Turn a Blank Drawstring Bag Into a Penguin!

1. PenguinIntro skill: My name is Nick name Belsky, and I am a creativity educator. I teach both Children and adults in creativity, and my day job is an SL teacher. My nighttime job is a publisher and designer and one of the things I've done recently getting ready for. Actually, Valentine's Day from last year, I was creating a series of products based on one of my designs that I did almost 20 years ago. I used to be in the greeting card industry, and I took a heart design, and I put it on a bunch of different products. Ah, using one of those digital printing sites such as Red Bubble and Zazzle. This one was in red Bubble, and when I was applying the designs to the different products, I saw this one product that stood out and I was just like, This is the coolest looking design of a product that doesn't even exist, And what I do is I took the structure of the way. The is actually a bag is a drawstring bag, and based on the structure of how the photograph was taken, the way the bag was sitting there looked almost like to me, like a slouched penguin. So I took this design, which I'm gonna show you. Bring it up on the screen In just a few moments, you're going to see what I'm talking about. And what's really cool about this course is not only is it taking your design and show you hunted your design and putting on it another product or many products, but actually going a step beyond that and looking at the structure of the thing you're gonna be putting your design on. And so I'm so excited to share this with you. This process that I went through, it was I think it from concept to final piece probably took me six hours to do this. I'm gonna show you how I did it. I'm really excited how it turned out. I've got the finished piece. I'm gonna show you a little bit later, but it's taking something that you design, applying it to a product and going a step beyond that to make something really cool that both works as a design element and changes the whole idea, the whole concept of what this product is. So sit back and enjoy this. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and I'm gonna show you how to make your own drawstring bet 2. The Discovery: Welcome back. This is the beyond. This is the first class. This is the first section of the course And, um, just wanna let you know about the prerequisites. Any beginning student design student this is ideal for because it opens up your mind and do your thinking structure of how to design products. I am no expert, but I have over 30 years of design and product development under my belt. And, um, what's funny about this course is came totally unexpected. I mean, the idea for this product came out of designing for something totally different. I am a designer, greeting card illustrator, book publisher, author, illustrator have done so many different products. What's cool about this is anybody with an imagination can do this I have to do is open up your mind and see what's possible. Go beyond Just designing a T shirt to go beyond that is taking something that looks to me at least made it look like it to you. But to me, it looks like a penguin when I saw it. And so I'm gonna I'm opening up here on my website. I'm gonna go to my store and you're going to see just a glimpse of the products that I created with the Penguin. But I'm going to kind of bypass that and move right over to the area of how I got this idea about 30 years ago and created a ah, Siris of cards that featured some of my designs. And so I found Red Bubble Red Bubbles, one of the stores that I use. They used three different stores, actually two cells of my products, and I was taking this design right here. The love has no boundaries of love, knows no boundaries, and I was applying them to different products. As you can see, here's a T shirt. Here is a coffee mug and inverted T shirt, black T shirt, a man of this site, and I started creating my, um, my channel. I guess you'd say my my store. And, um, I went ahead and created this little graphic here, and then I started creating some imagery based on this design. So what the What it does is it gives you the um allows you to put your products on different different clothing and products, your design and different products. So that's all I was doing is just seeing how it looks in T shirts. I've got an iPad case O r yeah. Yada yada. Then I came to this guy right here. Hey, lips don't go anywhere. I came to this guy, So from far away tell me if you don't see it. I mean, I saw it immediately. I said, You know what? That kind of looks like a slouched over penguin. I mean, there's his feet and there's, you know, his head is leaning over, and I could just draw ahead. There may be a little penguin down here, and he's got some shed over here. And so it kind of looks like a penguin is crazy. It is probably you listening to me right now. I'm thinking, What is this guy thinking? I went with it and I So I I found a way to make it work. And that's how this whole class started. Um, in my mind, I saw the the Penguins slouched over. And so what? The final product is and you're going to see the actual product here in a second is this is what I came up with. And if you look at the just the structure of the bag. You can see that he looks like he slouched