That's the way baseball go....

As my wife and I were enjoying game 1 of the ALCS at the Ballpark (until the 8th inning), she started commenting on how great it would be for us to print up some "That's How Baseball Go" shirts.  This Ron Washington quote has become somewhat famous in Dallas especially amongst listeners of The Little Ticket.  Well, it appears that a couple guys had the same brilliant idea, or overheard us at the ballpark, and decided to beat us to the punch.  No big deal, since we really weren't going to do it anyways. Here's the story from NBC....apparently MLB didn't take too kindly to their idea and they got a cease and desist letter not long after starting production.....Too bad.  I woulda bought one.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/sports/Thats-the-Way-T-Shirt-Business-Go-106523718.html

ISS Ft. Worth 2010 Rundown

Had a chance to head over to the ISS show in Ft. Worth this morning.  I definitely was interested in seeing the new Challenger III and watching Omar from New Buffalo Shirt Factory try and set the world record for shirt printed in one hour by one operator.  M&R and one of my suppliers, Graphic Solutions Group pulled out all the stops.  M&R had their Alpha 8, a prototype Challenger III, and the new Sportsman EX, and GSG had their own stock Challenger III, the M&R Diamondback, and the guys over at Pony Printing were doing a demo on Matsui Waterbased Inks.  The highlight of the show was obviously the World-Record Run, but lots of other great manufacturers were there as well...Anatol had their jumbo machine, which is an awesome machine for oversized prints, and lots of other guys had their new stuff out to show off.  I came away suer impressed with the prototype Challenger III...the digital controls on each print head looked awesome and for such a big machine it ran unbelievably smooth.  I'm gonna have to start saving my pennies so I can upgrade to the Challenger III...

Here's a quick vid of the World Record Run, you can see M&R's CEO, Rich Hoffman, hard at work with that can of spray tack.  Congrats to M&R and to Omar....Great job guys!

20K piece minimum...

I can't imagine ever being big enough to turn down a 19K piece order, but there are shops out there that size. I called a shop in Mexico today to see about sourcing a large 12 color order to them, and they replied.."Sorry, but minimum order is 20K pieces.".....Must be nice.

DSP does Cabo

I can't believe it has been 5 years since I married my wife, Lainey.  We spent a week in Cabo San Lucas reflecting on our marriage, our kids, and how we feel about each other......well, not really, we were too busy drinking cerveza, eating WAY too much food, and bringing in the Bicentennial Mexican Independence day to do all the gushy stuff.

We had a great time and got some much needed rest, and some peace and quiet.  We drove around Cabo San Lucas for a couple days and ate at some local taco stands and hung out with a couple gringos who now make their home in Cabo.  If you're looking for a good beer joint in Cabo, I would suggest visiting, Happy Ending's Cantina.  Great atmosphere, and the best beer selection in town.  The owner Regine has also found a winner with her apparel.  Hands-down the best value in town for Cabo shirts is at happy endings. 11-14 color fronts and backs on all her shirts....really impressive stuff.  And her husband is the artist.  The shirts were precisely printed with great pin-up art, and they were only $15 a pop...You just can't beat that.   Here's a REALLY CRAPPY iPhone pic of their Firefighter shirt.

Look them up if you head down to Cabo, they are the #1 rated bar for a reason.

Update on latest illustrations

Here's a update on our two latest illustrations.

The first is our personal project here at DSP.  Vincent finished our simulated process skull biker design, and it looks really slick.  He changed a few things from what I originally wanted, but sometimes you just go to let the artist do their thing.  I'm glad we did too.  Check it out.

Please let us know what you think, and we will have these for sale at dallasscreenprint.com and all orders placed from 10/1/10 to 10/31/10 will get a free one.

Second, Vincent has finished up the Amigo's new skull and flames design, and it is RAD.  We are printing it this week, and I will post pics of the finished shirt.  We really like dealing with the guys at the Amigo's MC, good guys and great to work with...they let us do our thing and appreciate quality work. We weren't allowed much of a color pallete on this because the Amigo's have very strict rules on the colors they can wear, but we made the most of it.  Here's the finished art.

