Jay-toberfest!

So, this is the 3rd attempt I've made at writing this feature...I first started it on Friday afternoon before some friends were coming over for some grilling and beer. Things (for this blog entry, at least) went downhill from there. We ended up having a little Oktoberfest - lots of dark beer and plenty of sausage grilled over an open fire! By the time the night was over, I wasn't really in any condition to blog, so I planned on finishing this on Saturday. Saturday rolled around, we did a nice 12 mile bike ride and then decided to have Oktoberfest, part 2 - more dark beer, plus TWO kinds of sausage this time (and some other assorted grillin's - that's the spread from Oktoberfest night 2 in the photo to the left).

Anyhoo, no Oktoberfest part 3 today - we need a break! But, that doesn't mean we can't have a t-shirt Oktoberfest, right?

It's been a bit since I've featured designs from a our cool German friend, Jay, from Van Tribe. So here's five shirt designs by Jay - a little something I'm calling, "Jay-toberfest"!

Triple Skull & Lucky Skull
I know I've touted Tat2ts as the Master of skulls, but he and Jay are both heavily into the skull genre (actually, they do designs for each others shops occasionally). Jay's got quite a nice collection of skull designs including the tribal reminiscent Triple Skull and the Lucky Skull: skull + lucky clovers = great, unique idea (not to mention the dropping leaf - a beautiful touch).


Fist of Love & Hate
Jay has a really great graphic style that carries through all of his work, whether it be tattoo, tribal or even /graphic slogan based. One of my favorite non-tribal/tattoo related designs from Jay is his Fist of Love and Hate design. The design is so simple and clean, but the graphic itself and the message are so powerful!



Breeding Demon
A number of Jay's designs are tribal inspired (or mixed with tribal elements). I really like his Breeding Demon design because, frankly, it's quite clever.


Twinkling Dead Flower
Yes...he even does flowers - Jay's got something for everyone. Of course, it's with his own personal touch, twisting tattoo and tribal elements into one sweet, unique design. The dead flower concept is morbid enough for men, yet feminine enough for the ladies (and it's featured on Spreadshirt's brand new unisex tie-dye).

Grab these shirts today in the guest designs section at the Insan Art Store, or check out Van Tribe to see more great designs from Jay and others...

Skulltastic Spectacular from Tat2ts

If you've been following along with 5 Shirts, you'll know that Tat2ts (aka Vic) is the master of skull designs. Along with that, in a world with a sea of crappy digital t-shirt designs, Tat stands out.

I harbor poor feelings towards digital printing-on-demand since it's opened the doors for any old Joe to put any old crappy, pixelated digital image on a shirt, or even worse, a whole slew of other products! This is not the case with Tat - he sincerly puts a lot of thought and work into his digital designs and I really appreciate that.

So, on to the skulls!!!

Rising
For a while now, Tat has been experimenting with "trompe l'oeil" type designs (fool the eye). One of my first favorites of his was one of these (previous post). For this design he says he was trying to get the effect of the skull "rising up out of the shirt", hence the name.




Gone But Not Forgotten
In this Vietnam vet themed design, like many of his other recent designs, Tat's been playing with gradients and he's done a fine job with them! Overall, it's a nice combo of skull and nature theme. I like the design best on white, but it is made to work on all colors and would even look cool on black.



Dead Planet
Another technique Tat has been toying with is morphing multiple images. Dead planet is perfect example of this and he's done a great job combining the earth and skull images into a quite a thought provoking piece. It's exactly the kind of "environmental" design I'd expect to see from the (proclaimed by me) Master of tattoos and skulls.


Go ahead and grab one or all of these shirts today at the all new Insan Art Store, make your own in our t-shirt designer, or...

...check out all of Tat2ts products at his site:
http://www.tat2ts.com/