Teefury

Words from jimiyo: Dun Dun Dun Da-Da. Dun Dun Dun Da-Da.

Steven Tu's first design did so well, he whipped us another one lickity split. A sure crowd pleaser since it's a mish mash of not two, but three popular cultural references. See if you can spot the third.

Hint: You Wantz it. You Needz it! Just like this shirt.

*** Correction: There are actually Five references.

Your first Teefury shirt sold like hotcakes. Did you get any client referrals, adoring fan emails, or hits on your portfolio?

Geez, thanks!! (and to alllll of you who supported!)

To be honest, I basically whacked together the Tuism component on my thesteventu.com site, created the tuism twitter account and facebook page when I heard the Sporck shirt was going to be up the next day - that was basically over night - and I'm very glad I did.

Anyways in short, yeah I got plenty of response from the Sporck shirt. As for opening doors? I don't know, I keep all of ya's posted as far as that goes ;)

Stars Wars, Terminator, Lord of the Rings. Which would you say is your favorite and why?

That's a trick queestion. I'm not falling for that!
... Lemme just say I've been running around going "dumdum dum dumdum" at everyone for a while now :)
... Oh nevermind I can't resist - right now I'm all over Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles just added such a new dimension to the series, and the idea of man AND machine, man VS machine has a special place in my heart. Oh did I mention I was a mecha fan? Terminator's not on the same level as Gundams but they're also mecha nonetheless :)

But Star Wars and LOTR both hold special places in my cultural reservoir :) And by the way there are two more bad-ass references in there... one from a game and one from a movie (and the game, and the movie, and the other movie, and then the spinoff franchise movie... etc, etc)

You recently changed your artist name from Steven Tu to Tuism. Give us the story.
When I was but knee-high to a grasshopper in varsity, I coined the phrase Tuism (Or I though I did, it actually is a word in the dictionary. Go figure.) for my personal philosophy. (By the way my real surname IS Tu) My sense of humor was always, heck, and still is, rather dry, so my friends at the time "reappropriated" the term to mean "weird things that Steven would sometimes sprout with no good reason". I have since re-reappropriated the term to mean "things, weird or not, that made perfect sense only in my own little world inside my not-so-little head". For some reason it carried to just about everyone around me, as I have come to hear "Now that's a Tuism right there" quite from just about everyone I've know for more than an hour.

Anyways, I just thought now that Tuism was a better brand to use... But since Tuism.com is as yet incomplete, I'm, for now, "Tuism: The Artist formerly known as theStevenTu"

Got any other ideas a-brewing in your brain for future shirt ideas?
People who follow me on twitter and facebook have a vague idea of what's in my head... Perhaps an even better picture than what I have of it. I think there's something involving boxxy (half the internets are going to kill me) wafting up through the veils of my subconscious... Mayhaps :) And more, most probably ;) I'm always on the lookout for pop icons to poke a big sharp stick into.

What's a day in the life of Tuism like?
I read books - my sketchbooks. I paint in sound with my guitar and sing ideas with the internet. I like various shows but I don't watch TV. Shopping holds me to ransom from time to time, when I'm not spending my cash on things like kickboxing gear.

Any words of wisdom?
TweetDeck is like cocaine: it's too easy to get hold of, It affects your friends and family, but if used correctly it can help you with work (ok that last part was a half joke! Don't do drugs kids! I don't!) And real wisdom is knowing to turn your facebook and twitter crossover updates over unless you want to keep your friends.
 
Oh and always keep your communications short and to the point. I can tell you this because I can't do it yet :)