So this design is just finishing up voting at Threadless. How ’bout that?
It’s by no means a controversial image, and it’s honestly good to stretch my pencil/mouse/etc over a design that isn’t a pop culture reference. It means no one can sue me for infringement…
…Can they?
Anyway. I do like me some negative space, and animals seem to be a fun way of experimenting with it.
So the ever growing t-site The Yetee is selling the plumbing assassin for only four days! From the 16th to the 19th, you too can scramble from Rome’s weather rooftops to the flourescent green pipes of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Well, the shirt won’t let you do that.
But you’ll look damn cool while you try.
P.S.: Frickin’ spam! What the hell happened to all my lovely filters?
Which is of itself pretty damn awesome. Firstly, there’s simply the irony factor of a Star Trek actor promoting a Star Wars T-Shirt (but then again, all nerds have become united. Mainly united against Twilight, but still united). Secondly, it’s internet nice guy and blogger extraordinaire Wil Wheaton.
I woke up, bleary eyed and in a strangely positive mood, turned my computer on (yes, I do this before anything else…) and checked my e-mail to find a flurry of Redbubble sales. I spent the next hours waiting for some natural disaster to balance all of this. After that, I relaxed somewhat.
So yes. Not a bad Wednesday. And now back to work.
So I’ve been on this strange run of parody flavoured shirts for the last little while (when I have been posting), and I’m certain I’ve complained enough about how they seem to be the more popular options and why. So before I leap into the “Woe is me, for I have trouble selling entirely original ideas!”, let’s get these two ideas out of the way.
And despite my bitching and moaning, it is actually fun to make these.
Cat-At Loves You! is available at my RedBubble Store. I knw a lot of people have given the dear old AT-AT some pet-like qualities in the past, but I hadn’t seen this idea, and I seemed to like the idea of an X-Wing as some poor unfortunate bird. And making Vader expressive while he has his mask on is actually a lot of fun.
It’s a me! Ezio! is also available. This is the end result of the little preview in the previous post.
I’ll have links up in a few days where you can vote for them on Qwertee for a chance to get them a little cheaper for a limited time, with the wonderful spot colour printing they were designed for.
Coming soon: Entirely original work and updates and maybe music stuff.
Also: For any fans of Voltron who wondered if I’d ever add to the lonely Red Lion Football Team. Hunk gets some love here. Estimated end date for the end of this project is 3024. Sigh.
Many artists on the web find themselves so entrenched, emersed and surrounded (I may even go as far as to use the word besieged) by pop culture. Unless you’ve spent the last 90 years in isolation, you know that a large black circle with two smaller black circles on top signifies the mouse that launched a marketing goldmine. And if you’ve spent the last 90 years in isolation, there are some people who will truly envy you. They have been crushed by the mouse.
What it means for internet artists, though, is that a LOT of ideas you get will reference something else. This happens by accident. I’ve spoken about the times where you get an idea, and serruptitiously google it to make sure you weren’t beaten to the punch line. These are the times where you think “That’s hilarious!” and then realise that it’s only hilarious if your audience has also watched all 290 years of the Simpsons.
Some make a living by critiquing and parodying pop culture.Penny Arcade is a prime example. But every now and again you can see them trying to make something more original, just so they have something that they can say is truly theirs, and won’t lose relevance in five years. No offence meant, they do what they do well, and the original stuff is damn good. Hell, Ubisoft has even conracted them to do comics for their games. But the video game commentary and faux-assassination is what brought them attention, and it’s impossible for them to abandon it (if they wanted to) and be gauranteed the same amount of success.
So where does that put someone like me? I’ve a few original ideas and designs that make a few sales over at the RedBubble Store, but in the last year or so I’ve had ideas pop up that involve other ideas. Based on other people’s ideas. An alternate end to Back to the Future. The results of one blue monster’s horrible sugar addiction.
And this work in progress. Well, actually it’s finished now, and I’ll let you know who takes it up for sale, if they do. It’s off to join those many designs that are small(ish) nods to the culture that raised us.
The crux of the matter is, they sell. They get coverage. Shirt sites know people will get the joke. I know they try and support completely original art as much as they can, but the internet is now such a competitive place that they can’t afford not to latch onto those sales.
