Saturday 12 March 2011

Doctor Pooh

One for the A.A. Milne loving Whovians out there... cClassic children's literature meets family oriented sci-fi.

I personally love this one.
Doctor Pooh
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Wargames

WAR! Huh, yeah…
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again, y’all… ♪♫
This one is just a bit of fun. Can't really say how it came about, just one of those ideas that transferred well to pixels.
Wargames
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RedBubble: View

Deus Ex (Mystery) Machina

This idea had been in my head for a long time, so I finally transferred it from thought alone, to pixels.

Latin for "god out of the machine", deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object. How could Scooby and the Gang get along without it?
Deus Ex (Mystery) Machina
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Roll up ♪♫ Roll up for the (Murder) Mystery Tour ♪♫

This concept wasn't 100% my idea and came about while my boss was describing an event he was involved in planning for a friend.

It was actually a colleague that married up the anniversary of John Lennon's murder with my boss's Murder Mystery night event, and uttered "Murder Mystery Tour" in my direction.

Murder Mystery Tour

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There is another version of this t-shirt, which has all the stars from the Magical Mystery Tour cover included (all drawn by hand).

RedBubble: View

Peppa Stig

This is the concept that kicked all of this off for me.

This idea came about while my youngest daughter was happily watching her Peppa Pig DVD, and my son wanted to watch some Top Gear; I said that it was such a shame that Peppa couldn’t drive the ‘reasonably priced car’ around the track… hence Peppa Stig was born.

Peppa Stig
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The Return of the Rambler

As I said, in my first post, the main reason for me creating this 'blog' is to display my t-shirt designs.

The next posts are showing the designs I've completed, and have felt happy enough with to submit to places like Qwertee and TeeFury.

While TeeFury seems to be a 'submit only' process, Qwertee is a site that allows the Internet users to choose what they [Qwertee] print next. This means VOTES. The thing with votes though, as I'm sure you're aware from the political world , is that they are open to abuse. This will be one of the reasons that Qwertee requires registration to be able to vote on your favourite designs. So... can I humbly ask, if you're not already registered, please do. This is the only way for the designs to receive the attention of Qwertee. It's a nice and simple process, and takes less time than it does to read my ramblings [here's a link to the Qwertee registration page to make this even simpler ;)].

Right. On with the show...

Plethora, popart, choons, tshirts and Flumph

Thought I'd start this journey with a few of my favourite things... Only few mind, and very loosely grouped.
I can imagine people sitting, reading this, looking at the title and thinking, "WTF is Flumph?". Well, I'll leave that to you to comment on [ooh, get me, seeking audience participation! My old Marketing Manager would be proud].
Actually, when I say "I can imagine people sitting, reading this...", I can't. I can't see why anyone else would be interested in this, but hey, I'm hitting the whole 'social' thing square on and shoving myself out there for people to point at.
Anyway, my favourite things...

'Plethora'. A word. A noun. /'pleTHərə/. I just love the sound of this word. It conjures up lovely shapes in my head. No idea why, just does. It feels so rounded and smooth. It's nothing to do with excess either, and I'm not overly into bodily fluids, especially blood (not that I'm squeamish); I just love the sound of the word.

Popart. Yes, just saying 'popart' doesn't really give much away, so I'll elaborate.
Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock - all well known - and in my humble opinion, deservedly so. I like what Popart evokes. The fact that even the most mundane of items can be transformed into (a work of) art; simple movement and the flow of paint from a brush that is handed to gravity to place, rather than forcibly applying it to a canvas; DOTS and BLOCKS of colour... Benday dots to be precise... To some, overly simplistic... to me, a return to the comic book days of my childhood, and the later structured lessons on colour theory. I learned a lot from those simple dots.

'Choons'. I love music. Unfortunately, I'm not creative enough to make music of my own, but listening to it is something I do almost every day - at home, at work, falling to sleep (after setting the iPod to turn off after 1 hour). Genres? Well, I like all sorts, but mainly indie, rock, alternative.
Love lots of classical, especially in the car, where the radio is pre-set to Classic.fm.
I can say though that I cannot abide R&B. Let's get this straight - I don't mean R'n'B (of the 40s onward), I mean the current dirge of talentless, auto-tuned, karaoke artists that are presently flooding the airwaves.
Artist wise... I couldn't possibly list them all, so a Last.fm link would be easier. A few of my top bands/artists though are (in no particular order): Morrissey, The Smiths, The Wonder Stuff.
Yes, my formative years were spent in the 90s, during the indie explosion, the 'Madchester' era.
Manchester... So much to answer for? You're damn right :D

T-shirts. I have lots. I want lots more. So, I started creating designs for them.
This fact is probably the main reason for me creating this 'blog'. I wanted a centralised place to show and link to my designs.
There are bound to be some crap designs, but hopefully they'll be kept to a minimum.
There's not really much more I can say about t-shirts, apart from, I hope you like my designs.

So, that's my 'favourite things', so, what else can you expect from this? Honestly, I don't know.
I'll post up artwork, works in progress, doodles (that I deem worthy). Links to other people's artwork that I like. There are more than likely going to be more ramblings (if you've read this far, congratulations; I can't quite believe I've written this much myself). And, that's about all I can think of right now.

So, I'll round off this (quite mammoth) first post and just say, thank you for your time so far. I hope to be entertaining, but won't promise anything, and y'all come back now.

TTFN.. Rob

[P.S. Let me know your thoughts on 'Flumph'. The first correct answer wins a t-shirt bearing one of my designs (your choice).]