MERCH & IMAGE BREAKDOWNS
LAST EDITED: 03.05.26
AT THE END OF EVERY SECTION is a VIDEO PLAYLIST of ALL OF THE PRODUCT BREAKDOWNS (that have videos), and also THE FULL LIST OF ALL PRODUCTS AND CATEGORIES so you can get to what you came here for easily. Each section should have a comments section if you have any comments or suggestions on that design or the products. OR YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE STORE.
Graphic design one of the thing I've come to do, and after having done it for a little while, I gotta say, it's pretty fun to do... when you're doing it for your self. Building your own brand is a whole other world, so if you're on that path, here's some of the behind the scenes in the whole "clothing brand" side of Samurai Ruach. Designing is great, and the most fun part for me, and maybe for you too, but I have to do all of the other parts as well, and unless you have a team or some top notch AI agents, it becomes a balance and battle of staying motivated to set goals and do all of the boring crap that "someone" has to do but there's no one but you to do them... staying inspired to keep creating and keep the fire and passion for what you love doing... even staying on top of things like technology in your field and trending themes. If you're into doing print-on-demand, there's keeping tabs on the leading products, methods, and companies, I get into a lot of these things, and you see it in real time, in the videos. Not only that, but if you were looking for the meanings to the designs-- because there's a lot packed into them, and how they were done, you're in the right place. I've done some written blog posts if you're a reader, and because of how things are as far as living situations, doing videos ended up being faster, so here's both.
CHARLIE BEATS was a quick design, but not quick at the same time. THE NAME is essentially what the design is-- a mix of Charlie Brown and beat-making (producing): Charlie... Beats-- two things I enjoy. Yeah, I'm more of a Calvin & Hobbes individual, and even more of a Far Side than C&H, but the Peanuts gang was always cool and calm. THE IMAGE i did it in photoshop. I do pretty much all of the designs in photoshop. Again, it was quick but not. Quick because i knew what i wanted. I wanted the feel of the "Charlie Brown shirt" but a hip hop version, in a sense. Instead of the regular zig-zagging stripe, I wanted a drumtrack waveform, and one that could even possibly be playable if there's an app or something that could read it. Not quick, because getting it to be HOW i wanted it to be was tricky. I'm thinking (not sure) that it may be a waveform image of the Clyde Stubblefield "Funky Drummer" break (solo), which is one of the most iconic drum breaks of all time, if not, it's in the top 5. I got the sample of the break from the HAMMERHEAD Rhythm Station (Drum machine) which is one i started using back in the late 90's (1998, 1999?) or early 2000's when I first got Sonic Foundry Acid (Now ACID PRO), and started doing music. So, yes, if you know how to read waveforms, you can read this shirt and hear the drumtrack play. HOW'D I DO THAT? First I played the sample of it I had from ACID and took a screen shot, but then I got an idea to separate it all, doing the kicks and snares in black, and running some high hats/cymbals (i know, two different things) also inside of it in a lighter (that gray) color. Then getting those to line up was tricky. I think I did ok. It's one of those things that IYKYK, but you should know now since I just told you. I figure producers, musicians, and maybe even drummers might dig it.
The song below the Clyde Stubblefield video, is just a song I did, chopping up some bit of the iconic Charlie Brown theme song, "Linus and Lucy". The theme song was composed and performed by American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi in 1964, and first appeared on the album Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown and became the signature theme for the Peanuts animated specials. For some reason, in my head, Charles Mingus plays it, but that might be a Mandela Effect or something. I dunno.
This section written 02.26.26- last edited 02.26.26
THE BLACK KNIGHT is more of a style than a design, like the AGNINADI styled items. I guess you could call it something in the realm of a textile or swatch? A pattern? It's made of different shades of chainmail, with paisley to counter it, and plaid detail/edging. Pretty simple in a way, but you have to balance it correctly or it won't match. Too much of one, and it overpowers quickly, and can even look boring, or make the counter pattern look misplaced or unbalanced (naturally). Chainmail was always a cool thing to me. It was always like a person wanted scales, like they wanted the same protection as the dragons they were about to go to battle with. No, this isn't actual linked chainmail-- that might get heavy, but it looks cool, especially with the other patterns accenting it.
THE NAME? It just seemed fitting, since it's like a medieval jersey (pattern). Ironically, there's no Black Knight character in the series... yet. I know, DRAGONS, but no black knight. Meh.
