Eyes Scream

A little bit weird and abstract design with bright colors and halftones for the summer. 

 ( the pink and yellow halftone background isn't part of the design  😁 )

 

Here you can see the three colored outline and halftone dots. 

It's available in my premium shops ( Teepublic & Neatoshop  ) check the link at my linkpage. And the design can be printed on many other things besides T-shirts. Link to the Eyes Scream design

As always feel free to leave a comment or suggestion.  

Stay healthy and have a great day. 

Kind greetings 

Andres 

Return home

New design is inspired upon the lyrics of a Dutch song that is about enjoying and appreciating life. The six different images are: travel to a far country,  enjoy wine, think about life, laugh out loud, dive into the deep and finally return home. For this design I went for a aquarel effect,  hope you like it as much as I do. 

Here are some work in progress images:

By the way the song title is "kom terug" and is performed by the artist "spinvis", there is also an English version but it has different story / lyrics "beautiful to me". 

As always feel free to leave a comment or suggestion 😊.

Until next time. 

Greetings Andres 

The classic deux chevaux charleston

I really liked the drawing of the classic Deux Chevaux but got a bit bored by the colours that I used so I thought it would be a good idea to give it fresh two tone charleston colour scheme.  

As usually I used halftones for shading and to give it a little bit of that vintage comic vibe. It's also available without text and on many products in my Premium shops like shirts , long sleeve shirt, mugs, pillows, phone cases, etcetera.  

Have a great day and feel free to leave a suggestion or comment in this blog or on my Instagram account.  

Greetings Andres 

It's a Vantastic life

This design is inspired upon the VW T3 van, and I know for sure many people agree with me when I say life or summer is more fun when you drive a classic van 😁😉 .

I remember my old VW T3 van, I used it for almost everything. And in many ways they where better than the modern vans that VW produced after the T3 production ended. This van has a overall length and wheelbase similar to a regular car, so it's nimble and very easy to park. And because it's a van it's practical, with extra seats in the back you could go on a trip with 6 persons. And because almost the total length was all "interior" space you could sleep in the back what was ideal when I went to a minibike race ( yep minibike racing was my big hobby in the late 90's ). 

So in my opinion is the VW T3 camper van represent ultimate freedom and good life. And with that in mind I created this design, it's all about enjoying life , traveling and adventure. Hope you like it.

By the way this design comes in 3 variations and is only available on Teepublic and Neatoshop. 

As always if you have any questions or suggestions just leave a comment.

Until next time.

Greetings Andres. 

Trash Panda

Trash Pandas trashing a Fiat Panda mk1. I wanted to create a design with the classic Panda mk1 and came up with this idea. To make a more complete design I added a border around the drawing and used two edited vacation images for the background. The images are taken in a street in Italy and just some tree, adjusted brightness, contrast and colours until I just had black and white. 

The design looks best on light colours. And if you want there is also a version without text. 

My love for ( drawing ) cars

As you might have noticed I like to draw cars, and early this year I thought maybe I should just start making shirt art with cars. For a very simple reason, I know cars and how to draw them for a very long time. So how did this all start you might wonder ?. Well I basically grew up in the 80's , road movies like Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run and TV series like Knight Rider, the A team where very popular. That plus a family with truck drivers and a car mechanic it's a wonder I didn't become a fanatic petrolhead 😁. Perhaps I'm a bit of strange car enthusiast 🤔. Let me explain, I look at cars from a technical and or design point of view. I think this keeps a sensible view on cars, I can go on and on about what cars I like but the best thing I can do is just name some cars I love.

Fast cars:

- Citröen SM just like the DS ahead of its time.

- Jaguar E type 

- Lancia stratos

Regular cars:

- Citröen traction avant ( as technician you've got to appreciate the history of this car brand )

- The classic small cars, when cars where so small it was almost a go kart. Like the first Morris mini cooper, fiat 500, BMW Isseta , Messerschmitt and Goggomobile. All examples where the manufacturers got really creative to make a small and lightweight car that makes a modern Smart look huge. 

