicity. If you've been following this blog, and you've seen the other designs, then you know I do use a lot of negative space. With that said, the car and the pistol that were flanking the girl in the design had negative spaces and divisions incorporated into their designs, so I do agree with Cindy on this one point. The girl was a little simple by comparison. My solution? A bikini bottom made out of negative space:

(Click image for a closer look)

I like it! So it stayed. But once I showed Cindy and asked her if she thought it fit in better now, she said "Yeah!...But shouldn't she have something on the top?" This went back and forth for a good minute also. I absolutely refused to give the girl a negative space bikini top, as that would take away that boob I worked to enlarge and emphasize to begin with! Cindy then suggested giving the outside of the bikini top, on the boob side, a small outline, but I got her to understand that I would have to make the outline quite thick (compared to the girl's proportions) for the design to fall within Spreadshirt's bigger than 0.06 of an inch minimum, so she dropped that idea.

"How about, like, a space underneath her boob?" I gave that a try, not really liking it much at all, but Cindy, liking it of course, suggested that I add another underneath her outer boob. I gave that a try also, but I hated it even more. "Nah, it ain't working for me. I hate it! They're both coming off..."

I don't have any file saved with the negative spaces underneath the breasts, but they basically looked like smiles. They just didn't feel right at all to me, and they deviated away from my vision enough for me to definitely turn the idea down.

Plus, y'know what? I really like the idea of the girl not having a top on! Hahaha. That's everything I had for that one. Stay on the lookout for the last half, I'll try to get it going soon. Until next time, carry on!

J, out!

A Quick Peek

2010-06-29T16:34:00.000-04:00

(at my ideas list)

So, with the rushes of ideas that I get at random, from time to time, sometimes several stack up and it becomes a little too much to try to manage by my memory alone. In all truth, if an idea has enough of an impact on me, it won't ever really disappear from my mind, but it might be lost in there somewhere until I am reminded of it again. So, my solution is to simply write their names down in a little sketchpad that I keep close by (this comes especially handy when I get an idea late at nigh, as I won't be able to fall asleep from continuing to think about it until I at least put it down on paper).

I wouldn't say it is the number of ideas as much as it is what makes up these individual ideas that make them all difficult to just hold in my head. Anyhow, here's what the current list looks like;

Designs that need

Doing:

* I saw a gun in her hand (LIGHTS)

* ~~Food pyramid~~

* Devil dog beta type

* Next needs up (demon)

* ~~Any backstabber~~

* Any blood burst

* (something with spiders!)

* A spider [omitted]!

* "SPIDER BOSS"

* 4 Horse Men

* Davilaisms

* *BIGGEST* FAN!

The one's with the strike-through are just so on paper, basically designs I've already completed. And with the "Backstabber" designs in particular, it would be hard to forget about doing the rest of them when I've already got two made (one of these days I'll get around to posting a blog detailing that variation from the original).

The "food pyramid" one I've also done already. Actually, I did it first thing after posting this blog, and it's actually the idea that I mentioned at the start of it. I guess it just motivated me that much! If you check out my shop and look over the designs though, you'd spot it pretty easily. The small display there doesn't really do it justice, but yeah...I'll blog about that soon enough, so no worries.

Another thing to note from that list, is what I've left out, or the vagueness. Well, if you've been reading the rest of the posts before this point, then you might have already figured out that I'm kind of protective of my ideas and designs. It's necessary though. A good example of that is the "Davilaisms" one (after my own last name). Davilaisms just include ideas that I feel are too hard to define, or that would not have anything else to compare them to, to create their own categories for. Some include just images, others have funny sayings of mine, while the rest are what I describe as personal "aphorisms". So, of course, I would leave said sayings and aphorisms from view.

Also interesting to mention is that the last item on that list is one from before I started keeping the list, and I just remembered about it a little while ago. I'm actually in the process of completing that design, so look for it later in the shop! That's all I had. Carry on!

J, out!

A Few Thoughts

2010-06-28T15:04:00.000-04:00

I like to sit down to re-read through my posts a few days after I've written them. It gives me a "fresh eyes" kind of perspective, and I am able to catch little mistakes or to cut some stuff out (for the sake of brevity). I noticed something different though...

