Picking a picture for this week's show was quite a challenge!
We dive into the black and white world of Aquaman before the others weigh in on "Fifty Shades of Grey" (skip over 45:00-59:00 if you're not interested in the latter). Then we explore the wide world of geek brands! Join Miss M, Chris Lockhart, Derek Ash, Chris Giada and myself as we get hip with Funko, tour through the top toys and dig through Derek's Little Mermaid underwear.
Are you ready kids? I said are you ready?! Well I've been ready for over a year now. Today is the premiere of The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which means I can finally show off what I did for this feature. Sandy Squirrel on the bottom left of this T-Shirt was drawn by yours truly!
I was contacted by an art director at Nickelodeon who saw my previous squirrel illustrations and hired me for this project. We went through a number of different poses based on concept art from the film before settling on the final.
I still pinch myself that I got to do this. It was an incredible experience and I hope to have more opportunities like it in the future. Go see the movie and buy lots of these T-Shirts! Do it now!
My design for Threadless' Power Rangers T-Shirt contest is up! But I need you to go vote for in the next seven days for a chance to win! (Please share this with your friends as well.)
This is a logo I designed for a Christian T-Shirt company called "Red Threads". This is something I've been working on since May and it has taken on many different styles of variations and style within that time. The client was looking for something hip, distinct and "comic book-like". That last one had me a little nervous as "comic book style" can mean different things to different people, as comics are just as diverse in their appearances, techniques and styles as any other medium of art. But really, what I was more concerned about was that a detail oriented "comics style" would clash with the needs of a logo, which needs to be simple, identifiable and legible even when shrunken down.
Here are some previous variations just to give you a hint of the process.
This is another entry for WeLoveFine's Power Ranger's T-Shirt contest, playing on a double entendre with Rita Repulsa's catchphrase and the implications it could have on her marriage to Lord Zedd. While I sketched this out in traditional pencils, finished linework is completely digital, a first for me.
While I thought that this entry, since it didn't involve tracing a pre-existing logo, would be the jewel in the crown of my submissions. However, much like "I Got a Frog", I received an e-mail from WeLoveFine. “We like your concept, however, since this cartoon is aimed for children,
we cannot add your design into the contest. Is it possible for you to
rework it so that maybe Rita isn't lying down in a bed, but maybe sitting in
her chair? Once you rework the design, we'd be happy to enter it into the
contest.”
While this sounds like a frustrating let down, after reading it I had a
strange realization, “If its rejected before the contest… Then it can’t
be a failure!” Yeah... just keep telling yourself that. Though it is subtly amusing to me that a gag about rejection is ultimately being rejected.
I've got a week before the deadline to submit something else, so I just have to decide if it's worth the effort to compose a new image from scratch. With that kind of time crunch though, I might just let it go and be thankful I didn't go with any gags about "Make my Monster Grow."
Captain Marvelous' catchphrase from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger juxtaposed with the classic "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters. These pirates may not care much for "Keeping Calm", but they know all about carrying on.
Originally this was something I just did on a lark, but it was a big hit on tumblr, so I decided to try submitting it to WeLoveFine's Power Ranger T-Shirt contest, even if it is based on a Sentai series. Well low and behold, this design was approved and is eligible for voting when the polls open on February 18th. Here is a link to the design page were you can share it on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus.
Now here's one of my T-Shirt entries that did manage to make the cut. Its a parody of the classic "NYU" shirts from New York University, replaced with "ZYU" referring to Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the series on which Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was based.
I was originally going to put a bar under the Power Coin Logo saying something like "Est: -170 Million" or "Est: 1992" but thought that would be confusing since Mighty Morphin' uses in 10,000 years and/or 1993 as its years of establishment for that particular team.
The voting period begins on February 18th, but you can also tweet, facebook like, or share on Google plus any time before then to help promote my hard work.
For the past month now I've been working on entries for WeLoveFine's Power Rangers T-Shirt contest to celebrate the franchise's twenty year anniversary. Since my generation was on the ground floor of this series when it first started, I figured I could give it a shot.
This was one of my first entries for the contest. The joke is taken from a line in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie when the team is receiving new power animals. While the others get strong creatures like the wolf, the bear or the falcon, Adam expresses disappointment in being given a frog.
It reminded me of another expression of disappointment from my childhood TV viewing;
However, shortly after I submitted this entry I received a message from WeLoveFine that stated; "Although we love the idea of merging together two classics like 'Peanuts' and 'Power Rangers', this is something that we unfortunately can't proceed with due to licensing terms."
Fair enough I suppose and its certainly understandable. I guess it didn't occur to me that the juxtaposition could be a problem, especially given this company's other pop culture mash ups particular with their Doctor Who/ My Little Pony crossover shirts, but those are of a different sort. At least this design didn't take as long as some of the others I worked on.
