Thursday, December 17, 2020

Society6 Apple Watches

 Fairly recently, Society6 added watches that you can put your design on. You have to reformat your design to fit into the watch, but they look really good! Here are a few of my designs on this Apple Watch:








They look so cute and hip! 
 
It does take time reformatting everything, so I haven't done any more besides these.
 
With Society6, you can't resize it to your liking most of the time. There's no tiling function, so you have to create many designs in different sizes to fit big items like duvets to small items like watches. Even if you create one huge design, it doesn't look right when you shrink it because some of the "good parts" get cut off. I have about 5 sizes for the same design. It's sooo time consuming because I have to move elements within the design around to get it to fit nicely on the items. It's like creating a new design each time. But Society6 has a lot of cool items you can put your designs on, so that's the tradeoff. Stuff that Zazzle doesn't have.

With Zazzle, they have a tiling function which makes it easier to put your design on most size items without having to recreate your design. They have probably over 100 items, too, so your time is spent putting your design on each item. Their tools aren't that easy, but once you figure it out, you can get your designs up much faster.

Here's a link to my Society6 shop if you want to see the items I have there: https://society6.com/kimberlyrobello?sort=random

Thanks for visiting!

 


 



Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Fabric Design With Fashion Illustration

I decided to put my fabric designs into my fashion illustration to see how it would look on a garment. I was happy with the way they turned out!







The program I used is Clip Studio Paint because that's what I use to make my comics. It's like Photoshop, but much less expensive!

I started out drawing on regular bond paper in a muted blue pencil. Then I painted the background in cobalt blue watercolor. The paper buckled because it's not watercolor paper and I wasn't planning on painting over the drawing when I started it. 

I went over it with a black Pentel ink brush pen and Micron .5 tip pen.

Then I scanned it in, imported it into CSP, rasterized the image, "cut out" the blouse area with the lasso tool, imported my fabric design, then put the layer under the drawing layer and sized the design to where I wanted it. I added a raster later over the drawing and added the extra lines and shadows over the blouse.

I chose the designs I thought would look really pretty on a blouse, but these designs could also be use in home decor like for pillows and wallpaper.

My favorite is the steel blue design with dots because I like steel blue and I look good in that color! Hahaha! I think a lot of people look good in that color regardless of skin tone.

A couple of these flower design fabrics are available for purchase in my Spoonflower shop. https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/planet_kimberly

The steel blue dotted fabric is available on My Fabric Designs, https://www.myfabricdesigns.com/Design/CreateFromGallery?id=59581

The other designs are not available for purchase yet, but will be next year in 2021.


Friday, July 24, 2020

Society6 Experience/Tips

I opened up a shop on Society6 recently. It has a lot of stuff that is different from Redbubble and Zazzle.

Uploading is not too bad. Maybe it's just my connection or my computer, but I noticed that some items took a long time to upload. When I refreshed the page, that seemed to do the trick and the page loaded pretty quickly. 

I noticed that if I clicked "Generate Preview" it took a long time and most times the image didn't even pop up. So I didn't even bother clicking that button after a while. I just clicked Save and Enable. You can see a preview of it on the main Upload page anyway. 

The images of the design on the items look beautiful, BUT in some images it is hard to gauge if the design is centered. It looks centered on the template, but the final item image looks skewed.

I had the hardest time with the leggings. It look a long time to load and the image on the template didn't look anything like the final image, so I just did not enable it on some of my items.

Once you edit the design on an item, it will ask you if you want the same edit to reflect on other items. It will list the items. When I first uploaded my design, I thought this feature was convenient, but later found that it was not properly centered on those other items. I had to go back to those other items to re-center them. 

For my last design, I decided not to save the edit onto other designs. It was like going in circles. For example, if I edited the design on a pouch, it would ask me if I wanted the edit to reflect on another item. The other item would be off-center, so I would have to change it. It would ask me if I wanted to save that edit to the pouch, if I clicked Enable to Other Item, the design on the pouch would be off-center. And so on. To avoid all that I just clicked Skip This Step. It might take longer to edit each item, so just be aware of it. Stuff like clothing usually is pretty close, so you can enable it for all of them.

