Black Friday 2019

During the month of November I’m usually scrambling away getting as many new designs uploaded as possible in-time for Christmas and, more specifically, Black Friday. Unsurprisingly my biggest sales figures come during the November to January period, and having new designs ready to go seems like an annual tradition now. This year I haven’t quite produced as many as I’d like and even my self-marketing on social media has been slightly nonexistent.  This comes down to being just too darn busy with life, and completing other projects such as bathroom decorating.

I do have two new designs to show you none the less. While the Summer seems like many moons ago now we’ve hit the cold, dark wet months of Autumn, we did managed to binge our way through quite a few Korean dramas. One of which included Strongest Deliveryman.  It wasn’t my favourite, but it had the typical charm and ridiculousness you’d come to expect from any K-drama. It was also the easiest one to base a t-shirt design on.

My second design is once again based on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Arguably one of the best and most memorable quotes from that film came from Michelangelo, Waiting for his pizza delivery guy (hey, there’s a theme here) and telling Donnie that wise men say “Forgiveness is Divine, but never pay full price for late pizza”. This of course relates to a price promise the likes of Pizzahut and Dominos had where if your pizza took more than 30 minutes to get to you, they’d give you a discount. I don’t think they still uphold to this policy anymore (not in the UK at least) but I guess takeaway delivery is no longer a new concept and with plenty of competition, there’s a better chance you’ll look good against “the others” as they are just as likely to f**k up too.

Both designs are on my usual platforms, while Strongest Deliveryman can also be found on Amazon.

Click here to be taken to my website’s t-shirt page.

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Console Fail

For every game console success, there’s at least two stories of doom.  Most of the time this is all too easy to predict, but there are the few occasions that a console’s failure is like a jab in the ribs.  There have been some spectacular disasters, usually by well established companies that should know better, and the old saying that a console is only as good as its third-party support rings very true as the main reason for most of these fails is a lack of franchise games.

Having completed the Sony collection to my console stack series, my attention quickly turned to making one final one (there aren’t currently enough Microsoft X-Box consoles to justify one), this time the focus being on failed consoles from the last 30-odd years of gaming.  It would be fair to say that I have a mild obsession with failed consoles. This might be down to having vivid memories of their launches, living the hype and excitment, and then seeing them quickly reduced in the bargain bin.

Summer is over

Summer feels like it’s pretty much over now that schools have returned, it’s much darker when my alarm goes off and my shorts don’t feel like they will be seen again until 2020.

Before the summer holidays started, I (almost) had two new t-shirt designs to unleash.  Unfortunately I got really busy flying off to East Asia and then managing several major projects at work, and so here I am in September telling you about them.

I Love you, 1000

I started selling t-shirts on RedBubble back in the summer of 2015.  Initially I only uploaded a few designs and it took a good few weeks for my first sale to come through, but when it did I felt quite proud and pleased, and then I was overcome by blind panic in case the design actually looked rubbish when printed (I must stress that I go through my final PNG files with a fine tooth-comb, so quality at my end if guaranteed).  Around Christmas time that year, my sales were definitely on the increase and so I decided to focus much more of my spare time coming up with new designs.

New designs round-up – June 2019

Welcome, welcome, welcome.  Summer feels like it might be finally here (in the UK at least) and so I’m attempting to push as many new designs out as possible before flying off to Asia for a bit.

Based on that opening sentence, you’d expect me to now give you a list of new designs.  Alas I only have one, but I do have other bits of good news too. Firstly, I have reached over 1,000 sales on my RedBubble store.  I will dedicate a post about this very soon. Secondly, the Cartoon Network have granted me an official license to sell my Samurai Jack design at RedBubble.  This is very exciting because I’m now classed as an official fanart seller and my design is protected!

New Designs Round-up – May 2019

Three new t-shirt designs have recently been uploaded onto my Redbubble and Teepublic stores.  First up we have a new design for my gaming category. Anyone that owned an N64 will no doubt be familiar with the 64DD; an external hardware add-on that would allow you to play games on a disk drive format, which had a larger memory capacity compared to the N64’s game cartridges.  I remember getting monthly updates on the 64DD progress courtesy of the Official UK Nintendo magazine and each month it was looking bleaker and bleaker. The 64DD did eventually get released, but only in Japan were it flopped and consequently was quickly forgotten by Nintendo. To this day I still think that was a shame, so to celebrate I created a design that showed exactly how the 64DD would have worked.  Firstly, the 64DD would have plugged directly into the bottom of the N64 console. Then the N64 RAM expansion Pack would have been required (this add-on did make it to us, largely because some games actually needed it in order to work), and a special N64 cartridge that allowed for the N64 to connect to the internet could be inserted into the cartridge slot. And finally the 64 disk drives themselves would slot into the front.  All very neat and tidy, and when you see one in action on Youtube, it’ll make you still want one. You could, of course, settle for my t-shirt instead.

The Evolution of TMNT: Part 2

Here’s part two (of two) of my Evolution of TMNT article.

TMNT – Animated Movie (2007)

The rebirth of the turtles in the new millennium resurrected plans for a new feature length film, but this time going down the CGI path in a bid to save money more than anything else.  When the simply titled TMNT was announced, it looked like this version would harken back more so to the original comic books. While that was true to an extent, it was a real mix of everything we’ve had before.  The look of the turtles were lean and mean, thanks largely to not being constrained by men in suits and animatronics. Their design was a rich flavour of the cartoons and live action films, with a hint of the original comic book designs from later issues.  Overall this was deemed a success, and certainly helped path the way for future projects.

INTERESTING FACT: The plot line for this film is almost identical to the plot for the fifth Highlander film, Highlander; the Source (not really worth watching)

The Evolution of TMNT: Part 1

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have stood the test of time.  Since the mid-eighties they have managed to grace both the small and big screen as well as printed media, spanning now several generations and continuing to go strong even after all this time and many franchise reboots.

Your favourite Turtles carnation may very well depend on your age and personal memories, and even I would be hard pressed to pick a definitive version of the turtles that I would be happy to settle with if I could take only one on a desert island with.  So let’s briefly explore the contenders, starting with where it all began….

Boba Turtle

I am pleased to announce a brand new customised figure that I have made; TMNT Boba Fett.

The figure combines two things that I love, which are Star Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Over a year ago I had the idea of customising one of spare TMNT figures into the legendary bounty Hunter Boba Fett, whom needless to say is one of my favourite characters from the Star Wars universe.

Happy TMNT III Day

Apparently the 1993 third live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film (aka TMNT III; Turtles in Time) has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of all the Turtles films.  I also follow enough TMNT fan instagram accounts to know that this is not a surprise. Personally, I find this a little sad.

I have complete and utter affection for this installment in the series.  I remember the first time I watched it (on TV) and what I even had for dinner while I was doing so (pizza, obviously).  Consequently, I may always watch it with rose-tinted glasses but I think it’s got a lot going for it.