That Line Art Sandra Promised? Here y'go.
almost 8 years ago – Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 07:00:08 AM

 STORY: Sandra kept saying "Howard, we need Schlock with a plasgun" and I kept saying "yup" because I was working on it. But I was working on it in my head, not on paper, because I didn't want to just re-draw a shirt image we made back in 2006 (ish?).  Lots of brain time went into composing the picture and getting it just right in my head. When I finally sat down to put things on paper the first draft took about ten minutes.

It was terrible. Or rather, it was awesome, but the image was too wide for t-shirts, and not nearly tall enough, which is exactly the sort of problem that crops up when I think about something without also thinking about the context for that something. So I ditched the idea I'd been dreaming of for two weeks and began penciling. I very lightly drew a roughly triangular blob that filled the space we wanted filled on the shirt, and then drew Schlock mostly inside it.

Draft #2, which became the image you see here, took about 20 minutes. Sandra said "yeah, that's good. Ink it." The final piece took about an hour, which is around 30 times as long as it usually takes me to draw Schlock because I knew the image needed some shading to create the right sense of volume, and I was working at a large enough scale that it simply took a lot of time to lay down all the ink.

So there you go. Story behind art. Have a good weekend! The project closes in four days, and you're awesome because we've funded and these shirts are going to be the best we've ever made thanks to you.

-H

Tall Sizes Available
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 08:14:56 PM

Greetings Backers,

I have just confirmed the availability of tall sizes. So I've added that to the list of sizes. We can offer Tall sizes from Large to 3XL.

Thanks for all of your support.

--Sandra Tayler

The bundles will have four shirts
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 12:10:00 PM

Greetings Backers,

Just a quick update to let you all know that we hit the stretch goal. All the bundles will now include a fourth shirt for free.

Thank you all for your support!

Sizing and Style Options
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 07:23:43 AM

Greetings Backers,

As of this morning the project is funded to $34,000. We can't say enough thanks for this vote of confidence and the support it gives us to pay bills. We're also at 1160 shirts sold, so we only need people to pledge for 340 more shirts and all the bundles will have 4 shirts instead of 3.

Special sizing & design requests

TL;DR I can probably do tall sizes, but I have to (sadly) say no to long sleeves and embroidered polo shirts.

I've had requests for tall sizes, long sleeves, and polo shirts. I have answers for those requests, but it requires some explanation of how the shirt printer does business.

Our Kickstarter currently features five designs and three shirt types.

It would only have two shirt types, except that the larger sizes require a different shirt because our preferred shirt isn't available in the large sizes. This means, as far as the shirt printer is concerned, I'm offering 15 different shirts. Each different shirt must have a minimum of 24 ordered. If fewer than 24 of you pick a particular shirt type, we'll still have to order 24 and eat the additional cost in order to deliver what we've promised. Right now that isn't likely to happen because of the number of shirts pledged compared to the number of options.

Each additional designs adds three grid squares. So each design increases the possibility that a grid square will have less than 24 orders. This is the reason that we've made many of the stretch goals based on number of shirts sold rather than a dollar amount.

Tall sizes probably roll into this grid fairly smoothly if I can find a large size shirt that also offers tall as well as 4xl & 5xl. If I can do that, it doesn't change the grid. I'll be calling the printing company about this today.

Long sleeves are a different story. If I offer long sleeves, I am multiplying the type of shirts that I'm offering.

 Now instead of 15 types of shirts, I'm ordering 30 types of shirts. This increases the likelihood that one of those grid squares will have less than 24 orders. Also each design added creates six new grid squares instead of just three.

Neither of these grids mentions sizing or color options, because they don't affect pricing from the shirt printer. However they do greatly affect what I'll need to deal with when I'm shipping out shirts. For some designs I've offered four colors, for others there are five. I'm going to do this math based on four colors. Picture that first grid laying flat and now there is a 3rd dimension for color choice. Suddenly there are 60 shirt options instead of 15. Ah, but each of these shirts must also have a size, so we need a fourth axis (somehow). I'm offering 13 different sizing options. That means 780 different types of shirts.

The grid with long sleeve choices gives 3120 shirt different types of shirts. All of which I would have to carefully sort, track, and make sure end up in the right boxes.

Polo Shirts

Last week I was excited about the possibilities of offering polo shirts. Then I went and priced them. The cost-per-shirt is very different for polos than for t-shirts. The designs would also have to be different. Polo shirts don't fit on the grids I've already talked about. They have to have their own, completely separate, grid with its own multiplying set of options.

Mailing out this Kickstarter is already going to be very complex. I can't add long sleeves or polos into the mix.

Print on Demand Apparel

This is why we're excited by the possibilities of print-on-demand for apparel. Customers will have to pay more per item, and we will make far less per item, but we simply don't have enough physical space to store and manage all the thousands of different options people might want. I'm super happy that the funding of this kickstarter will allow me to research and set up print-on-demand.

Thank you for reading the number crunchy part of this post. And thanks for backing the project,

--Sandra

Schlock with Plasgun Shirt
about 8 years ago – Tue, Apr 03, 2018 at 06:11:22 PM

Greetings Backers,

We have one final shirt design that will be included as part of this Kickstarter. Howard is drawing it right now.

 This is the basic line art that we'll ask our shirt designer to adapt into a shirt design. The final image will be full color. Because of the challenges of shirt color affecting printed design, this shirt will only be available in white with a colored design.

I'll update again when we have a finalized image. We're only 200 shirts away from the bundles getting a fourth shirt for free.

Thanks for all your support.

--Sandra Tayler