I'm sorry in advance Jim but I think a fresh post every 3 or 4 WIPS would be better for instant feedback. I'm not gonna design as fast as before because I now have a lot more networking to do than design...
Here was an idea I am sort of close to being done with... I'll finish it tomorrow after work with some helpful tips and feedback. I want to keep it simple still something is missing... A good nights sleep should help fill the missing pieces.
Anywho this is my New England Patriots tribute to Firefly- A vintage football tee that just screams independence!
Here was an idea I am sort of close to being done with... I'll finish it tomorrow after work with some helpful tips and feedback. I want to keep it simple still something is missing... A good nights sleep should help fill the missing pieces.
Anywho this is my New England Patriots tribute to Firefly- A vintage football tee that just screams independence!
Shouldn't the text at the bottom say either Independence or Independent.
The line weights on the larger text seem a little too thin. Or is it the White outline that seems a little too thick around the mascot? Difficult to tell.
You may want to check the design in mockup shirt because at the moment your lighter Blue background (shirt color) is closest to the Men only Slate Blue, this usually means they print the Womens version on Powder Blue. Neither of these colors is that good with your design. However Navy Blue works well as does Black, Military Green and... sigh... Chocolate Brown.
It's the New England Patriots mascot in Mal Reynolds clothing. He's also wearing eye black and padding, but I don't think he's a Reaver.
Charcoal and Silver also work, Charcoal especially.
I'm kinda fearing that my ideas are taken. Like someone is gonna pop in this thread and say - ALREADY BEEN DONE! I have been seeing too much of that lately.
Ah.. sorry, as you can see i'm not that big a fan of Football
I am now CoDdesigns. I will have a logo to match soon. This way there is no disparity between me and my portfolio of work.
For examples I'm using my firefly design
First you need a distress- You need images of textures and surfaces whether it's a book full of them from an art section at a book store, you take photographs yourself or you google image search with advanced options set to over 2mb size images or larger.
Once you have your desired textures you bring them into photoshop and go to the top bar and select Image -then Adjustments- then select Threshold. Threshold will eliminate all other colors except black and white. This is what you want. Save the image as a psd file and make sure it's at least 200dpi. 300 is the best.
For Vector- Import your psd file of the texture into Illustrator. Before we distress you need to color separate. Take the entire art all grouped together and make however many colors you have and make that many copies. So for this design I needed to copy paste the image 6 times(always keep a 7th copy with the original colors on the side). I separated each one and broke it down by color. I locked all other artwork and began coloring every color white except the one I needed which I changed to black. It should look like 6 pieces of art all colored black. If you put them back together they should fit like puzzle pieces. However you can't put them back together just yet. You need to distress and eliminate all of the white. Open the texture you like and fit it to the size of each individual puzzle piece. If you have CS4 or later you should be able to live trace the psd file of the texture. This will vectorize the texture. Then hit expand. Once expanded you can delete all of the white areas. Take the black distress texture and color it white. Now place it on top in the exact same spot for all 6 separated pieces of art. Drag your mouse over one piece with the distress and select Object-then Rasterize. This will fake a distress over the art. Once rasterized you can live trace the new image. Once live traced hit expand and then delete the white again. Do this for all 6 pieces. Once finished take the original color way and begin selecting each piece and filling it with the desired color. Then put the pieces back together. They should fit nicely.
Raster art- This way is much easier but I prefer the clean effect of vector art (sorry photoshop fans). Take the art for example my design and import it into photoshop. Import the distress as well. Put the distress on a layer above the art. On the distress layer select all of the black pixels in the distress. Hide the distress layer and now select the layer with the art. Press the delete key and the art will be deleted in the exact selection of the distress.
Keep in mind a pixelated distress can be cleaner than a vector distress however round cartoon like art is probably best vectorized.
Sorry for the length and my awful typing skills. If you don't follow I'm sure Chuffy can clarify better for me haha.
Nope, that's how I do it. Both the distress techique and the explanation. :)
I use the Raster method, but the Vector method is preferable since your design can be fully scaled.
If you are gonna use the Raster method make sure your design is 300dpi and fits (ideally fills a least one dimension) a 14" by 17" canvas (4200x5100pixel). Why so precise? It's what fits the printed area of the T-shirt.
My only complaint... and I mean ONLY... is I personally think it should be on a red shirt. Almost all of the Pats throwback stuff is and was on a red shirt, jersey, hat, etc... I think it would tie in the Pats reference a bit better for those who maybe don't know about the old logo for the team.
While I would have loved to submit another red shirt I didn't know if it would have been in my best interest. I just submitted a red shirt earlier this week called "Baredevil" and it's going to be printed. So I guess I wanted to mix it up.
Plus I wouldn't worry if this design doesn't get picked up I will have it for sale in many colors ;)
The Cole Train Runs on Whole Grain Baby! WOOOO
Non-distress non-vintage version:
Go Pats!