I stated in my first blog that I would do my best to either explain any of the jargon that I might use, or to leave it out all together if possible. With that in mind though, some "jargon" is necessary for the sake of brevity. For example, when concerned with brevity, "slide" is better than "that top, long, horizontal piece of metal that moves back and forth to aid in the ejecting of spent bullet casings and in the feeding of fresh rounds into the chamber of the barrel".... See?

I mean, I know not everyone reading this will know what the Hell I'm talking about when I'm describing gun parts, and I don't expect them to. I don't expect that very many of you would know how to take an M16A2 service rifle apart and put it back together in seconds while blindfolded (I'm mentioning that, of course, because I could). Not very many of you visiting what is, essentially, an art blog will know your way around firearms. So with that in mind, I put the following together:

(Click image for larger view)

I put this together for the sake of brevity, readability, and understandability in my Reload! 2.0 and Reload! 1.0 blog post. It contains just about everything essential to cosmetically describing a 1911 type pistol. So if you go back and read those, you'll notice that I've edited this image into them. This should allow me to cut some of extra fat off from the sides.

In other news! I was speaking with a friend of mine recently and he was telling me that he's interest in acquiring a Beretta 92fs. The 92 is basically the civilian version of the M9 which, if you didn't know, is the current standard issue service pistol of the U.S. Military's conventional units. The switch from the M1911A1 to the M9 is considered controversial to some (I know some old timers that still think the M9 is shit and that it was a mistake downgrading from the .45 caliber round to the 9mm), but that's a discussion for a whole different day!

My interest in my friend's interest in acquiring a 92fs is that I want to do my next "RELOAD!" designs based on the M9. I personally never cared for the M9 while I was in either, but I know a lot of folk who like it plenty (*cough!* probably because they've never held a 1911 *cough!*). If he owned one himself, I could get some great reference photos to match my vision as much as virtually possible!

...I have a funny story, related to this. So, several years ago I convinced this same friend to buy "Super Dragon Ball Z". He wasn't interested, and felt disappointed enough about most attempts made to turn DBZ into a solid fighting game not to want to try it, but I persisted! "Dude, it's from the makers of Street Fighter II! How could they mess it up?!" Well, he gave in, we drove to Wal-mart, picked it up, went back to his place, booted it up and.....an hour later we were at Gamestop trading it in because Wal-mart wouldn't give him a refund.

So, with that bit of history on my mind, I feel a little guilty when I consider egging him onto buying a 92fs of his own (when I wouldn't buy one myself). An alternative is renting one to shoot at a local gun range and taking pictures of it there, on the low (they don't "allow" photography there, and the shooting area doesn't have the best lighting in the world, so it's an undesirable alternative). The third alternative is searching for some good images online, but if my search results for the prior two "RELOAD!" projects were any indication, that will take me a few days and the results might not be worth it (no offense, but gun owners make really bad photographers).

Man...having a consciousness sucks sometimes! Well, that's all I had for that one, I suppose. Don't forget to swing by my shop sometime! New designs will keep popping in, unannounced, until I can catch my blogs up. So, until next time, carry on.

J, out...

RELOAD!...1.0?

2010-06-27T17:23:00.000-04:00

(the pseudo predecessor)

As those of you who read this blog might know, 2.0 came before 1.0, so why the backwards number designation? Well, I explained it in that first "RELOAD!" post, but I will go over it again briefly. Basically, even though I made the decision that this would be a "twin" design (two versions of it would be produced) from the very beginning, 2.0's full color, dynamic perspective, and realistic representation of the M1911A1 just made it feel like the more "modern" design. While 1.0's more iconic, flat, minimalistic representation seemed like the more "primitive" of the two, thus the number designations for each. Now that the nomenclature has been beaten around some, let's move on to the execution!

My first step, in case you couldn't guess, was to find a good reference! But...finding a 1911A1 with its slide locked open, from a profile view, was basically impossible. Hell, finding the reference for 2.0 was easier! It seemed that I would have to acquire one of my own to photograph to get exactly what I wanted. The best I could do was to, basically, "compose" my own out of what was available. I ended up having to settle for these two. I basically only used as much as I needed from each, as show here (#1) and here (#2).