My point? Well, in a perfect world, we’d all draw whatever the hell we liked and would be able to live off of that. In place of that, I’m going to have fun drawing Mario as Ezio, hopefully get a few more people to recognise me and offer me a job, and you get a neat shirt that says how proud a nerd you really are.
In just over 3 hours, Accio Brains goes on sale for exactly one day at TeeFury. That’s at 10 bucks a shirt. That’s like exactly 10… things you could by for a dollar. Plus postage.
So grab a shirt, advertise a shirt, even just take a look, and wonder what the end of the last Potter flick might be if Voldemort was better at his job.
You remember the 1990s. I’m sure you do. I’m pretty sure you’re trying desperately to forget it, but it’s too late now. It happened. Milli Vanilli damn well happened and we’re all just going to have to live with it.
Anyhow. The true joy of the 1990s was how few citezens had an internet identity. Companies were just starting to tap into that whole dotcom thing, but all over the world, people – you and me type people… well, maybe not him – slowly realised they could have a website.
Some people had a message to tell the world. Others had undying love for fictional characters. Others posted pictures of their cats. And we all know where that led*.
Now, of course, it’s the future. And rather than having better things, we just have more of them. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have a blog. Most likely a facebook. Maybe a youtube channel. Some of us still have a myspace (now spelt “my______” like someone just swore. I hear it in my head as “my*bleeeep!*”). Maybe you’ve still got a few orphaned live journal entries.
Maybe you forgot to take down your embarassing art folio from when you’d just left high school.
I know I did. No, I’m not telling you where it is. Let me know if you find it… I don’t think I can take it down**.
Don’t ask me how I stumbled across it again. Please don’t ask me about all the bad poetry. And for the love of whichever god you favour, don’t ask me why it’s so orange. I was 19. Actually, don’t let me know if you find it.
…
I’d like to think I’ve moved on, somewhat. After all, now my bad poetry has music behind it.
So nowadays I’ve restricted myself to only four or five different places on the web. Here, facebook, Twitter, and my little music project: Obvian which is about to get seriously updated so that it fits with the aforementioned myspace and the little CD (cover on display somewhere above this paragraph) I’m going to be trying to hand out to whoever happens to think my music is kind of alright.
Whether or not I should actually just move Obvian.com and this blog into one Nathstravaganza – there’s a word we’ll never hear again – was what made me wonder about all the orphaned sites I’ve left behind. I understand that music can be much more niche than my artwork is, so they’ll probably remain separate, but they’ll occasionally cross link for something big.
So, the moral for this story is to delete your old websites. Ever keep a diary? A small shrine to the Biker Mice from Mars? It’s out there.
Unless it was on Geocities. In that case, you’re pretty safe.
Anyone following this little site will notice it’s been a while between posts. This will happen every now and again. Just prod me a few times with a stick, I’ll post something.
Anyway, some news. This Monday, the 16th, the previously posted “Accio Brains” shirt will be available for 10 bucks at TeeFury. I’m sure I’ll remind you all on the weekend. Until then, try not to contract any sort of virus or anger some voodoo witch doctor.
As much as I love working on my own creations, occasionally I get ideas in the small stump atop my spinal chord about how other ideas in the world could’ve turned out. The problem with these tracks of thought is that occasionally someone has aleardy rode that train (sometimes to a glorious destination, and sometimes smacking into a populated area, where chaos ensues and the whole metaphor loses its way).
Anyway, one or two of the ideas I’ve had I’ve found later to be remarkably similar to one someone else has had that I hadn’t seen before (in which case I hope my execution is different and original enough to warrant itself). As a result, anytime I doodle out some picture of a ninja turtle kicking Captain Planet’s arse, I go to google just to see if someone’s done it before. And pray to whichever god is topping the headlines that day that I could be the first (mental note: draw a ninja turtle kicking Captain Planet’s arse).
So here’s an idea I couldn’t find someone had previously done. Which shocked me, as it seemed so obvious. There’s a version here at RedBubble until it turns up on a more illustrious site or the copyright holder of zombies says something…*
Also: Brains.
Very, very shortly, my “88 M.Y.A.” shirt goes up at RIPT Apparel.
It’ll be live for 24 hours, April 12th. Buy it here.
In other news, the site is almost back up to normal. All my previous posts are lost somewhere thanks to mix ups with providers, so I’ll have to invent more useless waffle to fill these pages. Which I can do. Oh yes.
