HAWAIIAN SHIRT DESIGN

                               To trace a Hawaiian shirt  ,Create a  pattern  ,button and design a Aloha label using tools and assets in Adobe Illustrator CC.

                           I'm Gokul Chellamuthu and I do Art and Design foundation program in GBC .This project is part of our course (Introduction to Digital Media). We were assigned to design pattern and aloha label for  a Hawaiian shirt from the scratch. It was quite a Fun project. Learnt a lot while working with different tools and Assets. I'm sharing my work flow and creative process of this project.

               Software used : Adobe illustrator CC.

              For this project I wanted to create a design that's unique and embedded in my culture. Being a South - Indian , back home my family followed many superstitious believes . One of them particularly came to my mind .We draw this demon like faces with long mustaches and markings to ward of "Evil Forces ". We call them  "Dhristi Bomma " in our language . Fun fact, When you visit South India by any chance You will encounter these scary looking faces drawn in a coconut or a pumpkin and hanged around . 

                  I started the project by placing the Hawaiian shirt provided in a new layer and made it a template there by making it easier to trace. After this , I created  a new layer and started tracing the shirt using Pen tool and pencil tool inter-changeably. after tracing the parts of the shirt layer by layer . I used the curvature tool to adjust the corners and made changes . After tracing the shirt , I started working on my pattern . I hid the shirt layer and started making my Pattern art . 

     For the pattern I started drawing the guidelines for the demon face using ellipse , rectangle and pen tool . After creating the guideline to get the preferred shape I used  shape builder tool to crop out the the insides and made adjustments using curvature tool . 

After cropping out the insides and making adjustments .I started creating  the facial features using pen , ellipse and brush tools .

 I started coloring the pattern by layers which made it easier for me. After coloring and finishing touches . I started  creating the pattern . i selected my art and using the objects menu i made pattern . 

Now that the pattern is created , Its time to apply the pattern to the shirt . First and Foremost  I colored the shirt red . Then , I chose each different layers and applied the pattern using the appearance panel. I duplicated the fill layer and filled it with my pattern from swatches panel. I repeated the same process till every layer was filled with my pattern , but there was a catch . Every pattern aligned together perfectly which is so unnatural. Thanks to rotate and reflect tools I changed the alignment of the patterns and changed the colour in the insides of the shirt. To add shadow to the shirt I copied the collar and pasted in the back . filled it with black without strokes and reduced the opacity by 50% and added gaussian blur to achieve the shadow . I repeated the same for insides . After making adjustments and touch ups the shirt is done. 

 After finishing  , I started working on the Button . I used ellipse tool  for the base . and drew 4 circles placed them in a pattern on the base. I then made holes using the shape builder tool by subtracting the circles into holes. I copied the base twice and made 3 layers for the button . I filled the third layer with black with no strokes  and reduced the opacity by 50% and gave the layer gaussian blur to achieve the shadowy look . now for the threads  I drew a line using line tool and using appearance panel i created sublayers by duplicating strokes with varying density to achieve the neon look , then i saved the thread to graphic styles and made multiple threads using it . i used radial gradient to finish it up. 

Now finally , Its time to create the Aloha label. I found a stock image of a royalty free Linen material in Dribble. downloaded it and placed it in a new layer and started creating art directly over it. I drew a cute little "Dhristi bomma" for the logo . For the typography I went with Graffiti font I found in Adobe stock. and drew a rectangle over the art work and typography.  Using stroke panel I changed the strokes to dashed line, therefore creating the stitched look. For achieving the authentic  look I found some washing symbols in the dribble without background and placed it in the label.

                     Now its time for the avengers (pun intended) to assemble. After days of hard work it was so rewarding to see my work completed . I added the buttons to the shirt and placed the label using direct selection tool and envelope distort . I named the shirt " Vibin with demons " . I used type tool for the typography and arranged the final product , pattern ,button and Aloha label together. 

                             This project helped me in many ways. I had an opportunity to use wide range of tools and assets . I learnt the process of designing products from the scratch. representing my culture using art is what I strive and this project gave me a chance do it. It was difficult in the start to learn using different tools . Thanks to guidance from Jim and my peers I  learned a lot and now I'm confident about my skills in illustrator. I'm not completely satisfied with the final product. Lots of things to learn and long way to go as an artist. Thank you for watching my project and check out my profile for my other works as I plan to post my Art works and creative projects.