Sarge’s Shirt [part 1]

A little while ago, Sergeant Valdovinas of the Recon 1st Squadron 2nd Stryker Cavalier Regiment (hope I got that right..) contacted me about coming up with a t-shirt design that would commemorate his team’s tour of duty during Operation Iraqi Freedom, a second, ardous tour for many of the guys. I was given full creative control, some photos of the team’s weaponry and some ideas regarding skulls, bombs and rockets and with that I got going.

Above is the final shirt design that the team was quite excited about. Their shirts are at the screen printer’s right now being done up. It’s a 3-color front (dark grey, light grey and blood red) and a 2-color back with each of the team members’ names on it.

I decided to try something a little bit different for me and use bitmapped images alongside crisp vectors and I’m anxious to see how the final print comes out. The object behind the skull is a “dragoon shield”, sometimes referred to as a “combat cookie”. How great is that nickname!? I came up with the idea for the skull with bleeding eyes after a couple emails back and forth with the Sarge and the team’s sponsor. It sounds like they’ve been through a lot and have lost some of their guys along the way. These guys will always remember their experiences during their time of service. It’s my hope that they’ll wear these shirts proudly.

I’ll be posting some pics of the team and the final, printed shirts once I get them back from the printer, before I send them on.

~ by tracksix on November 19, 2008.