Refer back to this image if you need help locating the part of the pistol that I may be referring to.

So, basically, in trying to represent an authentic "A1" 1911 (also know as the "GI") I did the following; excluded both front and rear sights, "beaver tail" grip safety, and ring hammer from #1, then added the sights, "GI" grip safety, spur hammer, and arched mainspring housing from #2. Did I lose anyone yet?

(click image for larger view)

So...I'm just now realizing that I totally forgot to include the loop at the bottom of the mainspring housing that they would have attached the lanyard to. But...now that I think about it, if it wasn't a conscious decision made then (I think it could have been, but I would have remember...right?) then I am fine with that little omission. I think it looks fine as is without the lanyard loop. Moving on...

So my next step was to use Illustrator's pen tool with stroke and no fill. I outlined the parts of interest, selected all and switched it all to fill with no stroke. For the slide serrations, I left a rectangular area open there while creating the outline of the slide, then I returned, made a rectangle shape, and stretched it to be suitably high. Next, I played around with its width until I had what I felt was a thin enough (but at least wider than 0.06 inches, the minimum size restriction for flex prints on Spreadshirt) and multiplied it until I had enough of them to space out to a least the 0.04 inches of distance required.

My next challenge was to create a grip panel. I started by setting the pen tool to no fill with a 4 point stroke and outlined the grip panel, diamonds and all, making sure that the bottom end of it extended past what I already had of the frame. Next, with those strokes still selected, I went up to the top menu, under "Object", selected "flatten transparency" and checked the box that says "convert all strokes to outlines". This stroke was green in color, so when I selected everything and chose "merge" from the pathfinder window, it merge the green outline and made any of the red underneath it disappear (if the outline would have been red, like the rest of the design, it would have just become one with the rest). All I had to do then was use the "direct selection tool" to pick the green outline, delete it, and voila! An illusion of a grip panel was created. The process to create the negative spaces representing the pins and screws was the same, except that I used the ellipse tool set to fill and no stroke and made sure to make circles wider than 0.04 of an inch.

Last, but not least, I used the text tool, found the font that I felt fit the design the best, messed with the kerning, flattened it with the "convert all text to outlines" option selected, played with its sizing, distance from, and orientation to the 1911 until it felt right, and called it a night! So there you have it, as pictured above. This is the "GI 1911 RELOAD! 1.0"...

Interesting to note is that I have gone back and adjusted the spacing in between the text and the pistol, and made the text a different color from that of the 1911 since first producing this design. I wanted to give anyone ordering a t-shirt with the design more room to personalize its colors as much as possible. Sure, two color flex designs (referred to as "flock" there) cost more, but if one makes the color of both the pistol and text the same, the price will actually adjusts down to that of a single colored design. This makes my life easier because now I don't have to worry about uploading and managing two separate files!

That's pretty much all I have for this one! Been wanting to get this blog out of the way (believe it or not, I find creating art more fun that blogging) for a good minute! As mentioned previously, my shop is open for business! A link to it can also be found in my Spreadshirt user page, which you can find by viewing my "complete" Blogger profile on here.

Well, now that I have all of that out of the way, I will leave you to your devices! Until next time, carry on.

J, out!

Like I Cracked My Head Open, and Ideas Are Spilling All Over the Place

2010-06-25T11:55:00.000-04:00

(that's gonna leave a stain...)

This is kind of funny. You might not be aware of this, but I've been trying really hard to catch my blogs up with the designs that I have made. Like, I want all of my designs to have a coinciding post of their own, y'know? I've been getting around to that, but there is a phenomenon that has occurred now that I have free time in my warm little hands; I've received an influx of creativity and the motivation to do something about it.

Just last night I ended up creating a new "Backstabber" design, another all new design, and by midnight I had revised and tweaked the KA-BAR Backstabber design! What does that all mean? Simply put, that I'm churning out designs faster than I am posting blogs to detail their conceptions and gestations. Of course, if you faulted me, a visually creative person, for this, I would disagree with you in a strongly worded fashion. But, still, I feel like at least some sort of explanation is needed. Why?

