The Party Shark and Keeping Things Topical

I just finished a T-Shirt illustration job. The shirt was a spoof off of an earlier label that I for a beer called FIG JAM.

The FIG JAM label. FIG JAM stands for "Fuck, I'm good. Just ask me."

My clients have a shark puppet in their brewery that they call the party shark, soI put a little portrait of a shark puppet up there in the corner as a little "in" joke. They liked it so much that they wanted to a t-shirt also featuring the party shark.

This little request was actually quite challenging, because the actual puppet itself had very few defining features and doesn't really look like a shark (Don't tell them I said that!). So, my task was to retain the "essence" of the party shark while adding enough extra information so that people would know that it's a shark, and not a blob with teeth.

Here are the first round thumbnails:

I don't know why but I always felt that this one looked douchey. 

My personal favorite

My least favorite

I was trying to think out of the box on this one. I really like the sense of flow.

Here are the second round of thumbs:

They like the last thumbnail. Fun fact: I used a screen shot of Psy doing his gangnam style dance for my reference for that one.

Next, we vectorized the thumb and tried some text options.

The finished version with the client's text treatment 

I think I slipped it into the contract that I get a free t-shirt. When I get it, I'll through some un-flattering pictures up.

On a wholly different note. Does it bug anyone that I've derailed the topic from online courses for the next few months? I've debated back and forth about putting this other stuff into it's own blog. I just don't want to loose momentum on this one while I wait for the Imaginism workshop to start ad for work to die down. Please, let me know what you're thinking!

Cheers

-Dave