Counter-clockwise, from top: Meet Poco, Tito, and Lucci.



I have them on gold for now, because it suits the highlights best, but they also seem to work on red or maroon (which has a cool effect of making the bottom monsters more subtle), purple (which is super bold), and orange.



All shading is done with dot halftones.



I'm not totally sold on the center placement, because it seems like Poco's eyebrow is just waaay too close to the collar, but when I put them lower they look dumb. I'm thinking I might try them off to the side and extend the halftone dot background explosion thing to the right...



So what do you guys think??

I really like your concept. My only issue with this is the top monster (poco?) It doesn't seem clear enough to me that it's a monster face, he looks a little jumbled and picaso-'d compared to the other two.



Also, how do you do your half tones? That's one thing I really have issues with, and you've done it very nicely here.



Cool shirt, looking forward to the next versions, good luck!!!

Awesome illustration.



I'm not a big fan of the halftone sunlight in the back though. It just makes the design look a bit 'plastered.'



As I said, the monster illustration is superb, but I'd work on an environment or some sort of action for the guys to carry out. Give them a little character and personality, you know?



Best of luck with this!

hegemon: I'll try shrinking his eyes and balancing out his head like the other guys... As for the halftones, I use the standard bitmap conversion dealie, but I use separate layers in Photoshop for highlights and shadows, which I do in all black and white. Then I convert them to dotty bitmaps (have to invert the white first so it appears black). Then I slap it back on the original image, halve the opacity, grab the colour they turn and use it as a colour overlay on the layer and bump the opacity back up to 100%. I'm super new at this halftone thing, but this method seems to make them look more natural. Hope that helped!



Hagnii: Any ideas on what that kind of action could be? Most of my illustration is just weird characters, I rarely draw scenes so I'm sort of at a loss with where to take them if they're not on the dot-sun.

Oooh! I have an idea....... going to work on it now!!

I love people who just click "don't submit" without bothering to mention WHY they don't like the design... thanks, buddy! Way to help me improve on future submissions.

PS to hegemon: if you don't know how to do the bitmap dot matrix conversion thing, there's a great tutorial on it in the blog section. just search for "halftones".

Okay, so in my head and on the screen this was working, but on the templates not so much. Can't seem to get the spacing right.



Was saving the other rollerskate monster for something else but I thought he'd work well being scared of the PT&L.



Made the eyes on the top monster smaller and more in line with the head...



Giving this a rest for tonight, my eyes are too tired to keep workin on it...

I like the style, this is something different! But honestly I loved the first version (I didn't see it before). (I hate that myself when people tell me they liked the first version better..) The only thing that bothered me a bit on v1 was the yellow Tee.



Could you have a look at my idea please?

I liked the first version placement better. I would definitely tune down the colors (contrast). Good luck.

Can you commentscore mine:

link?

I am not a fan of the rollerskate boy thing girl animal

I am more a fan of the first version.

But when i saw it. I thaught that it might be funny to try them as suspenders.

so the 2 bottem faces conected at the botom front Tshirt. (byting in the shirt trying to hold on ^^,) and the top face a the back of the shirt also trying to hold on.

But that is just a thing I see in my mind. Don't know if you understand what I am trying to say

All the luck whit your design It has great potantial

Michiel: I totally understand what you're saying and that would be hilarious... but I don't know if I'm enough of an artist to draw it. I'll give it a shot, though... can prints go all the way to the edge of the deisgn??



Roe & Pixel - I'll drop the rollerskate monster. I wasn't huge on the yellow tee either, but it works into the highlights nicely... I may try it on red or maroon instead, I remember those working well.



I will critique EVERYONE back today, I promise. :)

Love your style and characters; it reminds me of Aphte in a small way. You have done your halftones really really well, as was mentioned before in here!



The only real critique I can give you on this one is just that the two characters looks like they need to be interacting just a bit more. The wheelie-guy is obviously in a hurry to get away from the wiggly-pitchforky guy, but there seems to be no intended harm from his taller friend!



The snaggle-tooth on the little orange guy is WAY too cute! :D

Not sure who Aphte is, will have to look it up...



I've gotten a LOT of suggestions to lose rollerskate monster for this design, so I think he will probably go into hiding for a while... but he will definitely come back. He's one of my favourite monsters I've done so far... I think he may spawn my first attempt at scenery on a later design.

Okay, so I start incorporating bits and pieces of everyone's advice, and I kind of got this weird idea to have the monsters weaving in and out of the shirt... Thing is, I tried to achieve this with halftone dots, but I'm not sure if it translates well enough... what do you guys think?



I'm aware this isn't too much of a transition from the last version, but I got kinda inspired so I ran with it... so no hard feelings if you hate it, just lemme know!

Ahh, there's the silent "don't submit" monster again... I think I cursed myself, hahaha.

Bump for the insomniacs... if there are any.

Or diurnal folks across the world. ;)

not really sure what's happening with this design

Ellie -



Thanks for your critique on the Tooth Fairy, I like the look of this alot! I am the kind of person who buys a shirt just because I love the way it looks...but a lot of people on Threadless need deeper meanings and intellectual elements to the designs, so they tend to "don't submit" to designs that are just entertaining or beautiful to look at. I would buy this just the way it is, I think it's great. One thing I might change is the maroon that you've wrapped around them could match the shirt a little better, maybe just delete the color you used there (it's a little pink) and add black wrinkles so you still get the idea, but without the pink. They've got a lot of character :}

Thanks Liz! You're always so helpful. :) :)

The weaving is a really cool idea; the monster itself seems really random though...kinda fun, but doesn't do too much for me. Maybe if he were more mischievous...



Critique mine?

I like Liz's idea, with the black instead of pink. Is there any way you can make it seem more like the monster is breaking out of the shirt. Right not it feels like he is being easily constrained. I would love to see some more effort on his part. I think it'd be relatively easy to change, just by altering the pattern and direction of the overlapping fabric to make it seem more stretched and frayed, like he's putting up a fight.

Otherwise, I love the colors, the shapes and the overall design.



Critique mine?

http://www.threadless.com/critique/56298/Question_This

boredatworkbump

I really like the idea of the design ripping through the shirt, although I think the illustration needs a bit more work.



Check out mine at http://www.threadless.com/critique/56361/When_Patterns_Attack

Needs more work in what sense? On the rips or on the monster himself? Does it need more detail? Or you don't like the style? Sorry, I'm just not sure what you mean. :)



Gonna critique yours now....

this is absolutely bonkers.

Removed highlights on the "fabric" overlays as requested... Also tried out navy as a colour option. Any better?

bumperson?

re-bump :)

Haha pretty wacky. I know they're stylized but your characters didn't read to me as characters at first. I thought i was some wierd trippy abstract melting Dali-esque thinger. I like the idea where you're going with the ripped shirt. If you like your characters, maybe give them a little shadow around their heads. May help them to stand out more. Also, i like the blue tee better than the red

You mean shadow behind their heads on the tee, or more shadow within the structure of their heads? They are sort of Dali-esque, I can totally see that. :)

Hey, forgot about this one... been away a while. Any ideas on where to go with it, guys?

Bump?

just submit it or scrap it. i don't have any advice on how to make it better. it basically defies critiquing because it's so off the wall.