Johnson Racing T-Shirt Art

Hi All,

Wow - it's been a busy couple of weeks.  The holistic therapy biz is starting to pick up and more artwork projects are in the hopper.  Just a couple weeks ago an old friend from my Air Force days contacted me for a t-shirt design.  It's for his family's race car team - Johnson Racing.  They have a drag race car named, "Butter Ball," that's highlighted in the design.  Of course, I said, sure - that sounds like a fun project, let's do it.

One of the photos of Butter Ball

So we started with photos from him and a pencil sketch from me.  The sketch was based on the photos provided.

The original sketch design.  Originally having car going to the left.

After getting approval from the client, I started building the artwork right over the pencil sketch in Photoshop.  The two tools in Photoshop that are key to my process are layers and paths.  I use the path tool on artwork like this to get that crisp edge.

Here's an example of how I like to draw, using the path tool and layers.  "Johnson Racing," lettering was rendered with the path tool.  I then worked/tweaked the path, to make sure it's just right and then filled it with the desired color.  First, I did the lettering, then (on a layer "under" the lettering), I rendered the dark outline and filled it with the dark color.  It looks like a nice outline, but in reality, it's a big block of color laid underneath the light blue letters.  (I hope that makes sense).

I started with the outline of the car in black.  I give it thick and thin line work and make sure it's a nice tight outline and the rest will fall into place.  From there I do the blue, then yellow, then red, etc....blue being on top and the other colors on layers rendered beneath.  This is illustration - it's not like painting or drawing - it's methodical and very planned and deliberate.

Final Johnson Racing Tee Shirt design.

In the end I made one large change from the initial design.  I flipped the car and rotated it up slightly.  The other direction just didn't seem right to me...this way seems to be going toward progression and toward victory and I think it works well with the curving of the lettering also.

So that's the Johnson Racing Tee shirt design.  I hope for you non-design/art folks, that this was a glimpse into how these things are created (and not boring).

Good luck to you all, and have a great weekend.  We made it to Friday!!
Be good to yourself...and do something nice for others as well.

Peace,

Tom

My Artwork on-line: http://www.behance.net/tk-art
My Holistic Therapy practice: http://holistictherapysolutions.weebly.com/