- Classic cars that are converted to electric, although I'm not a big fan of electric battery powered cars ( explain this later ) I think it really makes sense because the cars are much lighter ( old vw van T1 , T2 is approximately 700kg lighter than the new T5 ). So less power and less battery capacity is needed to power an electric 2CV than some obese modern electric car. 

The daily driver:

If feul economy, reliability and room for family weren't issues I probably would drive some small cheap classic car for a couple of simple reasons. 

-Because of the lightweight and short wheelbase such cars or so much more fun to drive. 

-They are easy and fast to fix 

-Show your inner old Skool and have a car without airco , airbags, powersteering preferred in experienced condition in satin black or roller painted bright yellow. 

Good examples are the Ford Fiesta mk1, Renault 5 or Express ( first type )  , Fiat 126 etc. 

My first car, the Ford Fiesta mk1 

The design inspired upon my first car. 

My ( our ) current daily driver:

Well our family cruiser is a Peugeot Partner from 2004 basically a small commercial van with rear seats. And I must say I really like this car. It has a relatively short wheelbase and is a rather compact family car. But thanks to a higher roof and slightly higher seats has plenty of legroom , a lot of storing / loading capacity. And one of the best views on the road, really would recommend it to everyone above 1,90 meter. And like most French cars the car gives a good feedback and is agile around corners.  Finally thanks to a 2 liter turbo diesel it's goes a long distance with 1 liter fuel and isn't to slow. 

Our family cruiser a Peugeot Partner.

So what cars I don't like:

- The VW T5 transporter Euro 6 ( 2017 ) with Adblue, I drive this obese van for work and this van is the reason I'm no longer a VW fan. Lots of trouble with the Adblue , sudden loss of torque and stalling engine when driving from standing still, oil consumption and other shit I could write a separate post about. And like many modern cars there is no feedback when you're steering, only a blinking light when the traction control steps into action, a really boring van to drive. Only a half year before the lease ends 😁. 

- Overweight electric battery cars , you might think those cars are the answer and in a certain way they are.. But the battery still needs to be charged and very often it's done with a not environmental friendly way. Another problem is when we all switch to electric we would have a shortage in power. At the moment I think a electric feulcell car is the best alternative for the old petrol powered car. But until there are enough filling station to refeul your feulcell I'll keep my trustworthy diesel on the road 😉. 

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So only car art in the future you might think ? Well I'll keep on drawing what I like and find a little balance between what I like and what you might want on a shirt. So if I have an idea that doesn't have a car there is a good chance that I will create this design 😁. 

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I would like to end this post by saying thank you for taking the time to read this nonsense and feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. Stay healthy and until next time.

Greetings Andres 

New version "no Scooby Doo fanart"

New version of the "no scooby doo fanart" design. Optimized the colours for the best possible printing quality. 

Used a hard brush for shading what gives it a more comic look, and some parts the shading is done with halftones. Really happy about the result and definitely using this technique in the future. 

The Legendary Initial D

This design is based upon the Japanese cult car Intial D aka Toyota Trueno or AE86.

 

As you can see in the close up I used halftones for shading. The points are a little bit closer than previous designs. Of course it's available without Japanese characters. 

I have chosen this car because it's one of the last light weight rear wheel driven with short wheelbase coupe from Toyota and a real 80's iconic car. 

Until next time.

Greetings Andres 

Shop is open again !!

Or should I say the shops are open again 😁. After almost a month I put most of my designs back online. Hoping that this hold on sale helped other artists sell more, to bad there weren't more hobby artist that followed my example 😕. 

Anyway this hold also give me some time to reconsider how I continue my shops. Starting with a new fresh banner that is completely drawn from scratch. Added a new design with a unicorn in a magical flying van. Gave the "no scooby doo fanart" new colours. And finally removed a couple of designs that aren't suitable for the new direction, choose quality over quantity. 

Although I do this for the fun, I decided to take the direction of car fanart with an occasional weird or more complex design in the mix. I hope you like it. To visit one of my shops click a link on the link page on my blog. 

By the way: if you want a certain design back in my shops don't hesitate to shoot a me a message 😉.

Until next time, stay safe and healthy.

Greetings Andres 

Classic Dodge A100 van

This design is inspired upon the 60's American vintage Dodge A100 van. 

