flash gordon brown

As we struggle to deal with a global financial crisis, will Gordon Brown be the saviour of the universe? Popmash has managed to combine, popular culture, politics, topicality and humour into one classic t-shirt. If you're not impressed by that then check out the youtube animation that goes with the tee (below).

lip service

I was browsing the new t-shirt mosaic on the bubble and spotted the t-shirt below by the very talented chris wahl. It reminded me of tees posted by chamba so I thought I'd do a post dedicated to some more mouthy designs.

grrrr by chris wahl

mouth of madness by chamba

no no no no no no by j3concepts

tv teeth by Omar Enrique Romero Aréchiga

big mouth strikes again by dave gregory

happiness is a warm iron ...

Here at bubbling, we're all about bringing you the shirts you may have missed so it is with great pleasure we introduce the ultimate t-shirt browsing machine ... the warm iron. I'm told there are 4096 t-shirts featured in this mosaic. If you were to break your browsing down into bite sized chunks then you could discover around 78 new t-shirts a week for the next year just by using this handy tool. What are you waiting for? Go and get yourself a large helping of t-shirty goodness.

Lars: hand drawn type queen

Lars stuns us again and again with her hand drawn type skills and quirky illustration style. We have featured her you, me, we t-shirt before on this blog and recently she took the top spot in the hand drawn typography competition with her 'hey pretty lady' tee.

I asked Lars if she would mind giving us some insight into what makes her tick and just how she became such a talented individual. Good news for us! She said yes!

Which of your tees are you most proud of?

“Prism Party”, I love pastel colours and I'm a fan of slightly nerdy mathematical things & also “Lost your pen?” because I just think its cute, and slightly sad, I feel the plain of it!

How long do you usually spend on a design?

Two hours at the most, it takes me awhile because I don’t have any nifty gadgets like a Wacom, I have to draw things up, scan, photoshop it, print it, then fix things… and so on, which gets frustrating, i tend to lose motivation half way through.

How do you motivate yourself?

As soon as I wake up I drink Chai Tea and It just wakes me up and makes me want to design and do all sorts of things, id say it gives me superpowers.

Were you a creative kid? If so, what’s your earliest creative memory?

Yeh, very creative, a lot more creative than I am now! I used to enter all the competitions in the Sunday Telegraph and goto Art Camps, I won so much stuff, the best thing I ever won was 100 boxes of The Simpsons Instant Macaroni, I can still taste it.

What creative skill would you most like to have?

I would love to be able to draw well, all my drawings are more like primary school scribbles rather than illustrations, so im thinking of taking some drawing classes

What’s your pet design/illustration hate?

Seeing people post “designs” that look like they were pasted together on paint. And these days im getting a bit tired of seeing polaroid inspired things, don’t get me wrong I love them, I have my own stash, but its become SO popular that in my eyes its lost its novelty and its sense of nostalgia.

If you could pick one person to have as a mentor, who would it be?

Reg Mombassa would be fun just because he is such an icon here in Australia, and he has a sense of humor in his art.

Any advice for aspiring illustrators or designers?

If you are having creative block... just do whatever first comes into your head, doesn’t matter if its silly. And everything around you can be inspiration!

Sounds like good advice to me. A big thanks to Lars for the chat. We can't wait to see more of her work on the bubble soon!

t-shirt blitz

In an effort that will make the rest of us seem extremely lazy, nofrillsart has pledged to post one t-shirt design every second day for the next two months. Will he be able to do it? Will any of them be any good? Is he 10% mental? For all the answers, stay tuned.

no fly zone venus fly trap by nofrillsart

from the back of the closet

The very talented Ross Robinson knows a thing or two about good shirt design. He is responsible for gems including monkeysplat and evil naked dolls.

Fearing that others may be missing out on some of the brilliant tees he's spotted on the site, he has launched a regular feature called 'From The Back Of The Closet'.


