210

What the HECK are we Doing THIS WEEK? February 22nd and 24th

2/22: DUE: upload your thumbnail sketches and digital concepts to flickr. I am going to pull up each of your flickr streams and you are going to share with the class what you are planning on doing. Ask us questions about direction!

We are also going to go over the tutorial that Drew posted about applying designs to your shirt.

ALSO: we are going to discuss a short mini project that involves you, this blog and sharing knowledge. Each of you will be responsible for a short, informative blog post where you each share a technical tip (ie: a tutorial, shortcut, printing tech, paper help etc). I will be inviting you all to the blog and you will each have access to make a friendly, thoughtful and helpful post. More details soon!

2/24: Upload process / refine / small group crit. I will be handing back your grades today! I would like to be able to meet with each of you shortly to discuss your progress.

Mocking up your tee designs

Here’s a recap of how to mock up your shirt design on a photographed model. You might need to tweak these steps if you’re working with a dark shirt.

1. Find a good tee model. I’ll use a photo by Flickr user seventh.samurai from the Threadless Blank Tee Photos pool.
   
2. We’ll need a grayscale version of the model to make a displacement map. Open the model picture in Photoshop, select Image → Mode → Grayscale. Bump up the shadows by pressing ⌘L and moving the middle slider. Save this as a Photoshop document. Hang onto it for later.
   
3. Open the model image in Photoshop. Copy the Background layer and, using the polygonal lasso tool, select the t-shirt only.
   
4. Click “Add layer mask” at the bottom of the layers palette to mask out the model and background. Hang on to this layer for later.
5. If you need to change the shirt color, ⌘-click the shirt mask to load it as a selection. Click on the Background layer and press ⌘U for Hue, Saturation, and Lightness. Click the “Colorize” checkbox and play with the sliders to get the shirt color you want.
   
6. Open your t-shirt design. If it’s in Illustrator, select the design and copy it to the clipboard. If it’s in Photoshop, select all your design’s layers.
7. Paste your art into the model image in Photoshop as a Smart Object
   
   (or, if the design’s in Photoshop, select its layers, press ⌘E to merge them, and drag the resulting layer onto the model image). Press ⌘T to change the size and placement.
   
8. Play around with blending modes for your design’s layer. Depending on the design colors and the shirt color, different blending modes will look better.
   
9. Select Filters → Distort → Displace. 3 is a good starting place for both settings.
   
   Click OK, then select your grayscale model image. Your design should bend around the folds on the shirt a bit.
10. Now to add the shadows back in: drag your masked tee layer to the top and set its blending mode to Multiply. Adjust the opacity to taste.
    

There you go! Fancy model in your fancy design.

What the Heck are We Doing THIS WEEK? February 15th and 17th

Monday:

DUE: Bring in print outs of ALL parts. 

Total amount of parts and pieces: Cover, Back cover, Two - 2 page spreads, title page and related patterned end pages. 

IN-CLASS: FINAL CRIT ON EVERYTHING! / introduce new assignment

NOON: Show and Tell with Mig Reyes!

Wednesday:

DUE: FINAL Children's Book Assignment DUE: Please have all parts and pieces revised, printed on GOOD paper (no need for mounting) and all ready for final turn in at the beginning of class.

Look and Review new T-shirt assignment. Spend the day making sketches, thinking of concepts and making moodboards. Upload all progress to your flickrstream.

Up Next: RAD Cotton Apparel Series

t-shirt by Print Liberation via Rumplo (example of an image only shirt)

Congratulations. You are all now fashion designers and your substrate is the most utilitarian, accessible piece of clothing in the world...the T-SHIRT!

Required: A series of THREE designs.

Your series of three must include a similar color palette and concept that ties them all together.

one shirt must be purely image illustration

one shirt must be purely a typographic illustration

one shirt must be an all over pattern/image illustration

The three must relate in concept and color. 

Example of a Type Tee via Rumplo

If you have a TOTALLY different idea, yet it is still a series of three shirts, talk to me. You might want to make them all three an all over pattern illustration or you might want to make all three an image only illustration or you might want to make all three a typographic illustration. GO FOR IT, but your concept must be solid and smart. I am open to your ideas. Don't be afraid to ask...I don't want to get in the way of greatness!

You may also experiment with t-shirt styles (tanks, v-necks etc). 

Example of an all over image/pattern tee

Remember: your t-shirts must relate in color and content.

Helpful links: 

Rumplo

Threadless

Threadless Select

Threadless Type Tees

t-shirt templates and model images:

Illustrator and Photoshop Templates

Model Images to impose your finished designs onto!

MORE MODELS

t-shirt blogs:

Hide Your Arms

I love your shirt

T-Critic

Cottonable

PreShrunk

DUE DATES:

2/17: intro assignment, start working on designs and concepts, upload t-shirts that you like to your flickr stream

2/22: DUE: upload yoru thumbnail sketches and digital concepts to flickr. Small group crit.

2/24: Upload process / refine / small group crit.

3/1: Final Crit. Bring in finished quick prints of your trio of shirts for a final crit. 

Threadless Select Shirt by The Little Friends of Printmaking - example of a detail zoom on model presented next to flat artwork

Threadless Select by Travis Millard - example of a zoom out tshirt on model presented next to flat artwork.  

3/3: DUE. You will be presenting each design as follows - Three print outs, one print out for each shirt. Each page will contain your design printed flat and off model and then the other image will be of your model with your design superimposed on shirt. See examples of acceptable t-shirt presentation above.

What the Heck Are We Doing THIS WEEK? Feburary 8th and 10th

Hello! Hello!

