Thumbelina - Update

Here's today's progress on the Thumbelina shirt:

It has been every bit as frustrating as it looks.

Thumbelina Shirt Project

To those of you who are not familiar with Threadless, it is a digital mecca for amazing t-shirt designs. Designers submit their ideas and the whole online community critiques and votes on it. If there are enough favorable reviews, Threadless will produce the shirt, sell it on their website, and cut the designer a nice big check for their work.

I am currently in the progress of incorporating my Homeless Thumbelina image into a shirt design, but this deceivingly simple task is proving to be much more time consuming than I'd bargained for...

Threadless only accepts designs that use 8 colors or less, so I've been simplifying like mad. After a fruitless attempt to reduce my palette using nothing but Photoshop, I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that I really need to recreate this image using vectors if I want to keep it from getting too grainy.

The original piece is not graphic at all, so taking it from colored pencil into vectors has been a tricky undertaking.

Here's what the original looks like:

And here's how far I've gotten with the vectors:

*sigh* So many details...
Anyway, here's how the shirt will look in the end:

The fireflies might be printed in glow-in-the-dark ink, since I know that's something they can do... I just need to decide how ambitious I can afford to be before I risk pricing myself out of the race...

I really do feel that Thumbelina is one of my strongest illustrations,

I just hope it doesn't lose too much of it's appeal in the translation.

I'll probably post a step-by-step animation of my progress when it's finished. And I'll DEFINITELY post links to the Threadless submission when it's up for review! I'll need your help to make it past the submission stage, so get ready to vote early and often!

C.H.U.D. and Another Happy Customer

The C.H.U.D. convention on Sunday was much more productive than I was expecting it to be! I was originally supposed to set up my art on the corner of the Stormwatch Comics table, but when I arrived I was informed that there were some spare tables where I could lay out all my work. I wasn't expecting to have such a nice setup, it was GREAT!

While I was there, I met Gabriel from KING Comics. I'm almost certainly going to be creating a custom pinup for some the characters from his comic and I may even end up doing a custom t-shirt design for him in the near future!

I'll post more about that project when it gets closer to coming true.

Also, Tom located another place on the internet where strangers are talking about my stuff, which is always a wonderful pick-me-up in the middle of the day!

The Scarlett Johansson sketch cover I'd done for Stormwatch Comics finally sold, and the man who bought it is apparently quite pleased with his purchase. I'm looking forward to doing more sketch covers in the future- definitely for Stormwatch and hopefully for Dynamic Forces *crosses fingers*

I'm still waiting to hear back from them.

Wish me luck!

The Doctor

I've spent the last month on my studio room floor, printing t-shirts the hard way.

So far, I have designed two Doctor themed shirts- both concepts came from Bob Hoskins of Stormwatch Comics, so a big thanks to him for giving me the initial ideas and then encouraging me to actually make them. The first one is pretty simple, and can be seen below.

I've just started producing shirts with the second design, which features Mr. Tom Baker himself! These are much easier to make, so I ought to have a decent number to bring with me to the next comic book show.

A design featuring K-9 will be available soon.

Those of you who follow my blog religiously will remember the Felicia Day incident, and since then I've become cautious with what I post on the internet. However, the interest I've received from the local Whovian population has been really encouraging, so I've decided to start offering them for sale on my Etsy account.

I can also do special orders and door-to-door delivery if you're in the South Jersey area, just let me know the size and color you need. I already have versions of the designs printed on black & white t-shirts, so if you want a particular color, it'll cost a little more.

Honestly, as long as you're willing to throw in a few extra dollars for the trouble, I'll print on any type of shirt you'd like. Long sleeved, short sleeved, colored, you name it.

If you or someone you know is interested in placing a shirt order,

email me at LauraGuzzoArt@gmail.com