All U can eat on Pi Day :)

More like... all you can wear on Pi Day. Mudge Studios has designed Pi Day shirts and gift ideas for those that celebrate Pi Day each and every March 14th and  more precisely- honoring Pi Day at 1:59 PM on that same date- making it 3.14159.  Pi Day should never end, just like Pi itself. Pi just keeps going and going, never to repeat itself. Mudge's Pi Day designs on shirts and gift items make the ideal Pi Day gear for math lovers, math teachers and math students alike. Actually, great gift ideas for anybody who appreciates a little math humor. Check out Mudge Studios shop at Zazzle for a large variety of Pi Gear that can be personalized. Maybe put your school's name above or under one of Mudge's designs. Maybe add a student's name and/or achievement on the back?

Mudge Studios' Pi Day designs include: Wishing Pi Day would never End- here the Pi symbol stars in our version of Van Gogh's starry night; Pi in the Sky- based on the same dreamy image; Pi is my Co-"Pi"lot - features a winged Pi symbol and Pirate... get it "Pi"rate- featuring a Pi symbol outfitted with eye patch, sword, pirate hate with skull and cross bones and of course a parrot perched on the shoulder. Argh.

If you are a fan of Mudge Studios at CafePress we have a few Pi Day designs showcased there as well. Check out Wishing Pi Day would never end and Pi is My Co-pilot. Pi Day shirt examples are displayed below.

 

Spring is on its way... Happy Pi Day to you from Mudge Studios.

Anti Valentine's Day TOO!

Valentine's Day is right around the corner. As February the 14th fast approaches most of us in relationships are strongly encouraged to celebrate and commemorate said relationship with...

say some chocolates, some roses, some jewelry, a romantic dinner out or something else that may speak to your situation.

Maybe the whole thing seems...  a little  too contrived, superficial or commercial main stream? Well, that's exactly what millions are thinking and many are even starting to express- and not so quietly. Mudge Studios has been producing graphics for decades now and I was unaware that there is a cottage industry in the sale of Anti- Valentine's Day or rather- Anti- Love Gift items. Remember, not everybody in the world is currently enjoying the benefits of a healthy relationship as there are those that really hate the idea of Love, Despise Valentine's Day, are Offended by Cupid or may have even recently Just Broken Up. I learned of this when I started getting a few email requests to produce "anti V-day" themed designs almost three years ago.

Today, Mudge Studios just uploaded a variety of Anti Valentine's Day designs onto our Mudge Studios shop at Zazzle. Designs include: Our New Screw Love... No Literally Screw Love design featuring a bloody fresh heart with a Philips Head Screw plunged deep inside.  Mudge Studios also has anti Cupid gear. Cupid Sucks. Cupid is always slinging his poisonous Love arrows at unsuspecting victims.  I say Cupid deserves a taste of his own medicine. Bullseye! There, That'll teach the little bastard. Featured is a fallen Cute little Cupid with three love arrows plunged deep into his own damned heart.  Now Cupid can feel my pain. Can you identify? Check out Mudge Studios' Funny Anti-Valentine tee shirts, Buttons Stickers and more. Anti- Love Slogans include: Love is suicide, an eye for an eye- heart for a heart, love is dead to me, Cupid don't come around here no more and Cupid is retired.

Get LOST

Well, CafePress has done it again. They have secured the licensing to allow shop keepers the rights to create LOST fan gear. Of course there is a list of restrictions the forbid us to use Lost's logo, etc., but there is enough leeway for the creative to produce some fun designs. Mudge Studios has produced a variety of Lost Fan designs in a variety of locations on CafePress. The first Lost Shop can be seen at the original premium shop.

Here you'll find a Variety Of ABC Lost Fan shirts and gift items by Mudge Studios. Our first Lost design features the famous DHARMA Initiative icon with a fan graphic at the center identifying the wearer of this cool shirt as a Lost Fan. Mudge's next design features the mysterious Lost island complete with Dharma station logos. Slogans include: Greetings from Lost Island- wish you were here. Another Lost design feature's Sawyer's yummy fish biscuits and the slogan... I'm Lost, but dont look for me. Check out examples below.

Mudge also posted a unique Lost Fan design at another premium shop as a way to disperse the volume of designs. This design features a great quote from Jacob... "It happens only once. Anything that happens before that is just progress".  Mudge brought this Cool Quote from Jacob of Lost brought to life on Lost shirts and gift items with Graphics that feature the eye of Providence found on the back of our dollar bills. The all seeing eye is replaced by the Oceanic Airlines logo making this Lost design something unique. I always thought that logo looked strange. Also tied in are the Egyptian pyramid, because there are several references to ancient Eygpt, and the infamous number sequence 4,8,15,16,23,42. Unfortunately, season six provides the bittersweet finale and destiny will be found. Here is a look at the design described above and it can be found here.