THE DESIGN was honestly all about chainmail. Not chain letters. Chainmail, like suits of armor. I still have a project to do concerning this, which is building a jersey that's a samurai suit of armor. I just have to design the pieces separately, but this was a bit of a test run to see how the chain would come out, and i like it. I added the paisley to give it a little more edge, and then some plaid as a finer detail. It all worked really well... says me. The tricky part, or A tricky part, is keeping the aesthetic of it. Adding color would throw off the whole vibe. Some you can get away with, but the metal look has to be just right: the right amount of shading, highlight, "shine"... so that the gold looks gold and not yellow, or that any detail in a black mesh would even show up. I still have to work with this one more. There's only a few designs that I used it with. I guess it's a limited edition kind of thing.
This section written 02.28.26- last edited 02.28.26
SOFTWARE? Photoshop. There was a whole "back and forth" process for this design. I did a sketch and then put that into Chat GPT. Then the image i got from Chat GPT i put into photoshop and fine tuned to get what i really wanted. I knew what I wanted in the image, so it wasn't much to it to do. I'm still working with this copy of Photoshop 6.0, so, yeah, whatever you're using is probably way better, so I expect you to do way more, way faster than me. I'm using what I have... that will actually work. I do still have the drawing tablet that works well... whenever THE HORSE (the laptop) decides to run it... properly. Sometimes it will run, but won't show me the icons/tools, or other features just turn off. Other times, even though I didn't do anything differently, it runs flawlessly. It's very frustrating, so unless I'm mentally prepared for that heartache and headache, I'll just do it the more tedious way in photoshop, using the mouse.
When it comes to using AI (GPT) it does that 80% - 90% thing, where it gives you like 80-90% of what you actually wanted, and then when you try to get it more exact, it goes in the other way just to piss you off and use up all of your credits or whatever (if you don't have a paid plan. If you do, it just messes with you because it's getting paid to do that. You paid it.).
THE DESIGN? It's a robot, representing AI (because that's what robots run on, even if it's simple basic programming), and the robot is dunking a human skull and spine. It's funny to me in a sarcastic, maybe even satirical way. The while idea of how that jump-man was first Jordan, which was representing one of the peak athletes in his prime, soaring, a master of his game-- now replaced by AI, and the AI is dunking him away. In a sense, humanity is the game-- not AI as most people would think, and it's being played out by itself, using AI. It's not really that deep.
I was going to be all technical and count out the spinal cord and vertebrae, but it didn't have to be that serious. ONE REASON I put THE SPINE in was because of Chrism Oil, and spiritual enlightenment. People go to AI for that now. Most of humanity, humanity's spine, it's backbone, is becoming more and more dependent on AI, and it's like humanity can't stand on it's own anymore, so... the spine. A headless, spineless humanity.
As far as the "full logo" with text, there were two designs done. The first one was the character (dunk-bot?), and the second one was just the text. Because Printful uses layers, I could then resize each piece (figure, and text) separately to get different effects (different color image and text), and placements (text above, behind, below, etc.)... but to have the whole design be more uniform I did a second one with the robot and text all on one image. Graphic designers do things like that. Most people who are not graphic designers would just do one design. The way I was taught to think was to make the design to look great in black & white, in multi-color, large, small, and everything in between-- which is why when you pa graphic designers to do things they give you so many options. We have to make sure that we cover all bases for you, and you image looks good on: t-shirts, fliers, business cards, letterhead, websites, billboards, stickers, pencils, etc. I bet that's why AI gives you the option to do 4 generations at once. Either way, i was making sure that i designed enough to work with the 5 layers that PRINTFUL gives you to work with. ALSO, some of the designs i was told to add the words "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" so that people don't confuse AI (Artificial Intelligence) with AI (Allen Iverson) since it's a basketball'ish logo.
Here's a thing that bothers me... kind of a lot: "AI Artists" or the people claiming to be that. Stop doing that. If anything, you're a PROMPT writer, not even a coder, because it's not even code. You have to learn a whole lot more to learn to write code. Sesame Street can teach you to write a prompt. The AI does all of the work. If anything, the AI is the artist. It really bothers me when it comes to music, because music is such a universally soulful thing... or it can be. I only bring it up because this shirt pokes fun at that concept [of being an "AI ARTIST"]. Even more [disgusting?] is how people have businesses being content creators, and how they're flooding the market to make money, meanwhile, they have no love or passion, or event he slightest interest in what they're selling and/or making the AI "create" or put together. Because of that, the people who are trained to do those things, who are also passionate about that field, are being overlooked and underpaid, washed out by the AI oversaturation. It's the whole soul and spirit of humanity being sucked out, and the shell of it being fed a photocopy of it, and not even a good one. That's one of the messages at the heart of this shirt.