In the first edition, Ross takes a look at wintoons by naefox, "A brilliant illustration for a cartoon series that doesn’t exist (but should!)". It's well worth checking out. Stay tuned for more great finds from Ross ...

hand drawn type competition

Just a quick plug for a competition we're running over in the typography group on RedBubble. We're looking for some great new hand drawn type t-shirts so if you fancy whipping up a design, there's a $30 AUS (or equivalent in £UK or $US) RedBubble gift certificate up for grabs. The competition is open until next Sunday and you can find all the information here.

rainbows and unicorns

I love it when someone takes imagery that should be sugary and sweet and puts a whole different spin on it. It makes my day. Here are two great examples.

rainbow undigested by chelsgus

the wrong unicorn by evangaline than

illustration

To get us in the mood for Drawing Day this coming Saturday, here are four very different (and wonderful) illustrated tee designs. Let me know if you've spotted any others on the bubble!

digging a grave, i've got it made by ghostpatrol

elephants are good listeners by paul mcclintock

eagle portrait by mui-ling teh

uprise by sheldon silvera

drawing day 2008

Drawing Day is a worldwide drawing event "encouraging everyone to drop everything and draw for the sake of art". The first official Drawing Day falls on Saturday 7th of June which means you won't have to try and squeeze this into a lunch break ... you have all day to sketch and scribble! If you're a grade A procrastinator like me then it sounds like a damn good excuse to crack open the sketchbook and spend the day working on some new t-shirt designs.

RedBubble are supporting the initiative with a Drawing Day Group which will be open to submissions on the day. I'll be keeping an eye out for some new designs to feature on the blog so I hope to see plenty of t-shirt action. There are other RedBubble bloggers who are keen to feature work from the group too so it's a great opportunity for exposure.

marker pen by simon greening

skulls

I'm back on UK soil after a few weeks in Australia so I should be blogging a little more frequently from here on in. Today I thought I'd share some of my favourite skull t-shirts with you. Skulls are a theme that's been done to death (pardon the pun) but I guess this makes it all the more difficult to come up with a design that still has the wow factor. Here are a few that work for me:

el muerto by mais 2

elementary dentistry by lucan industries

skull pop by grammatik

cmyk skull by sanchezisdead

big pixels

I've been checking out some of the work in RedBubble's Big Pixel group and I think I've fallen in love with this style. If you're interested in trying this technique yourself, some of these tutorials may come in handy. If you're looking for inspiration, you can't go past Junior Senior's video for 'Move Your Feet'. Classic!

match by david j cunning

mr kracked by pocket clouds

pixel bear by candyrainbow

pixelephant by slonie

pixel bees by rin aiello

bunnies

I was trying to think of the polar opposite of war and this is what I came up with. Hopefully this balances out Wednesday's feature. We try and cater for everyone here at 'bubbling'...

bad bunny by jumpy

worm armageddon by candy rainbow

pocket rainbows by cassandra lovell

can you see me by tambatoys

t-shirt challenge

The RedBubble Challenge Cafe wants you to submit your best t-shirt design for their latest group challenge. They're looking for the best non-photographic design and you could bag £15 towards your next RedBubble purchase if you are the winner. Submissions close on the 29th of March. More info here.

a clockwork mickey by gregoryno6

type on tees

Good typography is an art. There are so many elements that need to be perfectly balanced to create a nice type-based piece. I'm especially loving hand illustrated type on tees at the moment - very cool!

Blackbird by Natalie Foss

You+Me+We by Lars

type shoe by rhinestone

yeah yeah yeah by kernelcopia

ltd edition scott robinson tees

Within moments of letting the RedBubble community know about the existence of this blog, I was deafened by the cracking of whips and about a million brilliant suggestions for features and posts. Driven by a combination of fear and inspiration, I promise I'll get on to some of the requests as soon as possible.

But firstly some exciting news. Scott Robinson (aka Resisto) is arguably the godfather of t-shirt designers on the bubble. His work often reduces others to tears (in a good way) so I'm excited to announce that the Ministry of T-Shirts will soon be releasing an organic, limited edition, screenprinted Scott Robinson t-shirt.

Here's a sneak preview (there's more being revealed by the hour so the full image will probably be available by tomorrow). A release date will be announced soon so make sure you don't miss out. It'll be one to tell the grandkids about.

If you're not familiar with Scott's work then cast your eyes over these:

a monster t-shirt competition

The Vector Goodness Lounge has just announced a shiny new competition especially for monster lovers. They want you to design a new 'Monster Mascot' for the group. Prizes include a free t-shirt, an artist feature on the group blog and a “thickblackoutline vector goodness mystery prize pack”. The competition is officially launched on the 31st of March. More information here.

Scream by Damien Mason

my favourite robots

Everyone loves a robot t-shirt. I think some of these guys would be nice to have around if you were in the market for a robot pal. Click on the images for more info.