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Good Luck Trolls

Good Luck Troll dolls were a huge toy fad in the 1960’s and then again in the late 1980’s- 1990’s.   Whether you love them or hate them, chances are pretty good that you had at least one of these colorful little toys or knew someone else who did 🙂  I had quite a few myself and I loved playing with their super fun hair.

In 2016, Dreamworks will be releasing an all-new Trolls movie and they are currently sponsoring a Threadless design challenge inspired by the original Good Luck Troll dolls.

I submitted a few designs for the challenge and thought that I would share their trolly sillyness with everyone.

The first design that I created is centered around space and astronauts.  While I don’t think they ever released any actual space dolls, I couldn’t resist sticking one in a cute spacesuit.  I think that their hair would be awesome in zero gravity 🙂

Space Trolls | treemanJAKE for Threadless

The next one that I created was inspired by all of the fun 80’s tees that I had when I was growing up.  Rainbows, stars and colorful characters ruled my wardrobe in the 80’s 🙂

Good Luck Trolls | by treemanJAKE for Threadless

Finally, I decided to embrace the trolls’ cute side with this sugary pink design:

Troll Dolls Shirt | by treemanJAKE for Threadless challenge

 

Check them out!  https://www.threadless.com/@treemanjake

Works as Designed

As a tribute to all of the super awesome and nerdy developers in the world (my hubby included,) I created this silly little design for Threadless.  It is a sarcastic play on the classic programmer “excuse” that a defect isn’t a bug.. it’s a “feature” of the software 🙂

Check it out on Threadless!  http://bit.ly/1WkO8ET

I'm a feature... not a bug

Book Nerd Man

It’s a bird… It’s a plane… No!  It’s Book Nerd Man!

I finished a couple nerdy book illustrations this week – one for Threadless’ Nerds Rule challenge and the other just for fun (because I’m pretty much a super nerd myself.)

Here is my nerdy orange “Read Me” book man illustration…

Read Me | Cute Book Illustration by treemanJAKE

And here is the version that I submitted to Threadless…

Book Nerd | Nerdy Book Illustration by treemanJAKE | for Threadless

 

Book Nerd Man is so super happy.

I posted the orange version to Society6 in case anyone is interested.  The blue one will be posted later if it isn’t selected for Threadless… but I’m really hoping it will be 🙂

Reading Makes Us Awesome

I was so excited about the supreme dorkiness of my latest Threadless submission that I decided to upload it immediately to Society6 🙂  I tweaked the design to make it more kid-friendly and added a geeky girl version as well.

I really want to get a few of the mugs for teacher gifts this year 🙂

If you want your own geeky goodness, you can find the nerdy girl version HERE and the geeky guy version HERE.

 

Nerd Girl |Reading Makes Me Awesome

 

Nerd Guy - Reading Makes Me Awesome

 

Sparkle Bunny

I’m reworking some old illustrations and just finished the new and improved “Sparkle Bunny!”  Sparkle Bunny is a character inspired by a short story that was written by my awesome sister, Natalie 🙂

Sparkle Bunny Illustration

I uploaded it to my Society6 shop if anyone is interested!!

The X-Files

Occasionally I get so excited about the extreme awesomeness of a project that I totally psych myself out and screw it all up.  I feel like nothing I do could possibly be good enough so nothing I do ends up being good enough (at least in my very picky eyes.)  It’s a self fulfilling prophecy… and it’s extremely annoying.  The X-Files design challenge at Threadless is a perfect example of this unfortunate occurrence 🙂

When the challenge was announced, I yelped with excitement.  In my eyes, The X-Files is the greatest show in the history of television.  It sits atop an untouchable pillar of incredible awesomeness and nothing can ever compare to it.  Firefly comes close… but The X-Files will always remain at the very tippy top.

I played around with a million different designs and just ended up with a huge pile of frustration.  It was impossible for me to create a worthy tribute to a show that had been elevated to such a high level of awesomeness in my mind.  I finally decided that I just needed to step back and have fun with it 🙂

I ended up submitting 4 designs.

The first one was a super simple black and white spaceship design with the iconic phrase “The Truth is Out There.”

The X Files Threadless Submission

 

I also submitted a revised version of that design with a little more detail:

The X Files Threadless Submission | treemanJAKE

Next is an homage to the Black Oil 🙂

The Black Oil | Trust No One| X-Files Design Challenge submission | treemanJAKE

Finally, I created a logo for the fictional baseball team featured in “The Unnatural” episode:

Roswell_Grays_Threadless| treemanJAKE

If you want to check out my submissions on Threadless, take a peek at my Threadless profile (or click on the individual pictures above that take you directly to the submission pages.)

Despite the fact that nothing turned out the way I had hoped, I ended up having a lot of fun with this challenge.  We started rewatching The X-Files on Netflix (thanks Netflix!) and I can’t wait until the premiere of the new X-Files miniseries!!!!!!!!

Always Learning

I am a super nerd.  I love to take classes and I absolutely love the challenge of learning new things.

I recently discovered Skillshare.com and I am completely and totally obsessed with it.  It has a bazillion fun mini classes on everything from baking to business to design… and it is absolutely perfect for someone like me who craves new things and new ideas.

One of the most recent classes that I took was “Learn to Draw Digitally: Create Cute Drawings Using Basic Shapes” by Shelley Seguinot.  I was surprised by how much I learned in this class and I have already used the techniques on a number of projects.

I have a strange obsession with angels so one of my first projects was this cute and colorful angel standing on a bed of puffy clouds.   I  might have to pull some of these elements as inspiration for my Christmas cards this year!

Angel Illustration | treemanJAKE

 

I also created this fun family tree portrait for a Family Tree Challenge that Skillshare hosted in August.  To my surprise and delight, I won grand prize in the challenge and snagged a year of free Skillshare classes 🙂  Nothing better than that!Hernandez Family Tree by treemanJAKE

My Skillshare profile has links to all of the projects I have been working on if you want to check them out!  https://www.skillshare.com/treemanjake.

I’m sure that there will be many more posted in the future 🙂