Written 11?.??.25 .... last updated 02.26.26
VESTI LA GIUBBA (e la faccia infarina. La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.)... Honey of a quote, ain't it?! There's a video and a whole playlist just for this, which is below. This phrase is kind of where the RUGPULL design came from, why THE ZEPHANIAH CHESTERFIELD PROJECT, and why a lot of other things... for me. ay it for me, and when it lifts someone else up, and they thank me for it, then that will be the kickstart i needed to get back into the positive zone. T-shirts do that. It's one of the reasons I do t-shirts-- to say the things people can't, but want to, or need (to).
THE MESSAGE is a quote from PAGLIACCI the opera, which says:
"(Vesti la giubba)......... Put on your costume
(e la faccia infarina)... and apply make up to your face.
(La gente paga,)......... The people pay,
(e rider vuole qua.)..... and they want to laugh.".
What all of that means to me, if you didn't see the explainer video about the lineup, is how you have to put on your face (makeup your mind) and also build your self physically and tangibly (body & soul) to play this game. By "play this game" i mean come to this world as a human being (makeup and costume), where people pay (trade currency & current-see) by way of soul and spirit energy transactions, thinking of thoughts (currency) to manipulate reality (current-see), because they WANT to laugh, or have a good time, make memories, and gain on their investment in conscious being, because we're all staring down the barrel of eternity which is a loooooong time to not have anything fun or good or light to look back on. SO, get yourself right, and be your honest self, live and be that, so you can enjoy the show (this war-- in and of the mind). C'est la vie (that's life and living it), la guerre (the war/ the mind), et le jeu (and the play/ the game).
THE DESIGN was done in Photoshop 6 like all of the others. I didn't record it because i wasn't thinking to, for one, and also because I was having so many issues with it, and memory-- it not wanting to save, and me going through that whole process of deleting things, clearing cache, etc.... that i was just happy to get it done. Get what done? OH, right... SO... (and this is in the video) what i had to do was, make a half black/half white paisley card to use as the background, and then an opposite one white/black for the reverse side, so that the image front and back would have one solid left side color, and one solid right side color. That's how one side of the shirt is black and the other side is white/silver. I used the same cards for the sleeves. Having both colors on one card saves layers-- as opposed to having one black layer and a white layer, they're both on the same layer as one solid image. THEN i redesigned the "3 SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIPS" chart image, and fused it with the "Creation of BEING(?)" image, so, again, there's two images made into one image to save layers. I took one of the masks from THE BOOK OF THE CLOWN (cover) from that book that i think is on Patreon, but nowhere else. It might still need to be worked on. Living took a turn when i was working on updating it, so, what's there is there.
I know there are a few videos in the playlist for this design. As of today (2.26.26) i probably still have videos of this design that need to get edited. Yay life. I still got time.
NOTE: The items above go from TRYANGLES (Clown) to TRY ANGLES (Mask).
VESTI LA GIUBBA (e la faccia infarina. La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.)... Honey of a quote, ain't it?! There's a video and a whole playlist just for this, which is below. This phrase is kind of where the RUGPULL design came from, why THE ZEPHANIAH CHESTERFIELD PROJECT, and why a lot of other things... for me. ay it for me, and when it lifts someone else up, and they thank me for it, then that will be the kickstart i needed to get back into the positive zone. T-shirts do that. It's one of the reasons I do t-shirts-- to say the things people can't, but want to, or need (to).
THE MESSAGE is a quote from PAGLIACCI the opera, which says:
"(Vesti la giubba)......... Put on your costume
(e la faccia infarina)... and apply make up to your face.
(La gente paga,)......... The people pay,
(e rider vuole qua.)..... and they want to laugh.".