So that's the cool jobs we have up this week, everything else is your run-of-the-mill spot color printing.

Keep checking back to see what's going on here at DSP.

No Labor day off for us-Prism Simulated Process Job

While the rest of the world is out running around on their boats and enjoying labor day, we're here printing t-shirts.  Here's today's project, a 7-color simulated process design for the folks at Prism G2.  This is being printed on white shirts.  Here's the original art, I will follow up today or tomorrow with pics of the imprint.

Amigos Motorcycle Club-Montgomery Co Skull Project

Well skulls seem to be the theme for the high-end jobs we are getting right now.  This project is for some guys in Montgomery County, TX that have recently found us.  We are glad they did too, as we like to do cool skull and flame designs...but then again, who doesn't.

Vincent Fink was given the nod again for this project.  The customer wanted a flaming skull with their colors, scarlet and gold, as the main colorways we would be using.  A V-Twin and exhaust were also requested. Vincent was sent the specs of the job and I have posted his initial sketch here...

VERY solid start to this one.  Customer loved it and we should be going to ink sometime next week.

Remember to support your local Amigos...

The Contract Illustration/art process-Ch. 2 The Inked Drawing

After the artist sends over the initial sketch, you either approve w/minor changes or you start over from scratch.....since starting over from scratch is the more expensive option of the two, it is important you give the artist as much information as possible about what you are wanting so you don't have to start over.

Since we approved the sketch w/ changes it was time for Vincent to ink the drawing.  This is generally where you do the black outline of the design, and this is the image that will be scanned and then brought into Photoshop for coloring. So once this is approved, there is no going back....make sure that it is exactly how you want it, or at minimum make sure the artist has a VERY firm grasp of what minor changes you want do before the scan.

From the sketch, I wanted the bike to be changed to a more traditional chopper style bike with ape hangers and spoke wheels.  I also wanted the Dallas Skyline under the sun.  So I got the inked drawing back from Vincent, which you can see here-

The only part that was left out was the skyline, so I approved with changes.  The next step will be for Vincent to make sure all the line thicknesses are tightened up and he will add the skyline.  After those are complete, he will scan and bring the image into photoshop to be colored and shaded.

We're getting to the fun part now...you can see your ideas start coming to life...Check back soon for the next post that will talk about coloring in photoshop and how my shirt design is coming along.

The contract illustration/art process-Ch. 1 Brainstorming ideas and finding the RIGHT Artists

In the next few weeks, we are going to show you the process for ordering a higher-end custom illustration type of t-shirt.  These projects are best suited for a higher-volume project than your standard one or two color print job. The reason is the design process is time-consuming as is the color separation and setup of jobs like this, so it is a more expensive process.  This type of work generally becomes cost-effective around the 150 shirt mark, although we have run them on as little as 24 shirts before..It just depends on your budget...

The first thing you will want to do is come up with ideas for the theme of the shirt, what characters will need to be drawn, and what and how many colors you want to work with.  For this project, I wanted a biker skull theme, and I wanted to mix the often used dark greys and blacks commonly seen on skull designs with the bright base colors used in process screen printing...Those bright colors being, Yellow, Magenta, and Cyan.  For this particular project, I decided to employ a great artist in Houston named Vincent Fink..you can check him out here www.vincentfink.com.

After I gave him the basics of what I wanted, I left it up to him on how he would incorporate those elements.  When the artist sits down to start your art, the first image you will see is the sketch.  After a couple days I got an email from Vincent with the initial sketch.  I have attached it here. 

There was a few changes and add-ons to be made, but I thought overall, the design was solid. The snakes would be perfect for adding the 3 bright colors I referenced....So I gave him the approval w/ changes.  

Next step, inked drawing....stay tuned.

Welcome

Hi Folks, and welcome to DallasScreenPrint.com's new Blog.  Here we will be discussing the custom t shirt industry in Dallas and around the world.  We will also discuss the happenings at the print shop, what's new at DallasScreenPrint.com and what is interesting us at the moment.  Please check back often and find us on Facebook to see what jobs we are printing, and also on Twitter as well.