T-shirt Ill-snow-tration

A friend asked me to design a t-shirt for a High School youth group snow trip. The parameters: Make it cool, humorous (possibly involving a chihuahua), limit 3 colors.

Step 1:  comb the ether for color, typographic and layout samples as well as images to base my vector illustrations on.

Step 2: Take chihuahua model into PS to clean up. I realized before I got too far into the cleanup that the t-shirt would lend itself well to a symmetrical design which would cut the vector time in half. Thanks, Von. I played with the levels sliders to help find relevant details in the pooch’s face.

Step 3: Vectorize!

Step 4: Play with type and color.