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For the last month or so I’ve spent each Sunday morning goofing around on Photoshop. I plug in a movie, bust open the Macbook and just keep trying to learn more about graphic design. I figured since most of the designs are amateur quality and I haven’t had plans to put them anywhere I should share some. I also need some motivation to blog.. about something. Anything. At least for while.

Here are a few I’ve I did or edited in the last few weeks of sundays.

The first was actually originally a design Dan of www.todaywasawesome.com suggested I do (it had some other aspects I’ve removed). Last week, I removed the other pieces of it - and determined it looked better with a simple photoshop filter applied.

On the second: I first used a variety of brushes I found online, the majority from www.deviantart.com. - I started with a strong background. With the brushes I used mixed colors, mixed application modes (normal, lighten, color burn, etc). Then took the remaining and did some minor ‘liquify’ effects, then messed around with a few filters, curve modifications etc.

The Third: Couple more brushes on a plain background, this time messing with blending/layer options to get the bevel/3d and the shadowing. This one though simple, got me really thinking about some designs for next week.

See you then.

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So it’s been a full year since my last vacation, and the sad thing is I’ve only made a few lame posts since then anyway. It was a great vacation, but what gave the trip to Italy last October was how much I needed it. I took some time off for Thanksgiving, some for Christmas - and since December, I’ve really only taken one day off work.

It’s time for vacation again, and it’s really needed. I am heading out to New York tomorrow morning for just under a week with a good friend from high school. Of course I am really really excited for the break, but more than anything I am excited to get a chance to actually have a lot of free time in Manhattan. I’ve been twice now in the past but haven’t had the chance to do much more than get to ground zero for a few minutes, and then walked down to the water so I could just see the Statue of Liberty way off in the distance. I was there for a few minutes and had to turn around and head back to the airport, leaving me very unsatisfied.

For the short time I had to walk around I snapped a few pictures. I figured I’d dig ‘em up and post em, then over the next week try to remember to post some of my new ones.

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Problem: You have some awesome ideas for designs, you just don’t know how to get those designs onto a t-shirt, parka, towel, sock, thingamabob, or anything else you’d love to see your design on. Solution: Silk Screening.

This is a basic how-to on ‘do it yourself’ t-shirt screening using the photo-emulsion method- and doing it with out breaking the bank. I really only intend to point the layman in the right direction. I will give you retailers, wholesalers, and brands of the products I have been using to try and make it as cost effective as possible. Sure, sure, you’ll find someone recommending higher quality products, or different process, but again- the idea is to make it cheap and cost-effective for small production (like.. a 101 class at college, but I’ll delete any comments by some 400 level student going around blogs on the inter-webs getting his jollies off telling people how what they do is ‘wrong’ or whatever ). I totally encourage suggestions and tips for the masses who are looking for this kind of tutorial. My method works pretty well for me, but even recently I am finding out more ways to improve my quality. Don’t forget- the second you plan on making hundreds of prints of the same design the hardware needs change, as well as over-all quality (if I could only qualify for bulk discounts).

T-shirt screening is basically the process of getting a design imprinted onto a screen where only the design will allow ink to pass through it. I started getting interested because a room-mate of mine, we called him Deanis….. hahaha… ( I hope he ranks on google for that term )…. and a friends t-shirt company, Domanate both used the method and produced some rad stuff- so I picked their brains. Mostly I just wanted to be able to wear apparel with designs on them I had in my head (and who knows.. maybe sell one or two).

One of the best resources at first, was actually just buying a Speedball Screen Printing Kit. That site I’ve never purchased from though- I bought mine at (Read the article)

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So I finished a series of designs, specifically so I can turn them into shirts for friends and family. I know for sure there are some I like more than others, but like the t-shirts designs I have done in the past I know that if I am going to spend $ on resources for a screen, emulsion, shirts, ink etc. I would like to get feedback from others on what shirt designs they like more. I don’t sell or distribute my shirts at all…. just a hobby. I also wrote a How to Silk Screen T-shirts Tutorial post for anyone interesting in getting into the hobby- some of the basic processes I’ve used.