over, added. The the Finns or the flippers will be calm. He's kind of like the feet I had a little baby penguin, and that was the mom and her neck and everything. That's that's my design. That's the finished piece. That's what we're gonna finish up with. I'm gonna show you the whole process of how I got that blank canvas to this, and I love it. I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever designed. And I'm continuously now looking for products that Aiken design for those products. Imagine having a clock is they're just putting in design on a clock, making the clock, maybe an eyeball or maybe taking an iPad or a tote bag and creating a window or something using the structure, whether it's a box or a circle or drawstring bag. Create something out of the ordinary. And that's what I did here. And it was a heck of a lot of fun, and I have the finished piece. I'm gonna show you that a little bit later on, and that's it. That's where we're gonna do with this. This class. So we're gonna take something. You're going to see this process of how I got here. But in the project later on in this course, we're gonna do it for something else. We're gonna talk more about that later in the project course, so let's get started. 3. From Rough to Finished Piece: Okay, so I gotta tell you, this is really funny. I'm on the red bubble site. I'm looking at different, um, different products. And this one kind of stands out to me for some reason. I'm looking at it. I'm looking at it, especially from far away. I mean, tell me you don't see the same thing when you look at that, it looks like a penguin, doesn't it? So I thought would be really, really funny is to create a penguin out of that tote bag. Basically the outlines already there for me. So all I need to do is just add some artwork to the tote bag to make it look like a penguin . That's what I'm gonna do in this video. So I'm using This is one of my designs right now on a tote bag, along with some other things that I have but that from far away just really shouted out at me. That's the way I think that's what I love about being creative is that sometimes you look at something that just someone on the street would say, Hey, if it's a tote bag, But may I see something more than that? I see something that's funny. It's already got a little bit of a slouch. They're built into it. This looks kind of like the feet in a lot of ways I liken see right now is just drawing a little head right there that he slouched over and with his beak down. And then maybe some wings, some flippers down here, and that's it. And I'm gonna try and see what happens. And so you're gonna I'm gonna take you through that process of now. I just got that idea. I saw something out that I could do to make it look fun. And and, Ah, so what's my first was my first goal. Typically, people would write some notes down, and my first goal is okay. I've done a greeting card about penguins before, so I could either use that artwork, so I'm gonna take a look at that. So I found, um, my greeting card for Christmas, but it kind of looks like what I want to dio, but not quite so I might do something like over here. How that how that flipper comes down, but I really want him to be looking down to look the tote bag. Looks like he's slouched over, so I can't really use this card. So now the best thing for me to do is go to Google images and look up some famous Penguins that we can look at a zoo reference. Um, there's really nothing here that I like. I mean, they're all cute. Don't get me wrong, but there's really nothing here to use as a reference. I think I might actually just have to go for the rial thing. Let's see. Next thing I would look at this Happy feet. Are there any images and happy feet that could work? And I'm not really seeing anything here. Um, I remember that documentary and penguins. Let's see what else I confided. There's, um, penguins here. This is kind of what I'm looking for. Really Want the dead on straight on shot. Maybe something more like this. Ah, here. This is might be the one to do. So what it would do that is as a reference on Lee. This looks like probably the closest thing right now. In fact, I might even include that little guy in there as well. So I'm gonna click on that, do a screenshot which in MCAS command ship four. I think on the windows, it's just print screen. And now this is copy written. So I'm not going to take that image exactly. But I'm gonna do a variation of the image in my own illustrative sense. So let's use and people are just use this all the time. Everybody from Pixar Disney used reference materials that go out and look a live. They take pictures. The I mean, it's crazy. So, um, I don't worry about cop breaks. I'm not using the exact image, just a variation of my interpretation of this image. Um, So what we're gonna dio is it? Take a screen shot of that. I'm gonna go back in the photo shop and voter shop. Here is the image. I'm probably not going to use this exact one. In fact, they probably won't put any of the shading in and everything, but I just want the overall look to see if I'm making sure that I'm doing the right thing. Probably even change the color of the nose and make this is speak a little bit wider. So I didn't start a drawing earlier. Even before I looked at any image. I