"Go Mighty Tors" T-Shirt Design

A short and sweet project! A friend asked me to design a t-shirt for the Sulphur Golden Tornados. Their mascot is a mean looking, yellow tornado! I cranked out a quick thumbnail to capture the pose I wanted. I already had an idea of how I saw the cartoon fitting with the typography.

Once I got the gesture of the character down, I redrew it on bristol board with a non-photo blue pencil. After that I inked the piece very quickly with Pocket Brush by Pentel. I won the pocket brush in a Twitter contest by Pentel. I really liked the way the Pocket Brush inked. I could vary line width quickly and easily. It helped me make short work of the cartoon. What was especially nice was that I only had to use one tool to do it. Thanks, Pentel!

I photographed the inked character, the brought it in to Adobe Illustrator to work on the typography. Once I was satisfied with it, I brought it in to Photoshop to ad some texture and color. This is how I like to show the client the image. It gives it a sense of depth, as opposed to flat colors.

I also like to send my clients an "in use" image, when possible. It really helps on a t-shirt design. The client can see how large I envision the print. It's also a good way to gauge readability.