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So I missed a another post last week, but not for lack of ideas. I was productive all weekend despite being sick, but I came up short, leaving me with items not ready to post.

Another case of the art controlling me instead of the other way around. This post may give a little insight at the kind of things that hold me up.

Last year my frequent conspirator John and I were kicking around some Star Trek t-shirt ideas for cafepress.com's Star Trek fan portal. John is always full of great ideas and we took off running. We had several concepts and started designs for three, one of which he actually dreamed up several years ago before we had any inkling of how to go about licensing a major entertainment property. Work and life got in the way and they kind fell by the wayside before we finalized them.

Two of the designs were kind of seasonal and the time was rolling around this year, so I decided to dig them up last weekend and try to finish them. I finally got the feel for our favorite original layout and the second came together quickly. Unfortunately, someone beat us to John's best and simplest idea so we were left short. I felt we should have 3 designs to start with. I really wanted to get these up, but the weekend flew by and I didn't want to show anything until I had all 3.

For some reason, we kept coming up with sort of seasonal tie-ins (St. Patrick's Day, Spring Break). I racked my brain and realized it was time for a Klingon Anti-Valentine. Over the course of the weekend I threw together a sketch and showed it to John. He liked the idea.

So I went back to refine the drawing, but I found that the more times I tried, the more it felt as though it was losing the energy of the sketch. I liked the rough scratchy nature of the sketch for the subject matter. John agreed with me and gave me some suggestions. I thought it might be cool to put the phrase "Love Hurts" in Klingon on the shirt, so I spent way too much time trying to find the correct words and phrasing online. (I think I got it, but if there's any Klingon experts out there that find this is wrong, I'd love someone to correct me!!!)

I went back to the original sketch and tried a slightly new, loose approach to coloring it and I think it works now.

John gave me a couple ideas that I really liked, but in the end I think the simpler layout works better. Here is what might have been...

I hope you'll take a moment to check out the store and let me know what you think.

www.cafepress.com/spaceodditees

Stay tuned for our upcoming Tribble Tee!!!
Thanks fer lookin'!

　

BONUS!
While I was digging through the "archives" this week, I came across this ball point pen sketch that sums up pretty much how I feel most days in my day job. Enjoy!