 

Of course this design is available with or without text. And also as a request from a fan there is a white version 😊. 

Links: White van Teepublic , Dodge A100 with text, Dodge A100 van no text. Or check my link page for other shops. 

Have a great day ,and untill next time.

Greetings Andres

Cute Hulhu

The Call of Cute Hulhu. Cthulhu as Cute Baby ( Cute Hulhu ) picked up the phone to say Hello.

Sunny summer design

Ever experienced a brain freeze while eating ice cream ? Well this ice cream is having the opposite experience. This ice cream is having a Brain Melt after biting in a very hot pepper 😄.
With this design I'm trying a different approach. First thing it's a more simple and easier to recognise design. A smarter use of colours and the use of multiple outlines makes it a simple but detailed design.

In this close up you can see the main line art is a dark blue with a thin lighter blue outline. The same is done with the drawing itself, first a light blue and then another line of pink.

And for those who doesn't like the text, there also is one without text that looks great on for example a dress:

On Redbubble: Link to shop

My shops: Neatoshop
                 Teepublic
                 Redbubble
or             Spreadshirt
 

How it's made

It all starts with a sheet of paper. I just like to draw on paper it feels better when you have to think first about the amount of space you have, when there is less room for errors and the lines you make aren't corrected to a perfect smooth line. I know with the right equipment a full digital drawing can be an amazing piece of art but very often it becomes an anonymous art where you can't recognize the style of the artist. So my steps are:

Step 1: This is the brainstorm and sketch step, usually I make a couple of quick sketches trying ideas and compositions to see what works best. Very important step, if the quick sketch doesn’t look good you’ll probably end up with something that could be much better.

Step 2: From a couple of sketches I pick the best looking and start to draw the design with pencil and paper. This one is from "Endless Chase"

Step 3: When the drawing is finished it’s time to trace the design. I used to do this on the original but recently I purchased an A4 lightbox to trace the drawing with fineliners. A good idea if you have a drawing with a lot of details. Also saves a lot of time erasing the pencil lines.

Step 4: At this point the design is digitized. It gets scanned and cleaned up. I use GIMP to remove dust pixels and little slips of the pen. Only thing at this point the design has a low resolution. ( Sorry no images but I'll post a tutorial in the future about this topic )

Step 5: The resolution must be higher, and if you’re a traditional artist you might recognize this. The solution is to trace the drawing with Inkscape. This way converts the drawing to a vector graphic ( be careful with smoothing lines ). And with this vector graphic you can scale up to any resolution you like. Save everything with a transparent background and we are ready for the next step.

Step 6: Time to add colors. Back to GIMP selecting areas with the magic wand and fill those with color and finish those areas with maybe a brush to add shades , textures etc. Best practice is to save multiple steps in this process. In case you want to change a thing you don’t have to redo everything.

Step 7: After the design is fully colored there is an opportunity to add text , outlines or maybe something else to make it complete.

Step 8: I think it is a good idea to wait a day or maybe longer before I upload the design. Very often I discovered little things like forgot to add my signature. And if everything is still good than I upload my work. At the same time I make a promotional image for social media channels. My advice don’t upload the same high resolution file to any social media, someone else can take your work with no problem.

Step 9: Is promoting my design on different social media. And thinking about the next one. My favorite is Instagram because that’s aimed on images. But maybe you prefer a different channel.

Until next time, have a great day.

Greetings Andres

Welcome

Short introduction: my name is Andres and in my spare time I make shirt designs. I live in the South of Netherlands together with my lovely wife and daughter.
I always loved to draw and a couple of years ago in 2017 I started drawing again after a long period of drawing almost nothing.My first T-shirt design I've published online was a Scooby Doo fanart "Mystery inc meddling since 1969" . And now a couple of years later I'm starting with my first blog. At the moment I'm still exploring how everything works, so maybe a slow start. 

In the future I'll be blogging about work in progress, tips and tricks maybe a tutorial or even some art related stuff for example how to modify a laptop for art on a small budget and of course there will be promotional blogs if there is a new design. 

So let's end this first short post with a image of my first design 

Have a great day, Greetings Andres