Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Collaborative T-Shirt Designs with Mike Giacopetti

Throughout my life, I’ve been super lucky to collaborate with a lot of people – from co-workers to lifelong friends to other cartoonists and artists, even with students of all ages. I love mixing up work with folks and seeing what comes out in the end. There is always something to be learned. It is especially decent when you have a collaborative experience that flows seamlessly. Recently, I had an project like that.

A friend I work with, Mike Giacopetti, had ideas for a couple t-shirt designs. Mike is a good designer, and we have the same taste in teevee shows. He talked to me about collaborating on a “Sons of Anarchy” tribute shirt and a “Breaking Bad” themed shirt. I was eager to work with him, given the ideas. I’ve been watching Breaking Bad since it first came on. Sons of Anarchy is a show I just started watching that Joannie and her kids are really into. Tuesday has become our “Family Teevee Night” at 10 PM, especially since I never have work on Tuesday nights.

Mike came up with the concepts for both. He also designed the logo for the Chicken Brothers shirt. I did the illustration work using ink, Bristol, and tracing paper. I then scanned everything in and laid it out on the computer. All I had to do then was design a background (reminiscent of busted glass) and drop in the logo Mike designed:

As far as the S.O.A. fan art design, Mike did everything except the crow skeleton illustration. He designed a parody whiskey label reminiscent of the “Old Crow” bourbon label. If you click here, you’ll see he’s pretty dead-on. I did my ink illustration during Sunday’s Eagles game. Then all I had to do was scan it and drop it into place using Photoshop:

I am not sure if these shirts will ever get made, but it was fun working on them.

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