vector horses

[nicxf]

so I've been using my time stuck at home in bed (thank you laptop and nice little bed-table) to have a go at doing something constructive with my horsey artwork. I've been converting drawings and paintings into vector graphics, with the intention to do an online shop, probably through Spreadshirt.com, as they offer fairtrade/organic options (which is important to me) like this Men's t-shirt.

I've got a handful of designs done now but could do with some feedback -

- would you buy these designs? Are they good enough?
- would you prefer a range of colour options for the artwork?
- what kind of items would you like to see the designs available for?
- any suggestions for captions? I kind of ran out of insporation there...
- any other suggestions....?

I've got a couple of styles I plan on offering - the first being these air-vortex-swirls woodcut stylee ones:







and the second style (only done one of these so far) inspired by prehistoric images and chalk horses:



Halp! All advice gratefully received. Even if it's "no, don't do it, they suck..."

[tazzle]

would you buy these designs?


wow YES


Are they good enough?

definately


- would you prefer a range of colour options for the artwork?

probably ......

- what kind of items would you like to see the designs available for?

tshirts, rugby shirts, childrens clothes ( great xmas pressies as long as not too expensive )

they might be salable as website praphics ?


- any suggestions for captions? I kind of ran out of insporation there...
- any other suggestions....?

sorry. really tired and headachy atm so brain is ugh .. cant think much !


wonderful art work nic ...

and what are vector graphics

[breakfast]

As you know, I love your art and I'm really glad to see you taking the opportunity to do something commercial about it.

I will think about wording you could use, that's something I can usually do alright with.

I think these would work on stuff like mugs or clothing - especially the last one where it is unconfined and could be really big around a t-shirt rather than being a simple boxed design.

I would be interested to see the boxed ones on different backgrounds to maybe bring them out a little...

[kas]

I can see some of the cuter ones, like the Joe picture you did, on little girls t shirts, with matching baseball caps, mugs and little notebooks.
I like Tazzle's idea of maybe them being useful when people are designing websites.
Looking at them again, I'm wondering if they need a background at all. What would Break Out Of The Box look like just on a white background?

[breakfast]

Depending on what you want, you could take some words from the riding lexicon...

The first one could be talking about moving out- impulsion, stride, rising trot, ascendant, reach, cadence, drive.

The second is all about fluidity, flow, movement, freedom, expression, play, running, friendship

The third I would perhaps use something like bascule, lift, flight oh, maybe you could use the flight animal as either the title for one of these illustrations or the name of the business you base on them

Also they would make great greetings cards!

[nicxf]

cheers guys!

Breakfast, funnily enough, the galloping horses one I did originally caption 'flying'. And I've got a different one that I was planning to caption 'play' ...

And yes, they do work pretty nicely without backgrounds. Here's one I did t'other day as an experiment:



Nice idea to do them really big - I'd love to do them as massive wrap-arounds, I reckon they'd look fab! However not sure the online printers offer that as an option. I could find out though.

tazzle - Vector graphics are basically infinately scale-able. i.e. you'll know that most photos or jpegs will pixellate (break up into dots or squares) when you enlarge them - vector graphics don't - the lines remainl lines no matter how big or small you make them. Which gives you a lot of flexibility about how you use them. These ones are done in Adobe Illustrator.

[tazzle]

wow I like that !!!!!!!!!!

I played with putting my art into the computer some years ago and adding to it with programmes like paint .... but it was not in the same league as yours

[nicxf]

ok, so I got a little carried away playing with effects and grunging things up a bit, and looking at how designs might work on different coloured tee's, e.g. black v white:

[breakfast]

And that is why the vector works so well...

I would be looking at printers who kind of do boutique t-shirts rather than the straight cafe-press type ones. I have seen some but I don't recall who they are by, someone I follow on Twitter I think. I like it on black, but I'm not keen on the "trot on" text, I think it needs some other words, about which I am still deep in thought.

[nicxf]

Jun 28, 2011 20:31:55 GMT breakfast said:

And that is why the vector works so well...

Yep, yep indeed. A far more powerful toy than photoshop. If you want to do funky effects Illustrator has almost all of the Photoshop ones available within it, with the added advantage that once you've got something you're happy with you can tell Illustrator to convert it to vectors, then recolour, scale, clip it inside another shape, delete bits...and generally do what the heck you want to it. Of course if you want to add a whole 'nother dimension and it doesn't matter about making the final piece scaleable, you can then whip it back into Photoshop and do even more grunging.

Agree about the 'trot on' - I'm not 100% sure about it. I was kind of going for a 'rock on' pun, but it doesn't really work.. The floor is open for suggestions!

[Chloe]

Jun 28, 2011 19:59:10 GMT nicxf said:

I want the one on the left on a black hoodie!

[beksnjake]

Pretty impressive nicxf - I think there's definitely a market out there for your artwork - I think they're phenomenal.

[tazzle]

and of course now your have donated time and art to the funbugfund website we will def acknowledge and link to anything you set up

[nicxf]

Aww, thanks. And you're very welcome - it was nice to have a little project.

[siglavy]

They are cool nicxf.
FOr me I prefer no back ground having said that I like the backgrounds in the last two!

I am not keen on the "trot on" wordage though. I prefer just the horse to speak. It a bit like reading the book and imagining the characters and then being disappointed with the film.

To me that "trot on" looks to me more of "off on a mission of mischief"

or "get out the way chicken/ cat/ dog or you are going to get eaten!" - the sort of thing Romeo does!

Anyway I ramble - I love all the movement you have put into your pics