Love My Sox is where Mudge Studios' Lost designs can also be found. This series features a theme such as I'm gonna be Lost without Sawyer. These shirts and gift items are for fans of Lost's James "Sawyer" Ford- the lovable con man who seems to come up with multiple nicknames for all the others stranded on the mysterious island. Of course Kate, Jack,  Locke,  and Hurley are represented as well...

 

Well, if you are a lost fan- we hope that you enjoy these cool Lost designs. Thanks for looking.

My way to Help Haiti

 

The absolute destruction that the earthquake in Haiti caused touched my heart deeply. I felt compelled to help in some way. Cafepress offered an opportunity to donate Haiti relief designs to the cause. I spent the time creating the Haiti design featured above. I submitted my Haiti design with the attached email... "Thanks for the opportunity to contribute in a way that could potentially be larger than what I can afford to give out of pocket. Attached is my design contribution.
Thank you,
Allen Mudgett
Mudge Studios"

Unfortunately, I received the following response... "Thank you so much for supporting UNICEF and the people of Haiti.  We were overwhelmed with the number of submissions for the store. We are no longer accepting design donations however, we are very grateful for your support and thank you for taking the time to help."

Anyway, I need to help. I set up  a separate Haiti Needs Love  CafePress shop apart from my Mudge Studios efforts. This will make it very easy to account for all proceeds made directly from this Haiti Relief design. I hope that the effort is successful- although this design won't be featured on the Haiti Relief Portal.
As human beings we are all connected. If there is anyway that you can help. Please find your way. Bless the people of Haiti.

Finally a Few Vball Designs

One of my favorite sports that I participate in these days is volleyball. My absolute favorite volleyball is sand doubles... even better when played on the beach! Recently, Lately, I've really cultivated an appreciation for the indoor game. After watching the journey that the U.S. Men took to bring home the gold, I was hooked on sixes. Before that, I really only played indoor 6's to stay active during the winter months. Now, I get excited to play on Mondays in a coed league and on Thursday for pick up play.

Anyway, I had some down time while I'm waiting for a baseball project to come to fruition. I made the opportunity to design a variety of volleyball designs. I feature my volleyball designs at both my Mudge Studio shops on both Zazzle and CafePress. The volleyball designs featured below serve only as a small sampling of the variety of volleyball t-shirts and designs that Mudge Studios offers.

Volleyball designs include: Block Party, Beach Volleyball, I dig Volleyball, Spike Like a Girl, You've been served, Tooled and More. Mudge Studios hopes that you find that these volleyball designs make great volleyball gift ideas for volleyball players, family, friends and fans of all ages. Doesn't matter whether you or they play indoors or on the beach, sixes or doubles, same gender or coed- volleyball rocks. 

Mudge Studios Zazzle shop offers the ability to customize and personalize many of our Volleyball designs... See the above volleyball shirt when you click here. Can you dig it?

Destroyer Hockey

Just got a sample hocket t-shirt mailed to me from a company called Destroyer Promotions. They had hired me over the past couple of years to do some custom artwork featuring a couple of hockey stars for the Stockton Thunder that they were looking to print in house. Last years assignment depicted Mike Lalonde, a scoring machine for the California based team. After an introductory email from the client and a follow up phone call, I got the puck sliding with that project by submitting 3 rough sketches as follows...

They client approved the first sketch. Next, I did a quick color rough and placement of final font selection, etc. for approval. That process went smoothly- so final art with separate color channels were created for the client. A month later, the client sent a sample t-shirt. Over all the quality of the print job was clean, but it was missing all of the shading that I put into the face and uniform- leaving the reproduction very flat- as seen here.

Fast forward to this year. Fortunately, the client enjoyed the finished product and their team promotion was a success resulting in another request for more art from Mudge Studios. This assignment was to feature a player nmaed Garet Hunt of the Stockton Thunder. This year the team had a couple of specific directions in which they want to take this project. A concise email described two scenarios. One with Garet in the penalty box and another with him shedding his gloves as he skates forward like a tornado. I submitted the following sketches...

The Client loved sketch #2 and I was given the green light to move forward and complete the project in a week. During that time, Destroyer had hired a new screen printing expert and better results in maintaining tonal detail were assured with a higher mesh count in the screens they were going to use this time around.  I just got a sample back...

