Miskatonic University Expedition T-Shirts

I've had a few people ask me about getting T-shirts with the Miskatonic University expedition logo, so I've set up a shop on Zazzle with the design on a few different items.



I'm a little leery of the print quality offered by places that do on-demand work, so I've ordered one of everything to see for myself if the stuff is decent. If it pans out I'll put a permanent link up in the "Crass Commercialism" column. Until then you can check out the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition gallery over here, but I'm not going to encourage anyone to buy anything until I can see for myself if it's worth laying out your hard-earned cash.

Shiny

It's been a busy week.

The ATMOM decals look gorgeous! I ordered them on Wednesday and, thanks to my proximity to the manufacturer, they were in my hands today. Here's what they look like next to one of the classic-style ATMOM patches:



I'm really happy with how these came out. They're intended to be freebies that I can include when I mail out other stuff, but I'm going to toss a few up on Ebay just to see if there's some interest. I can put up a PayPal link up here if anyone wants some. Unfortunately, I'm once again running into the bane of my business model- shipping. Because I want everything to be as cheap as possible the charges for actually mailing them out become a huge percentage of the total cost. Postage and a mailer for one decal alone will run just under a dollar, so I'm going to price the decals at 4 for $2 so they're reasonably cost effective.

I've ordered the new ATMOM patches and should have final artwork approval next Monday or Tuesday, final sewout approval by next Friday, and the patches in my hands by the week after Thanksgiving. Then I'm going to try and sell every single one of them during the first week in December.

Finally, I'm going to try selling a bundle of my ATMOM props next week. I was kinda bummed that there wasn't enough interest to support doing a print run of the Antarctica map, but I think in combination with a variety of other items the perceived value will be a lot higher.

Dornier Wal Manual Page

One of the nice things about my particular collecting obsession is it's flexibility. There are only a few specific items described in "At the Mountains of Madness", so I'm free to use a lot of conjectural material. Case in point: anything related to the Dornier-Wal.

Lovecraft doesn't mention the plane specifically, but the description of the expedition's aluminum hulled seaplanes matches the Wal perfectly. They were the aircraft Roald Amundsen used for his attempt to fly to the north pole and it's generally accepted by scholars that Lovecraft used contemporary accounts of the flight as an inspiration. That's why the Wal is featured on my patch, and it's one of the reasons I've started collecting Wal memorabilia. The others being that it's just an insanely cool example of period design as well as the perfect aircraft for all kinds of 30's era pulp adventuring.

It's going to be a while before I can lay my hands on an actual owners manual, so I came up with this excerpt to tide me over. It's based on scans from the real manual produced by the Marina di Pisa factory in Italy where the plane was manufactured.

And It Continues...

I think this is going to be the final version of the redesigned expedition logo:



Here's the black and white version:



Again, it's basically the same design as the original, but with a few subtle differences. I discovered that the "Frutiger" font I used in yesterday's iteration wasn't actually developed until 1975. After a little more research I replaced it with a weighted version of "Futura", which became available in 1927. It has the same clean lines, but has the advantage of being more historically accurate.

Well, as accurate as a fake expedition patch based on an almost eighty year old story about hyper-evolved starfish aliens in the Antarctic can be.

I also made some small adjustments to the graphic elements of the design. The Dornier Wal is slightly larger and I tweaked it's proportions to make it stand out a bit more. The "South Pole" star is a five-pointed star instead of the six-pointed one in the original design as well as being larger and slightly rounded. Yes, that's a nod to the imagery of the story.

The black and white version of the logo received even more tweaks and became a considerably better graphic in the process, in my humble opinion. The bold black outer band really stands out while also providing some needed bleed space for when it's converted into a sticker. I enlarged the Wal graphic just a smidge more and think it really pops out now. One of the side benefits of the extensive black space is that it will be easy to transfer the logo onto physical objects- just run off a photocopy with the image reversed and you'll be able to do a heat or solvent transfer onto almost anything.

As always, I'd appreciate your feedback. Barring any major problems brought to my attention I'll be ordering both the new embroidered patches and a black and white decal set this week so I can have them available in time for Christmas.

Update: In response to an emailed question- Yes, the designs and artwork are covered by the Creative Commons license down at the bottom of the page. You're free to grab 'em, use 'em, and abuse 'em with just a few minor restrictions you can find at the CC site. Basically it boils down to providing an attribution, releasing any derivative works under the same CC license, and not selling any products that use the artwork. You can click on the pictures above to get high-rez versions. I'll have the full vector files up by the end of the month.

Update: Someone asked about my photocopy comment above. You can transfer the image from a toner-based photocopy or laser printer onto another object using either heat or a solvent. You can find tutorials on how to do it here and here.

And So It Begins...

Yesterday I thought it might take me a week to have the initial redesign of the Miskatonic expedition patch finished, but thanks to my pain induced inability to sleep it's done already.



And the black and white version:



It has a little more of an art deco feel thanks to the font and the stylized Dornier Wal, but it's basically the same design. I'm going to experiment with some additional elements and the color scheme to jazz it up a bit and take it in an even more deco direction. I'd also be interested in hearing any feedback or suggestions you might have via the comments below or email since I'm going to try something a little different with this design: I'm going to give it away. I still intend to make a little scratch selling items based on the design, but when it's finalized I'll release all the source files under a Creative Commons license. That way you'll be able to do anything you want with it, including remixes and mashups of the design or incorporating it into other artworks, as long as it's for non-commercial use and includes an attribution.

Stylized Dornier Wal

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The worst because I wrenched my shoulder on Friday and I've been in excruciating pain since then. It turned out to be a simple case of tendonitis, but even with pain killers and ice packs I've only been able to sleep for an hour or so at a time and my left arm is effectively non-functional.

The best because my inability to sleep has forced me to keep busy at the computer learning the ins and outs of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Up until Friday I've been producing all the graphics you see here with a ten year-old copy of Paint Shop Pro. Since then I've distracted myself from the red hot iron poker lodged in my shoulder by starting to explore what the Adobe products can do. As I mentioned yesterday, the learning curve is very steep, but I'm already getting a feel for just how powerful the programs are. Here's the first pure Adobe project I've completed: a stylized Dornier Wal aircraft for the new version of the ATMOM Miskatonic expedition patch.



It still needs some tweaks, but after hearing all kinds of horror stories about how difficult Illustrator was to use I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to bang this out two days after I started learning the program. One of the recurring bits of feedback from the original patch is that folks wished the Wal replaced the rather generic aircraft featured in the original. Since this graphic is probably the most complex part of the revised patch I suspect I'll have a finished version for your perusal by the end of the week.

Elder Thing On Ice, And A Meltdown

Here's the final version of the Elder Thing snapshot, at least for now.



On one hand, I really like it. It fills in a big gap in my "At the Mountains of Madness" collection and it's particularly convincing in actual print form.

On the other hand, I hate it. It's one of the best photo retouching jobs I've ever done, but that's not really saying much. I became incredibly frustrated while making it because I lacked the skills and experience to make the vision in my head a reality on the screen. I know the learning process is based on making continual, incremental improvements, but I'd be a lot happier if my increments were a bit larger.