The main pet peeve I have about Society6 so far is that I can't resize a repeat pattern on the items. Sometimes the image will be too big on some items. You can resize it, but the edges will be blank. There is no option to repeat the pattern. You also can't change the background color. You can do that in Redbubble and Zazzle, but not Society6.

Give yourself at least an hour to upload and edit each item on Society6. 

For me, uploading on Redbubble has gotten quicker, but when I first started uploading my first design on Redbubble, it took over an hour. 

Zazzle is the quickest to upload after you get the hang of it. BUT, Zazzle needs to approve all of your designs before you can sell it. For individual items, it takes at least 24 hours. There is a Quick Create function on Zazzle, but the approval time can take a month. So, what I try to do is upload one or two items every other day.

Here is a screenshot of a portion of my Society6 shop at present. I only have a handful of designs there since I haven't been with them for very long.


I'm very happy with the way the designs look on the products! They look so cute!

I hope this helps! Have a great day!



Tuesday, July 14, 2020

How I Make My Repeat Pattern Fabric Designs

After making repeatable surface patterns for a year (inconsistently, I might add), I thought I would post a rundown of how I make them. I might have posted something similar earlier, but it may be different since I've learned more things along the way.

I have a program called Clip Studio Paint (formerly Manga Studio) that I use to make my comics. Since I already have this and am comfortable with it, I use it to make patterns. It's like PhotoShop, yet cheaper. Sometimes they have deals going on. I think it was around $80 a few years ago. It's a one-time payment, not monthly like PS is. If you already know how to use PS, then you could probably learn to use this program quicker than I did since they're very similar.

I create my designs for Spoonflower, so I keep these dimensions written on a digital sticky note on my computer to refer to:

SPOONFLOWER uploads at 150 dpi: 

1200 x 1200 px = 4” x 4” canvas at 300dpi. 

It prints a 8” x 8” fabric swatch. (150dpi x 2 = 300dpi)


AND


1800x1800 px = 6” x 6” at 300dpi. It prints a 12” x 12” fabric swatch.


I start with drawing images that I want to use for my fabric design. Sometimes I draw directly in CSP, but most times I draw on paper first. If I draw on paper, I'll take a picture of it with my phone and text it to myself. I import the drawing into CSP, then draw over the image digitally. Recently, I've painted watercolor flowers for my designs.

Each drawing is done separately (usually in a 3"x3" square) because I will be rearranging them in Sketch. You can make many designs by changing the colors or arranging the images in different patterns.

Sometimes I have a color palette in mind. I look up color palette ideas online, usually on Pinterest and use similar groupings of colors of the ones I like.

I add the color to the images, then export each image as a PNG to the desktop.

Once all the images I want to use are done, I open Sketch and create a 1800px x 1800px square Artboard. I use these bigger dimensions for Spoonflower so that I can use it for wallpaper if I want to. I don't enable wallpaper for my designs yet because I heard that people steal wallpaper designs. 


The small square in this image is the Artboard I work with. The flowers to the right of that square are the PNG images I created and dragged in from the desktop. I arranged the images the way I wanted. 

For the images on the borders to repeat seamlessly, this is what I do:

Copy the image overlapping the border. 
Right click over the image. 
Select Paste Over. 
For any image on the left or right border, click in the X (X-axis) box in the upper right corner of the screen in Sketch. 
*Do not alter the numbers that are already in the box.* 
Click to the right of the number. 

If I want to continue the image from the left border to the right border, I would type in +1800 in the X-axis box next to the existing number. 
Hit Enter. 

The image will be pasted seamlessly on the right border.
If I want the image on the right border to be pasted seamlessly on the left border, I would type in -1800 in the X-axis box.
Remember, my square is 1800px x 1800px. That's the number I'm typing in the box. If your square has another dimension, you would type that number in the X-axis box.

For the images on the top and bottom borders, you would do the same thing, but type your numbers in the Y (Y-axis) box.
Copying and pasting a border image from the top to the bottom, you would type in a + before the number. In my case, I would type in +1800.
Copying and pasting a border image from the bottom to the top, you would type in a - before the number.