This t-shirt popped much better than last years. The time spent on shading was well worth the time. Overall, the experience of working with Destroyer was a fine one. I've talked to a few people over there and they seem to be running a class act. Who knows, maybe next year I'll get to draw another hockey player?

Coincidence or Intuned with Eywa?

On Tuesday I was on a mission. I am working hard to consolidate my Premium Shops at CafePress. I currently have 13 Premium shops and I desire to trim that number down for ease of management and marketing. Tuesday's assignment was to transfer my content including text, designs and products from my ProjectEarthDay shop over to a designated Earth Day section at my Mudge Studios Premium CafePress store  as seen below.

I was making great progress when my daughter Mariah called me that afternoon and asked me if I wanted to see Avatar. Initially, I had my reservations thinking that the experience was going to be similar to that of playing a high end video game. I wasn't sure whether director James Cameron was going to pull his + $300,000,000 project off in a convincing fashion, so I didn't rush out for this one. Well... I was wrong. The technology used to bring his blue alien people to life was pure genius. Avatar introduced me to a whole new world in Pandora- the landscape, skyscape, flora and fauna are simply- breath taking. It didn't take me long to empathize with the Na'vi ( those blue aliens mentioned previously) and form a connection to their  beautiful philosophy concerning life, energy and a harmony with nature.

Anyway, after watching Avatar, I couldn't wait to get back to the studios and put together a few new Earth Day designs inspired by the movie. I tweaked a few of my established Earthday designs and added Avatar inspired slogans such as: Earth is My Home Tree and "All Energy is Borrowed; at some point you have to return it".

 I know that many of us celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd of each year, but after seeing Avatar, I realize that Every Day should be Earth Day. We only have one Mother Earth aka Mother Nature and we need to protect and cherish her. Appreciate Mother Nature like the Na'vi and Wear our unique Earth Day Gear to spread the word. I can see a future where those who have become green aspire to become an even more sublime hue... blue.

Who Are You?!

Thanks to CafePress, I put some more Rock and Roll Artwork on my agenda. I couldn't resist the opportunity to create Fan art for t-shirts and gift items commemorating The Who. The Who were one of my Favorite Bands when I was a teenager. I bought everyone of The Who's albums... then the cassettes. Actually, I even had a couple of 8 Track Tapes. Yep, I'm dating myself now. Anyway, I did a series of variations based on The Who design above which features England's Union Jack and the slogan Absobloodylutely. Check out Teenaged Wasteland, Who are you, My Generation, The Kids are Alright and of course... Won't get fooled Again.

Another one of My Who designs features The Who Magic Bus on t-shirts and more. This Who Fan art features a doubledecker decked out in  England's Flag sporting the slogan The Kids are Alright.  This design was a lot of fun to create. Check out My Generation with guitar at the back of the double decker. Be sure to Catch the X69. Long live Pete Townshend, Roger Daltry, John Entwistle, Kenney Jones. Also- We'll Never Forget Keith Moon. This Who design features the British Royal Air Force Roundel. We have another variation that doesn't.  THA 111. Be sure to Celebrate the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Band that is The Who with Mudge Studios Rockin' Cool Who Gear at CafePress.com/MudgeStudios. Classic Rock will always Live On.

 Well, that about wraps up my Rock and Roll Shop at CafePress. I hear that CafePress will be licensing additional bands and musicians in the future. I'd love to see them get The Clash, Elvis Costello, etc. In the meantime, I did a couple of quick Maroon 5 designs that were recently added to my Mudge Studios' Shop.

2010 In Like A Tiger

Well, it's January first 2010! Becki and I had a great time last night visiting both family and friends, but now it is the time to get back to the drawing board. Thought I start the year off with a couple of designs commemorating the Year of the Tiger. No, not that Tiger Woods guy.

The Tiger I am celebrating comes to us courtesy from Chinese Astrology or better yet the Chinese Zodiac. The Tiger Person is quite often honest and outgoing by nature. Tiger People are charismatic members of one of the most admired signs of the Chinese Zodiac. Quite often Tigers become leaders. Tiger People also love being the center of attention. Tigers have no problem speaking out against wrong doings. Check out our Cool Year of the Tiger 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926, 1914 t-shirts, stickers & More at Mudge Studios' Zazzle Shop. I've posted two designs. The first Year of the Tiger design features a more traditional style with a noble Tiger portrait including all of the Tiger years starting from 1914 to 2010. My other Tiger design features an Awesome Tiger Footballer in 3 point stance ready to dominate on the Football Field. These Year of the Tiger novelties make for GGGreat Tiger Gift Ideas for Proud Tiger People. Check out just a few Tiger Designs below.

Tigers Rock! Best wishes for a promising New Year from Mudge Studios.