Well, hello there; I made a thing. It's based around two of my favourite things in the world ~ Star Wars and beer...
…I didn't make the beer, I hasten to add. I left that to the experts. I just made the front-bit.
Back in the Summer months, I came across Wychwood Brewery's fantastic Imperial Red ale (that's the one in the background, there), my first thought being "…why isn't this a SW crossover product?" (the most obvious answer being that it's an alcoholic drink, and while Disney may be more than happy to take money to have the Star Wars logo stuck on most things, even they've got a line they won't cross).
So, using the Emperor's Royal Guard figure from Dave Dorman's iconic cover of Crimson Empire #1 as a starting point, I rebuilt the logo from scratch in Corel Draw, switching out the serif type for Shadow of Xizor, Bank Gothic and of course Aurabesh. Oh, and I should also point out that I redrew the central figure completely (see below), rather than just lassoing around it in Photoshop then banging a filter over the top ;) All that remains is to tuck an Imperial cog in there, and bang...
And here's that layer-by-layer buildup…
…and of course, it wouldn't be a Wychwood beer without a promo-shirt to collect the bottle-tops for, right?
So. Watch, read & play Star Wars.
And if you're partaking in a tipple while you do it, why not make it a bottle of Witney's finest?
Oh, and Wychwood, give me a shout, I'll e-mail you the final vectored artwork over ;)
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Hello. Yes, it has been a while. Another self-indulgent post about my graphic-work, so bear with me.
As you've probably gathered, I kinda like Bowling For Soup. If you hadn't worked that out, then it's now out there. In addition to this, I'm a freelance Graphic Designer, with a good friend who runs a promotional printing firm. This means that shortly after I get an idea in my head for a t-shirt, I can actually make that shirt. Still with me? Good.
About three years ago we ran a series of shirts featuring caricatures of 'media-icons'. We called the range Skittlez. That banner at the top of my blog? That's the one I did of me. We produced around 75 different designs in the end (no, really), with faces from TV, movies, music, comics and games. Here are a few...
As well as the catalogued designs, I made a few which either contained so many colour-blocks they were a pain in the arse to print, or bespoke ones which weren't for general production. One of these was submitted, by me, to BFS for their consideration for a t-shirt design.
In the meanwhile, only two were actually produced. One got printed onto a shirt for my better-half, and the other one got sent to the band's office in Flower Mound, Texas:
Although the design was well received, it never made it onto an official shirt (to the best of my knowledge), but I didn't treat it as a big deal. Anyone who's into BFS will know that they have many, many t-shirt designs available at any one time, and they're a strictly limited-run deal, so I imagine the backlog and 'nearly'-list of designs is fairly large. Anyway, like I said, not a big deal. In 2008, I put the Skittlez project to bed and started on the GTA-style artwork that you've been seeing from me lately.
+ + + + +
Fast-forward to October 12th 2010, and I'm watching BFS at Shepherd's Bush Empire, in London. They've got a projected backdrop that plays the promo-videos of their songs if they exist, and a slideshow of pictures and video if they don't. It was during one of the songs without a video that this happened:
Uh-huh. The image was projected in amongst a load of other official shirt designs. In fact, this was the only one of them that I've never seen on an official shirt. This image was only up for about 10 seconds, and the slideshow was shown three times. So that's only 30 seconds out of a 1h15m set that my work was on display.
But it's still 30 seconds more than I was expecting. And it was still projected 30 feet high behind my favourite band to a sold-out house.
The bizarre thing is, I saw BFS only the previous Friday at Exeter Lemon Grove, and for all they had a slideshow then, I didn't notice the artwork. Not sure what that means, or if I'll see it happen again, but it made me smile.
And smiling's what Bowling For Soup are all about. Thanks, fellas.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