Because my designer shop is open for business! Now, any design that I have available there is, more or less, open to public viewing. I guess you could say that I like to give everything a little bit of context, lest I feel a bit naked. But feel free to peruse all you wish, and keep an eye out for any additions. Meanwhile, I'll continue my efforts to get my posts caught up to my designs. Until next time, carry on.

J, out!

RELOAD!

2010-06-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

(Quick aside; Just before I started writing this I came up with another great idea. I even did a quick search on Spreadshirt and found that no one [for shame!] has undertaken the task of creating such a design, so I am taking it upon myself to provide it to the world!... Now back to your regularly scheduled programing...)

I am finally getting around to dedicating a post to the idea that started it all. "RELOAD!" One simple word, with one simple meaning, yet (I feel) very iconic! Seems crazy that I've been referring to this design since the start (and I've had it done since!) but I am just now getting around to this.

I don't know exactly what it was that was going through my head at the moment, while I was sitting in Survey of Media & Design and listening to the lecture, but I was just doodling in a sketch pad, just spitting out ideas (I was actually trying to come up with the Brand) when some pistols started making it onto the page. Now I really wish I could go back in time and get in my head, because I really have no idea what brought about the next thing. As I was sitting there doodling some more, it seems like the word "RELOAD!" did something for me, and soon after I wrote it down that first time I had what is the sketch for the original concept; a 1911 pistol that's run out of ammo, with its slide locked to the rear.

Now that I got that out of the way, let's get down into the execution! This was a bit of an exercise, though I'll probably make is sound super simple. What I did first was to find a suitable reference image. The pistol I wanted for this is the legendary 1911. Genuinely American, like yours truly! Also, I grew up on Metal Gear Solid, so when I saw Big Boss drooling all over a 1911 (starting at 03:44, but check this one out too!), it definitely caught my attention and I went off and researched it. You could say I've been a fan since!

While I referred to it as a Colt (the original manufacturers of the pistol, back when John Browning designed it) in that sketch, I ended up finding one that, while being a Springfield Armory 1911 instead of a Colt, fit my vision almost perfectly, so I went with it in the end (a little too much blue for my taste, but I took care of it soon enough!). What I did next was to take the image into illustrator and used the pen tool set to stroke with no fill, with a stroke size of about 4 points, and gave a heavy outline to all of the outer edges. Then I went in with a smaller stroke size and lined out the rest of the details.

I'll provide this image to use as reference, should any of you not understand what part of the pistol I am describing.

(Click image for larger version)

This is what the basic "outline" looked like. I had some people watching as I created this and they seemed pretty wowed. I was thinking "Pfft! Dude, I'm haven't even started..."

I always felt like it looked a little off, like the barrel was too long and the rear of the slide was too short, but if you compare it to the reference image, you'll see it's the same. I guess my artist brain doesn't want to be OK with something being fine as it is. Silly brain!

My next step was to select all and copy the outlines, open up a new photoshop file, paste them in there, rasterize them, bring in the source image on a separate layer, and prepare to add some color to the whole thing.

(Click for larger image)

I'll go ahead and make the 1911 design available now, as a living, breathing, visual aid to my ramblings.

So, with the photo in the background for reference (and color picking) I made a new layer under the outline and started on the barrel. I used the color picker (also known as the eye dropper tool) to choose what was just about the barrel's main hue and just applied it to all of the outline's barrel. Next I isolated sections (with the selection tools, mainly the lasso, actually) mimicking the shape of the highlights, midlights, and lowlights on the actual 1911 barrel and went over them with either the dodge (to lighten) or burn (to darken) tools. These ended up looking pretty sharp, squarish, and posterized looking. To remedy this, I selected all of the paint for the barrel and blurred it until I attained the look that it has now.