thought maybe I should go look at some images. So here is, um what I came up with this is the the actual tote bag in the background. And I thought, Well, maybe I just do something like this. If I go back to the other image, you can see that's almost all white here. And it was a little bit of black here and his head pretty symmetrical. So I don't even need that. Think I'd even need to look at this anymore, But it's a good gauge just to make sure that I'm doing it right. And this actually is a beautiful image by was a pale Hermanson. Um, so I'm gonna just see if I can come up with, um Design. So let's take a look at my drawing and I'm going to when I walk home into us, and I'm just going to start coming out the, um the only thing I didn't do that should have done is created a new layer. So what I'm gonna do is put a new layer in there now and our duplicate this layer, Just remove any excess pieces duplicate layer, and then I can just go in here and remove any excess stuff they don't need. So we working off this right here, and, um, I'm gonna hide that layer behind and again, take anyway, anything that doesn't belong. And you know, this This may not be the right way to do it. This is the way I know. It's the way I'm pretty much self taught. So I just do what I would I know. And, um, I got the yellow in there, and I think I'm just gonna grab the black as well. And I might even change that as well. So let's see if I could get some color here. They're So I got the two colors. Well, im doing doing that way is some people will put a color up here in a color up here. And just, you know, I could still do that as well. Case I lose these two images, um, he used that to be able to do is just click on that. There's your one color, and then you switch this and this is my live layer will be working on so I can play around with some ideas right now. So why This is so slow. All right, all right, all right. Okay. No, I'm not medicate my kind of Hey, um, Nick again, Part two of our penguin drawstring bag. I found out it was a drawstring bag and out of tote bag, so I just I'm still not sure what. I'm gonna put the little guy down here. You see how the regular penguin works out first? And as you can see, my beak here's a little bit off if someone trying to adjust that. And so I'm just gonna do the best here I can to try and get some semblance of a, uh, penguin. My computer's been a little bit slow. I'm hoping that it's gonna do much better for me. And I'm just going to take back the beak and you know, it's OK when you're when you're doing stuff to no worry about it, you know, to make everything perfect, because you always go back and do it again. But we try to minimize that as much as possible, especially when you're working in tight deadlines as I am. We got a lot of stuff to do, a lot of stuff to put out, but this just was just too cool to look it not do not to do. And I think it might just go. If I just used that as a reference, that's not very good reference. Um uh, see, if I had, like, regular I think I'd be like this so I could going that, See if I go back a little bit here, back to history. I raised this right here. Thank you for that weight. Now is covering up something before. In fact, I'm like, get rid of this too. Right now, I'm not gonna not sold 100% of what that is, so I can't see his eyes there at all When I could throw in some blue a little bluish tinge , purplish tinge And again, I'm no expert. This is just something that it looks like It could be fun. And that's kind of like what I'm going at. Get some some color in here a little bit. You know, like the bag really is up here. But this this gives a nice little bit of extra color. Can always blend that later. So I'm gonna You're not getting my voice right now. I'm doing some work, but I will do it a little bit of a voiceover afterwards, and I may stop the tape and actually of things along. But that image, but it's good. Have reference to kind of get an idea of what you want. You think you want to do so there. I'm drawing the head. I get some room there for the eyes. You're growing the flippers. And, uh, I was really proud of the way this, actually, you know, I never used this part of the image. Very proud of the way they came out. The shading came out really well. In fact, I even save this image, so that wouldn't, uh maybe I can use it for some something else. As you see, the former starting to take shape, put the feet in and what's really caused out with shooting came on. I just really thrilled all that really came out. Um, like I said before, I'm not an expert. I just kind of do it feels right, but I think that's that's okay. Everybody can do their artwork the way they want to. So, as you see, there is the shape shading actually looks like he's got some form. Now it's a natural shade just came out really, really nice. Even though I never used this, Really Go back and fine tune this one piece of art because it's really cute. And who knows what? Maybe this will be a another character, Arsenal. So I'm gonna go on to this is finished. Almost finished it really going to the next video seeing the final artwork, but work on the it actually didn't look like this at all. Well, it did look like this, but I thought if I do it this way, it's just not gonna work as well. What if I actually