I really didn’t have much skills with trying to get my idea’s implemented over the last year or so that I’ve been doing this. Photoshop’s been pretty much a ‘learn as I go on my own’ process with these designs, and my last one was a good learning process, and I found more of a logo/niche’ to go along with most of my designs which is a picture I took of my younger brother and…. changed a bit as seen below.

To properly view the second image of the two above, you are going to need a modern browser that is not bound by only being able to display basic image types, or turns sites into a Picasso piece. Get Firefox 2. Duh.

So here they are: the most recent t-shirt designs I’ve finished. I’d like to actually produce 2, so for those few voting, choose your t-shirt design numbers and leave them in a comment. For those of your who know Tor, no tricks or robot-voting. Please remember, each image produced on a shirt will be appx 8 inches wide, and/or 10 inches high.

You may or may not recognize design 2 as based off the pattern as seen on my Fabric Panel Patterns.

Oh, and one more thing: Let’s not forget that the designs don’t reflect only black and white shirts. Anything that is black on the design- can be any color, on any color of shirt. I have another 5 or 6 on the way so we’ll do another round of voting for designs in a month or two.

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I’ve mulled over the idea of actually doing a project for my bare wall in my bedroom for months on end now. Finally I decided to get it done this past week. I started off by collecting a series of unique fabrics, 8 of them to be exact. Some that would be similar in someways but wouldn’t normally be paired together. Fabric Panels have been used for a long time, and many Do It Yourself type people have probably at least heard about them before.

After I collected my 8 fabrics, I bought 8 canvas, and stretched the fabrics over the canvas. After figuring out what hardware I wanted to use to hang these art fabric panels, I had to double check the length and hang-point of each cable, and graph out and measure the screws to that all 8 panels hang evenly in the center, and all evenly spaced.

How To Make Your Own Fabric Wall Panels

To get the ball rolling and make some of these yourself you need to find some common colors for the wall in question (for decoration). I have tan walls with white ceilings. I wanted some dramatic colors that (Read the article)

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Click on the smaller image below to open up the larger image, or click on a preferred wallpaper size. I recently took photography on as a hobby, and decided to start taking pictures of my motorcycle. This was taken in the backyard of my old living residence in Springville, UT. The actual full size pictures have a better looking photo shopped license plate replacement. If you like this Honda VTX Wallpaper, please leave a comment and let me know.

The link from this image leads to a 1200 x 800 version.

2007 Honda VTX 1300c Wallpaper 1024 x 768

If you would like this in another size, please leave a comment and request it.

The motorcycle featured in this picture is my personal bike, where I have written a Honda 1300 VTX User Review on recently. I think the bike is really well rounded, super sexy looking, and is a ton of fun to drive; things you couldn’t get for this price anywhere else.

Since buying this bike I have started collecting minor scratches on the chrome parts, especially the exhaust. After learning how to repair these scratches, I wrote a tutorial on How To Remove Scratches From Chrome Exhaust.

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This Jolly Roger Design is one I made last year on a scribbled piece of paper with a few others. My buddy Dave mentioned he liked it but that it was too “cartoony” so I cut down a little of the cartoon styling with out eliminating the the feel of still being an original Jolly Roger Design. I live in a house with a Pirate Flag out front and really just have it everywhere I turn in some way or another at our hours. So to make the Jolly Roger Design a little more original and have some “Jon Sandy” feel to it, I decided on the one below.

My Version of a Jolly Roger

This one is what I felt was the perfect design for my Pirate T-shirt’s that I am making (and selling.)

Usually most Jolly Roger designs are based on a skull and cross-bones. On that style, I found many of them basic and all very similar. This is why my pirate flag Jolly Roger Design was going to incorporate something different, such as a square head or disproportioned eyes.

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Here some quick phone pics of two of the finished products. The top one is the Jolly Roger T-shirt design I started with. The next is Elephant Fairy on a onesy for my nephew Preston. If you go view newer posts you can see my more recent Original t-shirt designs.

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by Jim West

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