Don't forget to put in a background color after you're done arranging your images. To do this, go up to the Shape icon at the top of the screen. Select Rectangle. Drag it over your square until it is completely covered. Your images will be underneath it, so you will have to click on the word "Rectangle" on the left of your screen and drag the word to be placed under the names of all your images. While Rectangle is still highlighted, look on the right side of your screen under Fills and choose Color. Select your preferred color.

To test your image to see if it is repeatable, you need to first export that square Artboard as a PNG. 
Create another Artboard beneath your square. See my image above. The large rectangle is my "test" Artboard. It doesn't have to be a specific size. 

Create a Rectangle over it from the Shape icon at the top of your screen. 
While that rectangle is highlighted/activated, click on Image under Fills on the right side of your screen. 
Click on the icon that looks like a mountain with a circle. 
Below that, under Type, click on the drop down menu and choose Tile Image. 
In the small rectangle just above the words "Tile Image" is where you will drag your PNG that you just exported. Your image should appear in the large rectangle Artboard. 
Beneath the words "Tile Image" is the Size adjuster bar where you can change the size of the repeatable pattern to see how it looks. Zoom in on the repeated pattern until you see the very thin white border lines. Make sure the images are repeating perfectly along those border lines. Make corrections in your original small square, export the PNG and test it again.

It sounds like a lot, but after you get the hang of it, it goes faster and is pretty easy. I don't have PhotoShop and Illustrator, so I don't know if it's faster, slower, or the same as using those programs. 

Clip Studio Paint does not allow you to change the X and Y axis numbers, so that's why I have to use Sketch to do that. You can't draw in Sketch, so I use CSP for that.

You can test your repeatable pattern in CSP, but I rarely do that. I don't remember why I would do that in CSP, but if I remember, I will post about it.



You can also follow me on Instagram if you like: @kimberob4

Have fun!

Where my Smallkeedtime and Planet Kimberly blogs are going

When I originally started my Smallkeedtime blog, it was just to post my artwork. I started participating in Illustration Friday, so I mainly posted illustrations for that. 

I started novel and short story writing and thus created this Planet Kimberly blog for writing. After writing a novel, a middle grade book, and a kids book, I discovered that to marry my loves for writing and art, it would be best to create comics and graphic novels. 

Years down the line, I have a webcomic called Smallkeedtime Hawaii taken from the name of my other blog. I also create designs for fabric, shirts, and other products at my shops on Redbubble and Zazzle called Planet Kimberly.

So, I decided to separate the topics on these blogs. From here on out, I am going to post comic related stuff on my Smallkeedtime blog, design related stuff on this blog.

This may seem like an obvious choice to other people, but I haven't thought much about these blogs in years since I have been juggling all these things. It will take some time for me to dedicate changing the design/layout format of these blogs, but as far as posting, that will happen right away.

Thanks for sticking with me!


Thursday, June 18, 2020

Watercolor Skull Designs

So, I  painted some skull designs in watercolor and put them up on Redbubble and Zazzle under my Planet Kimberly shop name. They came out pretty cool looking! Here are a few samples of them. 

Sorry, they are not clickable. They are screen shots from my shop. 

The A-line dress is a slightly different version of what is up in the shop. 

If you're interested in seeing what else is available in these designs, here's my shop link to Redbubble. 

Just click on the image in the link and when it takes you to the item, there should be a link in words just below the pictures that says "View this design on +76 items." Have fun! I hope you find something you like!



Friday, June 12, 2020

Ukulele Boy and Hula Girl on Pink



These are screenshots of a few of the items I just posted on Redbubble. Matching bath mat and shower curtain. Cute laptop skin.
Link to my Redbubble shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/50147304?asc=u


I just started accounts with TeeSpring, Zazzle, MyFabricDesigns, and Society6 which I have not uploaded to yet.


They are Print on Demand (POD) sites that are not the same as drop shipping. I did some research on both types of shops and did not like the idea of drop shipping, so I went with the sites I just mentioned.


With drop shipping, the customer pays you, then you pay the company that makes and sends out the item with your design, then they send it to the customer. It just seems like more of a hassle that I want to go through right now even though you can make more money with drop shipping. I just want to focus on designing and creating comics. It's possible that I might change my mind later, but for now I'll leave the drop shipping alone.