Monday, February  8th: 

DUE: Your finished (or almost finished) front cover, back cover, spine and two page spreads uploaded to flickr.

We (Heather and I ) are going to be checking on your progress. WORKDAY.

Wednesday, February 10th:

DUE: I won't be here, but PLEASE still come to class. Heather will be here to help you. Please take advantage of her extreme helpfulness! WORKDAY.

Please continue to upload work to flickr.

Monday, February 15th:

DUE: Bring in print outs of ALL parts. 

Total amount of parts and pieces: Cover, Back cover, Two - 2 page spreads, title page and related patterned end pages. 

INCLASS: FINAL CRIT ON EVERYTHING! / introduce new assignment

Look and Study and Do // Blogs you should know // Picture Book Report

Above: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by Meg Hunt

I talked about Picture Book Report in class the other day, but I really want you all to take a better look at it. This site was launched in PERFECT timing with your children's illustration book project. Please spend some time with this amazing new place on the internet! Site description written by organizer Meg Hunt below:

Picture Book Report is an extended love-song to books. Fifteen illustrators will reach out to their favorite books and create wonderful pieces of art in response to the text that has moved them, shaped them, or excited them. From sci-fi to children’s books to fantasy to serious novels, we’ll cover them all. For three weeks out of every month there will be a new illustration every day from one of us along with our thoughts, process, anything we can come up with. Together we will try to excite readers both new and old and capture some of that magic of storytelling.

above: Ella Minnow Pea, illustrated by Lizzy Stewart

above: Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, illustrated by John Martz

above: The Secret of Nimh by Julia Sonomi Heglund

There are a TON more wonderful examples on the picturebookreport website. GO AND VISIT!

Meg Hunt: This is How We Do It

Meg Hunt wants to share with you almost an alphabet full of tips, tricks and hints. Meg was our special guest in 210 a few weeks ago and she zoomed these words over this weekend. THANKS MEG!

a. Colored pencil, either mechanical or Col-Erase. I use these suckers all the time. Though I also use mechanical pencils (specifically the Papermate Sharpwriters-- I love these pencils!), those are relegated to thumbnails and concept sketching when I can afford to make a mess.  The colored pencils erase well when I make mistakes but rarely show up when I convert my inkwork to Photoshop. Which means I don't have to erase my inks and risk smudging or fading. 

b.  Inks. I love inking. There's something really fun in taking a rough and tumble pencil sketch and pushing and pulling darks and lights with ink. So I use black and white ink-- I use a few black inks, but an old favorite is Dr PH Martin's Black Star Ink in Hi-Carb. White I have found good success with Pen-White (also by Dr Martin). 

c. 'inkwell'. Okay, I'm not sure whether it's an inkwell, but my dad gave it to me as a stocking stuffer when I was a kid-- I think it's a tiny Russian lacquer box. At any rate, it turned out to be perfect to hold a few dropperfuls of ink. Which isn't all that useful for dipping nibs into, but I'm accident-prone and have ruined a lot of brushes so it's great to be more mindful to not dip the brush too deep. And I lower the risk I will knock the ink bottle over anyway. For white ink I use a juice cap, but one day I hope to find another one of these suckers.

[to show you what this is: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2367/2431926666_383c1d1800_o.jpg ]

d. Brushes. I have a bunch of brushes. Some are broken in and beat up and others I try to take good care of. I love the brushes I get from Rosemary & Co-- affordable and handmade!  

e. Sturdy paper. Typically smooth. If it's for screenprintin', I order French Paper. If it's for making illustrations, I use bristol board (usually Strathmore 300 or 400 series, plate surface, 14x17"). I am frugal so I gang run multiple drawings on every page. Not especially framable, but it does the trick.

What The Heck Are We Doing Today? Wednesday, February 3rd

Wednesday, February  3rd:

DUE: Process uploaded to flickr. Printouts of your cover and spreads.

INCLASS: Small group critique

Along with working on your children's books today Heather will be showing you some simple binding methods along with her portfolio! 

Also, please use this class time to explore techniques and processes.

Ink over your layouts -- without ruining them!

Part of the freedom of digital art is experimentation. Here’s one technique (borrowed from the world of comics art) that allows you to take a small, rough layout and use it as a guide for your final illustration. This process works best when your final line work will be executed in black ink or paint.

1. Scan your sketch at a reasonable resolution. You'll be printing it larger, most likely, so 300 ppi is probably a good idea.
2. Open your scanned sketch in Photoshop, select all, and copy.
3. Press command-N for a new document. Photoshop will automatically set the size to match your clipboard. Select CMYK for Color Mode.
4. Click on the Channels tab, then click on the Cyan channel.
5. Paste your copied sketch into the Cyan channel.
6. Click on CMYK to see all four channels combined. Now your art is cyan, but it’s probably too dark to work over.
7. Click on the Layers palette, then create a new layer on top of your cyan art layer.
8. Use the paint bucket to fill this new layer with white, then adjust the opacity to create a lighter version of your cyan sketch. Around 60% usually works.
9. Print this light, cyan version of your sketch directly onto your sketch paper, watercolor paper — whatever! — at a large size, for final inking. Print two or three or four, so you can play around with different techniques. Ink right over the blue layout.
10. When you finish your inks, scan the illustration (blue lines and all) at 600ppi.
11. Drop the scanned inks onto our favorite Remove Col-Erase Blue droplet, and Photoshop will turn all the inks true black, and remove all the blue lines. Magic!

Experiment with this process! You don’t have to start with a sketch — try starting with a photo, collage, or composite piece before step 2, and see what it’s like to work over a cyan copy of it.

Note: there are a billion ways to do this, and no one method is supreme. Play with the process, and figure out what's best for your workflow.