design it to the square image and that's what it was was a square image of a drawstring bag. And I figured if they're gonna sin shit to make it, if this will look like a penguin this way and once they since the artwork, it will naturally fit to this image, and that's what I did. So I'm gonna go back and show you on Facebook for Facebook, But, um so this is again this isn't going couple steps backwards like this that we had to do it . Then it is, if you remember correctly, it the next video part two, this is gonna wear left off. And so I was looking at it, and it was thinking they had some eyeballs and stuff. It still wasn't where I wanted to be. I started playing around with Penguin, although I like him. I didn't really finish him off. And I just left him, duplicated this layer, and then I went into a different area altogether. And, um, I'm really happy with what happened. So I went from this, But to this, and this is I believe this is the finished piece. So it is. I went in. This was the depth ease with the dimensions of the bag. So I filled it in with black, threw in some more shading. Probably not enough shading actually in here, some of the shootings missing. And then I went back and, um, makes you look at that for a second. You know what it might do? I might actually take some of that shading and bring it down and make it even better right now. It's up. What might really like the way there's showed up particular closer. Look at that. Clips on the runway. That whole part is missing, so I'm gonna see if I can pull that. So if I go into this layer which is currently locked like high, he looks cool. Now, better copy that. Go down into my other artwork, paste it on top since move this layer to the top layer and it's grab it Oh, yeah Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So that I think, will be that, like this. And then this part I will be moved even more. Oh, yeah, it looks much better now. It looks more like a neck. It's that I'll do even a little bit more blending. That's smudge tool on. So that's what we're gonna do. Cool. So I'm gonna do this video. I'm going to smudge it. Types, file type names. And so if I go back here, just kind of go through a little bit what I did, you can see some of the decisions I made. I decided to get rid of the other penguin and out of this new one just looks really cute. Isn't he looking up to him? Is there a connection there? And, uh, his feet are gonna small. Everything is missing is a tale, but I don't have to do with that yet, So I just left it alone. So once they brought it out into the square, it looked a lot better. So when I put it on the artwork, it did exactly what I thought it would do. Its it synched right along with the artwork, and it just came out really awesome. So now the finished piece, I can show you There's the finished piece. Is that cool? So this is on Red Bubble and, uh, even have enough room kind of barely see it there, But you could have a little room for my my copyright notice. And then it's on some other gifts as well. But you see, kind of there's the beginning stage. That's where it started. That's why I thought, Well, when we just draw to this drawn to the flat version of it on a little show up, So there it is, drawn to the flat. That's what we decided to do it. Once I did that, it just cinched it. And then course, that looks enough. It looks like a penguin, but not nothing like the since version. That's what came out. So I'm just really thrilled with the way this came out and, um, get some great color and there I haven't updated the artwork. Probably do that later on today. Maybe I'll have some head. The head will feel a more shadow there. So that's it. I'm done very proud of this. It's it's, ah, labor of love yourself more. I started to worry finished, and if I wanted to, I could even throw a little more shade Arab blending in there to give a more realism. But for this purpose is it's finished and for excited. I'm gonna order my 1st 1 and and then I'll show you guys. If I get a chance toe, have it in my hands to see how it looks. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe. I'll have more more of these videos. I kind of take my artwork, my talent for granted, sometimes very humble, and I don't really showcase what you do, but there's a lot of work that goes into it. This actually took almost three hours, I think, to do before five another's track when you're having fun. So, um, I just want to know that, uh, I'm here for you. Give me an email comment below and appreciate your subscribing. Thank you. 4. The Final Artwork: everybody. So welcome back to I would get a lot more. My head here is the finished piece. This is the bag. You can see that I have the full color up into his neck that wasn't shown in the last part of the video. And what was great about it is I didn't realize this when I got it or when I ordered it. But it's on both sides, so there's a full penguin on the on the other side as well, and it's just really, really cute designing. When I was talking about when I originally went out to design this, I was shooting that video that you just saw alive. So I was discovering it as I was going. And so what I did was I designed it to this bag, this finished bag size instead of designing it in the square, the flat version, which makes