Robot Kid T-shirt...Made by Me!
I am a t-shirt fiend. Really, I think I may have a problem. I can't wear t-shirts to work, but I still have a closet and drawers-full of t-shirts, from Threadless to Oddica, to my favorite band(s), to the random robot shirt from wheresizit. This creates envy at our house sometimes, cos the Bubby pretty much ONLY wears t-shirts, and while Threadless and Oddica both sell kid versions of several of their shirts, they always seem to be out of the groovy ones we like which he also would like, and there's only so many Paul Frank/Small Paul kid's shirts he can wear. And so the Bubby complains (understandably), wondering why he doesn't have cool t-shirts like Daddy?
...so I decided to make him one.
I've been wanting to submit something to the Threadless t-shirt competition for a long time, but generally doubt my illustration/design skills and have been meaning to do a couple of 'warm-up' tees just to get used to the idea of drawing something that will be printed on a shirt. So, with my main Bubby in mind, I set out in early December to make him a robot t-shirt of his very own, in time for Christmas. My first step was to use a pencil to sketch the robot, and then ink it in on the paper. My concept was that just like Bubby wanting his Daddy's t-shirt collection, even robots start small:
Next up was converting it to a format I could sent to the printer. So I scanned the picture, and then tweaked it quickly in Adobe Photoshop CS3 to isolate the white and black colors (using a combo adjustment Layers and Threshold). Then I imported the flattened image into Adobe Illustrator CS3. For those of you familiar with Illustrator, you know they have the 'Live Trace' option, which you can use to have it (attempt to) convert an image like a photograph/scan into a vector image, with anchor points, fill colors, etc. Basically, it's a help in digitizing hand-drawn illustrations.
Live Trace is a help, and they certainly have made it more useful in the last couple of versions of Creative Suite, but it still requires work, and I've found it's got a bit of a learning curve. So after importing and tracing in Illustrator, I then cleaned up the drawing itself, rounding off rough-edges, but still trying to keep it looking like something that was done with a regular pen, not an auto-shape hose from Illustrator.
There are many options for self-printing your own art online. Probably the oldest is Cafe Press, but being the oldest, it's mostly crowded with caca, and I don't like the interface so much. Awhile back, I received a beta invitation to do testing with a company called Spreadshirt, which is a print-on-demand site where you can upload your own art and print it on a variety of items. (In fact, at that point, their domain was www.spreadshirt.net. They have since obtained the highly desireable .com extension.) I like the Spreadshirt interface, and at the time I received my invite, obtained a domain prefix I like: KillerRobot.spreadshirt.com. For these and a few other reasons, I decided to go with Spreadshirt for my own on-demand print need. They printed the shirt within 24 hours and shipped it immediately (and then, UPS screwed it up by taking 11 days to ship a 3-Day Select package).
So the day after Christmas, Bubby's very own special robot kid t-shirt, drawn just for him, arrived:
The Bubby loves it, and wore it for about 3 straight days, before we finally had to make him change and give it it's first wash. Jenni kept insisting she wanted one, too, and then it occurred to me that maybe I wanted one, too, after all the time I put into it. Well, the good news is, YOU can get one, too, if you like:
Visit KillerRobot.spreadshirt.com, where I currently have up mens, womens, and a couple of children's versions of the robot kid t-shirt, which first and foremost was for the Bubby. The whole driving force was that kids should have cool tees, too, so if your little robot likes robots as much as ours does, this may be a great, super-late Christmas present (or New Year's present?). And to help you with your own fashion bailout plan, I am happy to pass along a Spreadshirt coupon code for a 20.09% discount off your order (until January 16th). Simply type in the code NEW29 when you check out. (Minimum order of $20, and does not count against shipping).
Either way, that's one of the many things I've been up to lately. Hope you like the shirt, and happy new year!
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Tags: cool kid (8), robots (12) |
Comments (18)
Comments
So sorry to hear about the shipping. I had the same thing happen with some books I ordered. Your shirt looks great and these pictures are really helpful. would it be okay if I posted some of these pictures on the Spreadshirt blog?
Lindsay
Posted by: Lindsay | January 2, 2009 10:31 PM
Jonathan, there's no way to tell you how incredible I think this is! The design itself is just great, and then actually setting up your own t-shirt shop online -- well, it's all amazing.
I tried to put my money where my mouth is and buy a shirt (I really wanted one!), but I could not get the order to go through. Probably the whole "trying to order using a bad Internet connection in Uganda." I'll order one when I get home!
Good job! Can't wait for the next design!
Posted by: Mommi b | January 3, 2009 1:12 AM
it comes in adult? I'M gettin' one!
Posted by: sarah | January 3, 2009 1:13 AM
love it! what a special gift for your son! i love that grin on his face, it is clear that he is pretty pleased. ;)
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100% robotic cotton excellence!
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