Roller Derby Design

The Limerick Roller Girls are playing for the first time in their home town this weekend. I have a few friends and acquaintances on the team and they suggested that I sell my wares at the event. Instead of just turning up with my normal crafty stuff I thought I would design some derby t-shirts, canvas bags and badges. 

My first port of call was of coarse Pinterest, that's where all the crafty rockabilly girls hang out don't you know! Derby huge in America so there was loads to look through. Basically I was looking for striking photos  to base my illustrations on. I thought this girl was particularly kickass, so she was the first one that I worked on. So far I have done eight drawings, but this is the only one that I have finished in Photoshop. The event is on Saturday, so I really need to get my skates on, pardon the pun!

My intention was to go for a really muted palette, so I wouldn't distract from the line drawing too much, but I got a bit carried away at the end. As you saw in my Girl With The Dragon Tattoo piece I have tendencies to change my mind after a while(the joy of working in Photoshop is that is gives you that freedom that traditional illustration doesn't). I've been looking at the work of my friend Jordie Bellaire a lot, and trying to figure out a few tricks. She is an amazing colourist, looking at her work I discovered that a palette can really make or break a piece. She has been good enough to give me advice in the past(I went to college with her boyfriend Declan Shalvey) and I really appreciate how honest she has been. Colour wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to in college, and I feel like I'm only trying to figure it out now. I'm always tempted to go for really strong colours, but it's good to use some of the other tools in the box too.

The match is on this Saturday in UL, for full details go to their event here on Facebook, tickets are €10 with concessions for students and OAPs, and it's free for kids under 5. You can also go to their website to purchase tickets.

Note: Even though I will be selling at this event on Saturday my book stall will still be open for it's normal hours. 

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Stag Party Designs

As I said yesterday I wanted to work on some new stag party designs for t-shirts (but these images can easily be adapted to badges too). No sooner did I finish the post than I started doing a bit of online research. To be honest it was all a bit tame, I thought there would be far more boobs and slander, apparently it's only the ladies who like to be crass for their prenuptial shennanigans. I've only done a few designs, and I would definitely like to do some more that are little edgier, but it's a good start.

I saw lots of the boring bride and groom cartoons with Game Over written underneath, which I thought was pretty funny, but I wanted to do something fun with the image. I found a regular picture of Mario and Peaches and with the magic of Photoshop I managed to put a tux on Mario, and change her dress to white. I'm really surprised at how convincing it looks, it's definitely my favourite design so far. I might even do a series of computer came ones, Mr&Mrs Pacman maybe?

Please note the website address at the end of the image is just for online purposes, in case it get's shared without a credit on Pinterest etc. But it will not be on the final t-shirt design.

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Hen and Stag Party T-shirts and Badges

It's definitely coming into hen party season, I've just spent my morning emailing bridesmaids about lots of custom order hen party badges. About a year or so ago I made up a catalogue of designs for people to choose from. It's great to have the images already there and the names, dates, colours etc can all be changed to suit.  Lots of people still send in their own images, but I think this option helped a lot of people who really didn't know what they wanted. I tried to cater to all different style and not just the cliche pink garish ones. They are just €20 for 20 badges plus €3 P&P within Ireland. To look at the full selection of designs please click here.

Now that I have a heat press machine I can now do t-shirts, which might be more popular with the stag night crowd. I did a little research online and the range from €10-€30, which seems like an insane amount of money since they will probably be only worn once! I'm gonna sell them at €10 each and see how it goes. As with the badges the image and text can be altered to suit the customer, so if they have a really ugly photo of the bride or groom that they want on it I'm delighted to help them! I also make canvas bags (€5 each) which would be handy for giving out goody bags/survival packs.

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New Stuff

These are a few bits I made yesterday. I'm loving the cute clashing colours with the green checker. The coat is a work in progress that I started last week, this is the back panel across the shoulders, I want to do lots more of this patter around the bottom of the coat and on the front. I originally got this Ben Sherman coat in the Dublin swap shop Shebeen Chic for free, but I couldn't decide what to do with it.

(Note: as you can see my beautiful new mannequin has arrived, yey, I love it!)

Hungover with room with a view

After the traditional Good Friday party I'm feeling a little worse for wear today. My delicate condition was helped a little by rewatching one of my favorite films A Room With a View, I don't really know why I love it so much. It's adapted from a fantastic book which I read at the formative age of 17, I think the theme of the transformation of a young woman really stuck with me. Also the fact that it has the beautiful Julian Sands really helps too, a strangely wooden actor, but a joy to look at.

Anyhow this was a brief treat as I start into a long night of sewing in preperation for tomorrow's market. All I've managed to do was to get 5 mens t-shrits made, if I don't sell them the I will have photos of them for you guys sometime this week. This evening I will try to make a few recession busting t-shirts for the ladies. There will be huge amounts of people in the city tomorrow due to the Heineken Cup match being played in Thomond, and that crowd will have the budget of cheap and cheerful. I think I'll focus on making lots of red clothes, for the fashion conscious ladies wanting to wear the Munster colours. Wish me luck it's gonna be a long night....

Mens Clothing Photos

My wonderful boyfriend John eventually agreed to model those mens t-shirts I made a few weeks back. You guys get the preview before they are posted on Etsy. PLEASE; does anyone know how to change the dpi of an image without using photoshop?

Update: With an awakward mix of 'painter' and picassa I was able to edit the pic of John, and I just listed them in my shop on etsy

SALE SALE SALE

I've been thinking of having a SALE for a while, and what better time than January, all sale items have been reduced by at least 30%. I have also reviewed my shipping prices, all second purchases now have free shipping!