Next I used the color picker again to find a median shade of gray to use for the frame, slide, and the rest of the parkerized parts of the 1911 pistol. You could totally miss it if you don't have an eye for details (or if your monitor sucks), but the parkerized parts are done in gradients, going from dark to light (and vice versa) from front to back, back to front, down to up, up to down and side to side. I had fun with this, and it was probably the most time consuming part of the whole thing. Next I did the same thing with the wood grips, the went a little crazy with some hatching and cross hatching lines. To wrap that all up I picked the layer with the outlines, went into the adjustments and turned them black.

(click for larger image)

After I was pleased with those results, I applied the text, colored it in with a gradient of a light to dark red, flattened all of the layers together, then made a copy of that combined layer, placed it underneath the original, filled it in with white and set it to sit slightly to the bottom and off to the right, flattened those layers together, and called it a night!

The length of this post is just about proportional to the length of work that I put into this design. I'm sure I spent over 8 hours working on this, and that's not including the sketches, pondering, and the search for the reference image. All in all, I am very pleased with the outcome, and even though it took me very long to finalize this, I am looking forward to the next one. The full title for this piece is "GI 1911 RELOAD! 2.0". The "GI" denotes the model type (it's supposed to be a WWII replica, a bare bones M1911A1). The "2.0", however, warrants a longer explanation...

From the beginning, I planned on making this a "twin" design. One replicating the real thing closely, and one in a more "iconic" style, such as the style used on my Backstabber design (I explain what I mean by "iconic" in the 3rd paragraph of that post). Since I consider the iconic one to be the "retro" design of the two, I am giving this design the 2.0 designation, and the iconic the 1.0. Stand by and I will be getting around to hashing out a post for the said "iconic" RELOAD! design. Until then, y'all carry on!

J, out!

Designer Shop

2010-06-20T23:56:00.000-04:00

(Kinda late for an update. It's past my bedtime! Haha...)

I'm working on getting a designer shop set up at the moment. I've had a premium account on Spreadshirt for a minute now, but I haven't had the opportunity to work through the intricacies of setting up my designer shop. The advantage of a "designer shop" is that I don't have to worry about all of the minutia that I would with a standard shop (available to anyone with a free account). Some of these "minutia" include what I believe are some pretty important details. For example, what piece of apparel should a design go on? Should it be a heavyweight men's t-shirt, or a woman's v-neck t-shirt....in pink?! What about the color of the design? The exact size and placement?

Sure, as the originator and creator I have a vision, my own artistic direction, to each design. But what happens if a person loves the design, but not necessarily my arrangement? What if an individual likes my Backstabber design, but would rather have it without the text on the front? Or even yet, what if they want the design on the front of their apparel?...

If you can't tell by now, I could come up with many more scenarios for why a designer shop, which allows the customer to set up the design they want (in whatever color, size and orientation), on what piece of apparel they want. There is A LOT to choose from, clearly too much for me to decide what gets in and what doesn't. I actually have about 10 new designs waiting to be approved, so for now, I won't be making my designer shop active. Also, I will be deactivating my old "Tarantulas" shop and designating the new designer shop as such. It's kind of useless at this point.

I'm feeling kinda rushed, so I don't know if I left out anything else that I might have wanted to mention, but for now, that is all I had for y'all. Carry on!

J, out!

Brand, version 3.0 (or "Let's Get to it Already!")

2010-06-20T00:24:00.000-04:00

I've been posting updates about the "Brand" for a good while now, so I think it's about time that I got on with it. I've already made a post about how I came up with the design and so on. Not a day later and I posted another update about a change of heart I had on the usage of the brand, for sake of keeping the costs as low as possible. And finally, just last week, I posted an update about some of the changes that the Brand has gone through during the time since I made that first post debuting it, but it was nothing but vagueness, so I'm addressing it here!

My first reason for changing the first design was that it was not compatible with "Flex" printing. The simple way to explain it is that sections of a vector design have to be at least 0.06x0.06 inches big, and spaces in between sections need to be at least 0.04x0.04 inches big. Obviously (or not, just from looking at it), the first Brand design did not meet the criteria, so a redesign was in order.

