Meerkatsu Brand: Bow & Arrow T-shirt, Ape Suave T-shirt

I have just added two new exciting t-shirts to my store, you can buy the Bow & Arrow t-shirt here, and the Ape Suave T-shirt here.

Here is a little more information about the designs:

The Bow & Arrow t-shirt is an adapted version of the tee design I created for the recent Bristol Grapplethon. 

That t-shirt design was intended to be an exclusive design only for fund raisers and participants of the 24 hour Grapplethon however I received so many messages requesting to buy that design I decided to create a newer version for general release. So this is the result.

Here is a side by side comparison:

In addition to altering the colours, my newer design has a different female lead character and her actual bow & arrow choke is applied a bit more realistically than with the Grapplethon version.

You can see how JT Torres applies a bow and arrow choke in the video below:

 


Ape Suave is a fairly straight copy of the same design that I created first as a rashguard. This rashguard was the first own-brand rashguard I made and it has continued to sell well so I figured it would make sense to produce a t-shirt version as well.

Transferring a design that was intended originally for rashguard printing is not as straightforward as it might seem. Rashguard printing allows for gradients and endless colours to be used whereas t-shirt printing is limited to solid colours and an average of around 4 to 5 different colours*. This is because each screen costs a lot to prepare, so most t-shirt designers aim to reduce the number of screens needed to as few as possible. While this is challenging in one way, it is also liberating, as it forces the designer to find a solution based on a limited palette. Quite often a design that uses just a few simple, bold colours, can appear to work better than the same design where there is no limit on colours. In any case, I doubt most people will notice the difference between the Ape Suaves I have done as long as they enjoy both products.


I'll end this write-up with a short mention of my new gi patches. I will write a new entry just for those at a later date.




*t-shirt printing can come in many forms. The technique that my brand uses is discharge screen printing using water based inks. The t-shirt is first treated to remove a thin layer of the original t-shirt dye, my artwork is then printed onto the 'blank' area one colour at a time. Other t-shirts that seemingly appear to be multi-coloured, are either printed as a simulated CMYK (like the little dots in newspapers or magazines), or they are printed using digital transfer (a thin layer of plastic with the artwork is heated onto the t-shirt.) Each method best suits certain types of application more than others. With my own t-shirt designs, I always feel standard screen printing using water based inks offers the best overall quality and appearance.
.