more sense. So when you're doing your own artwork, I strongly suggest that you design it in one large file. And what to see if I can pop this up here? There's this one help file on the red bubble sight. I'm sure the other sites that other Prenda man sites do this as well. But they give the specs and essentially these print on demand sites, what they do is they You print one design, and then they take it and apply it to thousands of other products. In this case, I started with the drawstring bag, but then I applied it to a tote bag, which I talk about in the beginning. Actually use a tote bag and it oclock I did. IPad. This is the dimensions. Uploading directions for the dimensions of this drawstring bag. We're essentially for everything they recommend, starting with a 7632 by 6480 pixels. File size, which is insanely huge. But that's so it will fit. They they offered do very covers. And if you go to the red bubble dot com site, you can see this. They have really large prints. They have dresses, they have leggings, socks everything could imagine they have of these sites now. And so they suggest using one file and then just sizing it to whatever image you need. So the file size that I created for this is a little different. Let me see if I can find that hang on a second. Here is the actual artwork I used. This is just about the final version of it. I did bump up my You have You can see my copyright notice right here in the final artwork. I bumped that up and then I put also my full name on here. But what I did was I went into my image size to look at that. And this is 4200 by 36 87 at 300 d. P. I So you know, this is almost this is really concerned like line art. There's no pixels or anything in this, so But I don't want to get chances. And to be honest with you, it came out beautifully. Became a really nice and so I was very happy with it. I just wanted to show you that to you. This is a 44 megabyte file size. Now your illustration, whatever it may be when he was decide to do that for the project is make a large file large document file. Make sure it's 300 d p i and then we'll go from there and you'll see this is a nice canvas feel to it. It's not a cotton canvas, it's it's I believe it's polyester, but it just feels really nice. And it works really well. And we've got Like I said, we've got this on a tote bag and other things as well on the site, it actually shows the original artwork that I did in the beginning, which is this one, and it's kind of ridiculous if you think about it. I was designing to the finish piece instead of designing for the dimensions that they use. And so there's the original bag. That's right where I started, if you remember in that last video I showed you. And then I finally got to the final piece, which this is almost the final piece. So there's a lot of fun. I hope you when you're doing your project, I hope you all try something either designed for the drawstring bag. Maybe you'll come up with something totally different. Maybe you'll come up with a whale or on otter or whatever or dried on a clock. But I want to see your projects. I hope you do this. This is so much fun. Like I said in the last video. I was videotaping myself like their A will get There I go again. I sound like an old man, but I'm not, uh I was recording myself as I was doing it, so I was discovering it for the first time. Brand new. And it was so much fun doing it that way. I think it's have planning it out, and and so this was in problem, too. But it's awesome results. I hope you enjoy this class. I really enjoyed teaching it, and I look forward to your projects. 5. SkillshareProject: Welcome back, everybody. Now is the time for the design challenge. This is what I want you to do. At first, I was gonna have you do design anything like clocks or pillows. But I think the challenge here lies in seeing what I saw in that bag and creating something unique. And already in just the last five minutes, I was thinking myself. What else could I make that drawstring bag? I could make a slouched potato bag. I could make a grocery bag. I could make a bag of soccer balls. Imagine doing that with soccer balls with the courted nylon cord with the soccer balls inside of it. You know, I'm saying that's what I'm saying about seeing something different and using the structure of that bag in your design. I think that would be so awesome to do a soccer bag. In fact, I'm going to try it, too. So I'm gonna be actually doing a follow up to this video and posting on YouTube of my well , the heck opposed to here on skill share of my attempt at making another design. So I hope you join May. I can't wait to see your stuff remember there is a in This is the red bubble. You don't have to use red Bubble. But I think this particular ah image was in red bubble. So but use the the videos that I present as a guide of what? How I thought my my thought process went and hopefully you'll be able to do the same thing . I want you to come up with something really unique drawstring bag and let's turn the whole industry of drawstring bags on its head and see what we come up with. I know this is crazy, but I got so many more videos to share with you. I hope you enjoy this class so much that I did doing it. And I can't wait to see your projects. I'll see you soon. Bye bye.