The way I tackled it was pretty simple, and looking back, I could have probably gone with a thinner type face, since the type I went with was definitely much wider than 0.06 of an inch. Anyhow, I opened the design with the original spider by itself in Illustrator, took the eraser tool sized to a circle approximately 0.04 of an inch wide, slashed through the divisions already in place on the body and legs, joined the fangs with the thorax (as well as for making the points of the fangs hang downward), got rid of the eyes, and made leg sections thicker were needed, mostly near the ends. To finish, I then joined it with a thicker font and left the store URL out (font that small would obviously not fit withing the 0.06 inch width).

The image to the left here (click for larger version) is the final product of that effort. It's definitely not as organic as the original, and I dislike that the eyes are gone, but I like the legs thicker. I had a digital direct version (so that it would match the main design on the front, in color, feel, and texture) printed on the back of the "GI 1911 RELOAD! 2.0" t-shirt prototype that I ordered, but noticed that it was a little large for the role I wanted it to play (I wanted the "JR DAVILA" a bit higher up on my back, but the spider pushed it down a bit too much so it fell out of my vision for the placement), so I immediately decided that I would be redesigning it.

An aside, and something that doesn't really matter now (you'll see when I show you the final revision), was something else that my friend Cindy pointed out to me. She was reading the brand out as *JUNIOR* Davila, while I meant it to be read as *Jey-Ahr* Davila. When I told her this she went "But you ARE a Junior!", "That doesn't matter, it's supposed to be my first and middle initials!", "What, R****?", "Don't call me that!"

*Ahem!*... So, yes, that's why I'm not signing off as "JR" anymore, either. Moving on...

Fast forward two months (like 3 weeks ago) and I got some time to sit down and hash it out! Plugged my tablet in, opened up the original spider design, selected the pencil tool set to fill all strokes and went at it! It took me longer than I'd rather admit, so I'll just skip to it and show you the finished result!

(Click image for a larger version)

It's beautiful!...in, uh, it's very own, disgusting, creepy, arachnid kind of way (gag). And I was even able to add in (or would that be subtract out?) some eyes for it! That's one of my favorite parts about it. I'm going to post an update later with some of the doodles that I made while still trying to decide what my brand would look like, and explain the significance of the six eyes then.

Y'know what though? I'm surprised it took me all the way until this post to start mentioning Cindy, since she seems to be one of the only other artist critiquing my designs before, (more on that later) during, and after my creative sessions. So far, she's been the only person to question my choice to go with six eyes instead of eight. Of course, I quickly explained to her that some spiders have even less. Besides that she loved it though! She didn't actually see it until I was already wearing it on my "GI 1911 RELOAD! 1.0" tee. It rides right on my left shoulder blade on that t-shirt. She liked it so much that she wants me to get her something with just the spider on it though. She thinks it's "cute" (I strongly disagree that anything with 8 legs is cute, but...).

As far as usage for this brand design goes, as I mentioned before, it will be just for promotional purposes, so it will only go on t-shirts that I order for myself or for friends. I'll also be making PNG versions to coincide with any digital direct designs, and those will contain the shop URL in a crescent path around the spider.

That seems like just about everything I wanted to say about the brand for now. Keep a look out for the next post, when I'll return to muse about my "RELOAD!" design. It'll be a good one, I promise! Y'all carry on now.

J, out!

TARANTULAS

A Quick Peek, As of November 2011

RELOAD! Reactions

Next Needs Up: "Demon(s)"

Next Needs Up: The Origins

2nd Departure: Double the Cross

Sex Sells

Once a Backstabber, Always a Backstabber; The Tanto

*Biggest* Fan Reactions

1st Departure: Are Two Girls Better Than One?

Never Take Your Eyes Off the Goal

Variations and Deviations

The *Biggest* Fan

Spiders Gotta Eat Too!

"Beautiful Strokes"

Meat Pyramid

Danger & Beauty: Last Half

LYPHE

Danger & Beauty: First Half

A Quick Peek

A Few Thoughts

RELOAD!...1.0?

Like I Cracked My Head Open, and Ideas Are Spilling All Over the Place

RELOAD!

Designer Shop

Brand, version 3.0 (or "Let's Get to it Already!")

Biggest Fan Reactions

The Biggest Fan