Smart Girl Accessories is a new-ish art collective specializing in t-shirts and other, yes, accessories for the nerdy female… or the stylish male. Their official slogan is “Putting glasses on animals since 2013.” Their inventory is small so far but growing, so check them out over at their web site, SmartGirlAccessories.com — or, at a nerdy convention near you, which is where we found them.
Furry Art / Portfolios
Those Endearing Acrylic Charms
Call her Riri. Or Riri Mon, perhaps. Either way, she’s an artist who specializes in the chibi side of things… and she’s spun that talent off into Little Heroes, a series of toony acrylic charms for the gamer fan. After a successful Kickstarter campaign they’re now available as key chains, buttons, and other wearables. Not to mention her collection of art prints (many featuring some well-known anime and anime-style characters) and 3D media. Look her up at ririmon.com.
Wow! Look at the Colors!
Audrey Miller is an illustrator who works in numerous 2D and 3D media, and she’s another artist whose work often involves animals — both real ones and toony ones. A graduate of the Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California, she has studied both animation and illustration and since put herself to work creating prints, sculptures, plushies, and children’s book illustrations. Take a look at her web site and marvel at her way with color.
Animals With Issues… Comic Book Issues!
John Will Balsley is a cartoon artist with a distinctly “loose” style of design. He shows off his drawing talents on his web site (www.jwbalsleycomix.com) where he’s created several rather-adult-leaning graphic stories with titles like The Devil’s Henchmen and Taboose the Meerkat. Many of these feature various critters who are collectively referred to as The Roofles. Makes more sense if you look at it… or, maybe not.
Wood You Wear
[Un]Possible Cuts is the unlikely name chosen by two California artists (Domingo Daquioag and Philip Eggleston) who combine wood with a laser cutter to create very unusual necklace charms, earrings, and even wall clocks. Interestingly, animals figure in several of their designs… They have a thing for dinosaurs and horn-rimmed glasses, it seems, if not for both at once. Check out their Etsy Store to see more of their designs for sale.
Watch Your Blood Sugar
More entries in the chibi parade. Michael Banks is an illustrator who specializes in full-color portraits of cute anthropomorphic animals with Really Big Eyes — in the old days, this stuff would likely have been painted on black velvet. You can probably guess what he had in mind when he named his company Sugar Fueled. He sells individual prints, but he’s also put together several collections of his artwork that are available at his official web site.
Soft, Super-Cute, and Wearable
TeeTurtle.com are an outfit (pun intended) that specialize in t-shirt designs featuring animals and familiar cartoon characters of a particularly “chibi” variety. “Teeturtle was founded in 2012 by designer RamyB to scratch your insatiable itch for cute, funny, popculture-y shirts. Since then, we have made it our goal to provide the best possible experience for you… Here at TeeTurtle, our shirts are our pride and joy. That’s why we use only the softest shirts on the market. We know that you will fall in love as soon as you slip into one of our ultra comfy tees. Plus, with killer designs from both our in house artists and some of the best guest designers on the internet, what more could you want?” They said it.
Tooting Panda Toons
The cartoonist known as Linda Panda has a thing for, yes, pandas. Pandas who… fart. Friendly farts that smile and make comments. Seriously. This is the odd world of Linda’s panda cartoons, and she’s been creating them daily and putting them up on the web for some time now. More recently, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, she’s collected hundreds of her daily works (as well as her more “traditional” sketches, perhaps) in book form. Head over to her official web site to find out how to get your own copy — as well as buttons and prints and other such ways you can see farting pandas.
What Up, Dogs?
Richie Wu is an artist who spent six years working in the gaming industry, as well as teaching illustration on the side. He’s worked on feature films like Toy Story 3 from Disney/Pixar, and TV series like Ben 10 Alienforce from Cartoon Network. Now he’s aiming his artistic talents at a new outlet: A line of illustrated t-shirts based on his original canine comic creations. Dogs like Garlic the chihuahua, Booze the bulldog, and Mocha the German shepherd, among several others. Visit his web site, Bad to the Bone, to see the latest in his growing set of designs. Currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mr. Wu also has a permanent display selling his t-shirts at the Galleria at Sunset Mall in nearby Henderson.