05/31/14 - Overwatch Apparel - Site is almost there!

Mark Lim - I spent a good portion of the morning working on building our website. I ran into a couple problems with image file sizes being so big so I had to remove some of the textured backgrounds so it loads faster.

Here's a screenshot of the live site: (www.OverwatchApparel.com)

If you look at This Post from yesterday you'll see the mock up I did and compare. You can see that I ended up removing some stuff to optimize it for load time.

There's still a lot of little bug things that need to ironed out and some bios that I need to write but it's getting there!

05/31/14 - Overwatch Apparel - Weekend Activities!

Mark Lim - It looks like this weekend is going to be jam packed with Overwatch Apparel stuff which is good because I'd probably just sleep all day and play Clash of Clans which I seem to suck really bad at anyway. I think my fingers are too fat to click precisely on my stupid Iphone 4.

Ok, so the first task I have to do this weekend for Overwatch is to actually build the website. I designed it a couple hours ago but actually building it is whole other pain in the ass. It'll probably take me the entire day to finish the site.

I also want to level up this blog too. Right now it looks like this:

It looks pretty crappy but if I have time I will snazz it up with some jazz.

I was going to start designing a new shirt this weekend but it looks like my plate is full and we gotta lay the groundwork first.

One business tip I have for future self when i'm re-reading this either when I'm old and rich or poor and selling my organs on the black market is that I shouldn't give a shit.

What always has held me back with my old business is my fear of what people will perceive of me especially when I do creative work. It's hard to put yourself out there for people to judge but I just have to keep telling myself that no one gives a shit and that a key quality most successful people have is that they don't give a shit if others give a shit.

Does this now mean I'm going to wear sweat pants all the time? Yes. That's the price of success.

Hopefully this blog will look good tomorrow and I'll start posting stuff on facebook.
 

05/30/14 - New Website for OverwatchApparel.com!

Mark Lim - We put up a quick website for OverwatchApparel.com but nothing works yet.

We used some dummy images and Austin put a picture of him on the site and photoshopped a fake beard to hide a cold sore. It lead to another idea that we should wear tactical beards whenever we went to gun shows to promote shirts which I thought would be pretty funny, and itchy.

I wanted the site to be a little grittier and more detailed so I did another mock up for the site this evening:

I made 3 mock ups before this, each weirder than the last and decided to go with a basic boxy layout instead of the whole crazy wide open area look.

It'll probably be easier to build since it's pretty basic and it will be easier to convert to look good on smartphones.

I'll start working on skinning the site tomorrow morning so we can have it up over the weekend.

05/30/14 - Overwatch Apparel - New Design! Tactical Beard!

Mark Lim - Austin had to explain to me what a "Tactical Beard" was because I didn't get it. I guess it's like reverse hipster? I don't know. I just know I can't physically grow one. Anyway, here's the new design:

After much googling I now understand. Thank you, google.

05/29/14 - New Overwatch Apparel T-Shirt Design!

Mark Lim - It's been a really long time since I made a new shirt but I forced myself to draw and was able to come up with something. Since we're focusing on the 3 Percenter crowd I figured you can't go wrong with Guns and Skulls.

I forgot how much of a pain in the ass it is to make screens but after getting some new equipment and materials it was actually a piece of cake.

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Ok, now I'm going to write a little note to my future self to make my life a little easier for my next shirt. Mark, when you are planning to burn a screen with high detail, 180 mesh is not enough. You need 200 mesh, dummy!

And get a red photosensitive bulb for the freaking garage so you don't trip and fall over shit in the dark.

Also, don't go crazy on the hose. You end up blowing out all the detail.

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Here's a pic of the finished shirt:

I'll send this to Austin and see what he thinks of it.

05/28/14 - My First Gun!

Mark Lim - Yes! Austin got me a gun as a bonus and it's pretty awesome. You can tell how nerdy I am by the miniature figurines and terrain in the background.

It's a Taurus revolver and it shoots .357 and .38. I don't know much about guns but I point at stuff I want to explode. I did miss 2 questions on the handgun test. Something about the safety not being the primary safety measure and I forgot the other one, probably something like not loading the barrel with black powder and filling it with rusty nails.

I didn't end up getting to take the gun shooting with the guys at the office because I was really sick. I also didn't end up picking up my gun from Bullseye Sport at the specified time because they needed a utility bill as a proof or residence but my every bill in the damn house is under my wife's name. Everything else I pay electronically so I had to call the gas company to change the name on the account and send me it in the mail.

I had never been so happy to get a gas bill in the mail in my entire life.

Thanks Austin!

05/24/14 - Overwatch Apparel Another New T-Shirt Design by Austin!

Mark Lim - Here's another 3 Percenter shirt Austin made. This time it's a pretty blocky design:

I had a little trouble printing this at first because of the large format. I ended up separating the design on to two screens instead of trying to squish everything on to one. This allowed me to make a bigger design.

I think we got 125 mesh screens for this one because I knew it was going to be such a solid print. We probably should have got 80 mesh for a bolder print.

The original design was supposed to be a washed out gray but unfortunately I didn't have that color and McLogan's Screen Printing didn't have it either.

After watching some videos on YouTube I figured the best way to do a shirt like this would be through a process using discharge ink. (google that shit, it's pretty cool)

One thing that always bothered me with my screen printing machine is how limited I am on size. If I wanted to print something super large on the shirt I have to chop it up into separate screens.

Eventually, with Austin's help, I plan on building a custom T-shirt printing platform so I can make enormous prints.

Actually, I would also need to build a giant UV light box to burn the screens too. Damn.

Anyway, my Printa 770 is a pretty decent basic machine but I can't get too crazy with it. It's made me a ton of cool shirts in the past so I can't say anything bad about it but I just feel like the machine limits my creativity.