What all of that means to me, if you didn't see the explainer video about the lineup, is how you have to put on your face (makeup your mind) and also build your self physically and tangibly (body & soul) to play this game. By "play this game" i mean come to this world as a human being (makeup and costume), where people pay (trade currency & current-see) by way of soul and spirit energy transactions, thinking of thoughts (currency) to manipulate reality (current-see), because they WANT to laugh, or have a good time, make memories, and gain on their investment in conscious being, because we're all staring down the barrel of eternity which is a loooooong time to not have anything fun or good or light to look back on. SO, get yourself right, and be your honest self, live and be that, so you can enjoy the show (this war-- in and of the mind). C'est la vie (that's life and living it), la guerre (the war/ the mind), et le jeu (and the play/ the game).
THE DESIGN was done in Photoshop 6 like all of the others. I didn't record it because i wasn't thinking to, for one, and also because I was having so many issues with it, and memory-- it not wanting to save, and me going through that whole process of deleting things, clearing cache, etc.... that i was just happy to get it done. Get what done? OH, right... SO... (and this is in the video) what i had to do was, make a half black/half white paisley card to use as the background, and then an opposite one white/black for the reverse side, so that the image front and back would have one solid left side color, and one solid right side color. That's how one side of the shirt is black and the other side is white/silver. I used the same cards for the sleeves. Having both colors on one card saves layers-- as opposed to having one black layer and a white layer, they're both on the same layer as one solid image. THEN i redesigned the "3 SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIPS" chart image, and fused it with the "Creation of BEING(?)" image, so, again, there's two images made into one image to save layers. I took one of the masks from THE BOOK OF THE CLOWN (cover) from that book that i think is on Patreon, but nowhere else. It might still need to be worked on. Living took a turn when i was working on updating it, so, what's there is there.
I know there are a few videos in the playlist for this design. As of today (2.26.26) i probably still have videos of this design that need to get edited. Yay life. I still got time.
VESTI LA GIUBBA (e la faccia infarina. La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.)... Honey of a quote, ain't it?! There's a video and a whole playlist just for this, which is below. This phrase is kind of where the RUGPULL design came from, why THE ZEPHANIAH CHESTERFIELD PROJECT, and why a lot of other things... for me. ay it for me, and when it lifts someone else up, and they thank me for it, then that will be the kickstart i needed to get back into the positive zone. T-shirts do that. It's one of the reasons I do t-shirts-- to say the things people can't, but want to, or need (to).
THE MESSAGE is a quote from PAGLIACCI the opera, which says:
"(Vesti la giubba)......... Put on your costume
(e la faccia infarina)... and apply make up to your face.
(La gente paga,)......... The people pay,
(e rider vuole qua.)..... and they want to laugh."
What all of that means to me, if you didn't see the explainer video about the lineup, is how you have to put on your face (makeup your mind) and also build your self physically and tangibly (body & soul) to play this game. By "play this game" i mean come to this world as a human being (makeup and costume), where people pay (trade currency & current-see) by way of soul and spirit energy transactions, thinking of thoughts (currency) to manipulate reality (current-see), because they WANT to laugh, or have a good time, make memories, and gain on their investment in conscious being, because we're all staring down the barrel of eternity which is a loooooong time to not have anything fun or good or light to look back on. SO, get yourself right, and be your honest self, live and be that, so you can enjoy the show (this war-- in and of the mind). C'est la vie (that's life and living it), la guerre (the war/ the mind), et le jeu (and the play/ the game).
THE DESIGN was done in Photoshop 6 like all of the others. I didn't record it because i wasn't thinking to, for one, and also because I was having so many issues with it, and memory-- it not wanting to save, and me going through that whole process of deleting things, clearing cache, etc.... that i was just happy to get it done. Get what done? OH, right... SO... (and this is in the video) what i had to do was, make a half black/half white paisley card to use as the background, and then an opposite one white/black for the reverse side, so that the image front and back would have one solid left side color, and one solid right side color. That's how one side of the shirt is black and the other side is white/silver. I used the same cards for the sleeves. Having both colors on one card saves layers-- as opposed to having one black layer and a white layer, they're both on the same layer as one solid image. THEN i redesigned the "3 SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIPS" chart image, and fused it with the "Creation of BEING(?)" image, so, again, there's two images made into one image to save layers. I took one of the masks from THE BOOK OF THE CLOWN (cover) from that book that i think is on Patreon, but nowhere else. It might still need to be worked on. Living took a turn when i was working on updating it, so, what's there is there.
I know there are a few videos in the playlist for this design. As of today (2.26.26) i probably still have videos of this design that need to get edited. Yay life. I still got time.
