Sketching – Ben Boyle lives here!

Imma take your gramma’s style

A few months ago, The Herd came back with another t-shirt design request (you may remember Baby Don’t Herd Me from an earlier post)

Concept this time is a mix’n’match vintage/thrift shop theme. I’m thinking something along the lines of a big burly biker type guy – hairy, tattoo’s, big gut, massive beard – who is wearing what is essentially grandma’s sunday best. I’m thinking matching floral top and skirt to the knees, with the stereotypical lace collar etc. and his biker boots at the bottom.
At this stage I see him wearing one of those beer helmets, the ones with the cans attached that you drink through a straw?
Would be cool if he had one leg bent up with his foot resting on the words “IMMA TAKE YOUR GRANDMA’S STYLE” in a very confronting don’t-care kind of style

Oh, and I got a colour—Safety Orange. It’s bright!

Here’s the final result!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14616322364/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14638340793/

Design process

It all starts with a couple of initial sketches. Bit of staging and posing 😉

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14431806099/

Ben!! It is looking fantastic already, REALLY impressed!
My thoughts at this stage are perhaps adding in a ladies umbrella/parasol in his right hand, similar to the below picture but a bit more frilly, perhaps with the parasol on more of an angle in towards his foot. With his arm up, we can also add in some copious amounts of lovely underarm hair haha.

I made some suggestions: ‘thongs, instead of boots. Show off those hairy legs and toes!’ and ‘sunnies … maybe, if you want the guy to be more nonchalant and less angry (your call)’

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14616316994/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14431807089/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14431808159/

The sketches came together really quickly—much simpler than sheep in a heart shape drinking beer. The umbrella was a great touch. Who doesn’t like drawing umbrellas? (If you’ve never drawn one, go ahead. Draw one now!)

On to digital work! Inkscape, of course.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14638339343/

Looking really good! I’m finding the black face, arms and legs with varying black and orange details a bit odd – wondering if it would it look a bit cleaner/more consistent if he was just all orange with the outline and details in the black? Like how the dress and hat are laid out?

I see what you’re saying about the arm and I have a suggestion, though I’m not sure how much work it would entail…
We could replace the beer hat with a nice grandma straw hat and then have him holding a beer up with his pinky out – very delicate 😉

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14616319304/

This reworked the contrast. The hat was another great idea, but the whole head/face was bothering me. I went back to sketch out some more personality! And a new arm. Yes, this is how I tackle digital arm transplants!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14431809109/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamins-boyle/14638340093/

Looks awesome! Great result 😀

Win! There was some work to do on the words but that’s the final image right there!

Was a lot of fun, and once again—not something I’d have thought to draw myself. Neat 🙂

Baby don’t herd me

I had fun designing this t-shirt last year for a pub crawl known as “the herd”. Fun folks from what I can gather. A mate of mind had seen my drawing challenge sketches and asked if I’d mind designing the shirt. Had a lot of fun working on my rusty graphic design skills 🙂

hey big fella. I need a weird drawing done for free that will go on a pub crawl t-shirt and you are the only dude i know that knows how to draw. It’s an interesting concept that you may be interested in as I’m sure you won’t have drawn this before. Let me know if you’re keen to assist!

The brief

I’m after a sheep with both hands in the air with a beer glass or jug or whatever in each hand, pouring beer into it’s own mouth and the whole thing has to be in the shape of a love heart
and the flavour text will be “What is love?” up the top, with “Baby don’t herd me” next to the picture

Here’s the finished image and a t-shirt:

Sketching concepts

First comment would be I think the idea is that the body and arms of the sheep and the beer falling out of the mugs would form the border of the heart shape as opposed to actually having a drawn heart, although im not sure how realistic that is to achieve

That actually was rather tricky! 🙂

Yeah I think you are right, the head needs to be tipped back and the beer coming from bottles, that should create more of an uninterrupted “heart shape”. Also, I am really liking the two sheep back to back each having a beer… I am thinking maybe they could have the farmer tied up to the side, fridge open, bottles scattered… thoughts?

I think the main focus is making sure the final markup makes a very noticeable heart shape, whether that be with the one sheep both arms or two sheep back to back, the heart shape is core to the message “baby don’t herd me” so everything should point to that

Digital design work

All in inkscape. It’s my favourite 🙂

Initial tracing

I call this one Got Milk?
Getting close at this point. The core silhouette is good, but the bottles, arms and liquid details don’t feel right.

Ta-da! Thin arms really worked, hearts instead of splashes matches the “love” theme and that’s a nicer bottle shape. In fact, it’s a 340mL buderim ginger beer bottle shape 😉 My favourite!

h3. Adding the text

I had an idea with working a bit more of a heart theme in there – as you guys are aware, the tag line is “What is love? Baby don’t HERD me..”
I’m thinking we can use the words to form the outline of the heart around the two sheep? Does that make sense?
With emphasis on the HERD as its the name of the group etc etc.

Another concept sketch

To go with the love and herd themes I searched for love romance, fluffy, cloudy, etc and you can see the results.
I tried out a few and worked on the weighting so the words would be easy to read and match the theme.
Best font name award goes to ‘Times New Romance’—but that required a licence.