It states on the company/clothing line profile that I officially started Fastfuud in 2009, but that’s when my first shirt was printed. I guess I never took it really seriously until 2012. My naïve-ness thought these shirts would sell like hotcakes, but that wasn’t the case at all. I’m currently stuck with about 150 shirts sitting in a closet. In the meantime I was looking at other options for my eventual “bread and butter” income.

I pondered into 3-d since there was a lot of money in it. I tried Maya, but it was an unenjoyable experience. I thought for a long time if I should keep doing this t-shirt design. There was no progress anywhere close to my expectations in 3 years. Probably due to lack of faith in myself leading to procrastination and laziness. Also, I hadn’t really made the effort to expose myself enough out there.

Well, I had just turned 30 this past May and still working in jobs I hate. Time is running out and something must be done. I need to sell my talents and put the actual shirt sales on the back burner.

This is when the winds of change started to blow. It all started with an acquaintance of mine mentioning of a local fashion designer Lore Emilio’s birthday; a direction that I never thought of pursuing. For the longest time I thought of interacting with other artists, but came to realize that they are just as broke as I am. Fashion design seems to be an industry that can involve more lucrative opportunities. Now, I’m not belittling the common man, but I’ve got to eat too.

I was nervous, to be interacting with a crowd of a different hierarchy. The event appeared a chic bar that I would never go to normally. It was worth it by leading to some work. It lead to designing a shirt for a fashion magazine Dstripped magazine for a fashion show, and one for Creative Loafing in June. This refreshed my faith that I’m talented enough to make it in this world.

We’ll have to see where I’ll be next year. Until then I’ll keep you posted more actively via Facebook, and try more here.

Fastfuud-nation baby!

This was my first illustration to get any true recognition! The twitter-er is a member of the Mecklenburg County Legislative. It was seen from the “Watch Jeff Draw”

Here is the “Watch Jeff Draw” or here

Here is also a “Watch Jeff Draw” for it too. You can view it You can view it here if it doesn’t show up on the site.

First, the transparencies are created. One of each color: red & white. The black on the transparency represents each color of the shirt.

This is for the white color:

This is for the red color:

So why are the transparencies black? Well, you expose each “color” onto a light sensitive emulsion on a screen via light vacuum. The areas that are black are light proof, so don’t cure. Next, the non-cured emulsion is sprayed away to expose the screens.

White screen

Red screen

So we now have the necessary tools for each color ink to create the shirt

As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently interning with a local screen printer in the Charlotte area called Pandemic Printing.  From time to time the owner will say, “why don’t you create a design that you can practice screen printing with?” I’m thinking, “yesssssss” So I created this shirt. Why a Big Robot shirt? The true question is: Why not? I’ve documented an almost beginning to end process with the creation of the shirt.

First, I create the design on the computer. View it in the digital process here or here

Now to the rest of the process

Next, is the screen creation

Being that the shirt is 2 colors (Red & White), a screen needs to be created for each color. Ink is added to each screen.

The shirt is placed on the platen by my model Steve, the owner of Pandemic Printworks.

Next you apply a squeegee to the screen and push the ink through the screen to adhere to the shirt

Then onto the red

And Viola!

But that’s not all, being that this method is plasti-charged, the process is finalized by hitting the heat. Plasti-charged is hybrid between plasticol and discharged printing methods. This is an example of pre-heated shirt. Notice the color.

Just like all t-shirt printing, heat is needed to cure the ink so that it does not wash off once worn.

Notice the color after heat has been applied. What happened is the discharge part in the ink remove pigments from the dye of the shirt and replaced with the plasticol part of the ink. So the colors are vibrant, but retain a soft feel once washed.

Working on a podcast and looking to give this website a little bit of a face lift. I will be posting at a more normal pace

Hang in there.

New “Watch Jeff Draw!”

“Will do a Watch Jeff Draw” for this soon. View a larger version here

A sneak peek of what I’m working on next

That is all. Will have cool stuff in the future!

This has to be by far the highest honor for any artist to have something they created to be placed someone’s skin for all eternity. It was for 2 sisters that wanted swallow tattoos. I wanted to do something different from the typical swallow design. I came up with the concept of 2 swallow fighting like how sisters fight sometime. They are a bit calmer in the final version versus the original here, but I am very satisfied with the results. In celebration, I finished a “Watch Jeff Draw” for the design too. It’s very short, due to the fact that I didn’t record the drawing process.

Here are some more pictures posted below

This is my newest piece that I will submit to the various “tee shirt submission” sites. View a larger version here There will be slight variations in the design once I submit, due to the number of color restrictions in the design for printing purposes. I’m also going to create some “Watch Jeff Draw” shorts soon as well. I’ll keep you posted.

Yup, it’s been a while. I just didn’t want to leave this next post empty handed. I recently finished this tattoo design for some friends. They are sisters, so each will get ‘em inked. I’ll post pictures of that event around September of this year. I also will have a “Watch Jeff Draw” video posted real soon. Also check out my Gallery. As I have finally updated it with various designs that I have submitted to various “submission sites.”

On another note, I got a gig to design a logo for one of my favorite bands. The name will be confidential for now, but will be revealed later down the line. That’s all for now.

On another note, if you are viewing this site for the first time there were some issues. I had to reinstall some stuff to get it working again. I’ll add my old posts in the near future. Thanks for your patience