Still Alive

October 26, 2008
vector art, Adobe Illustrator

My friend Trey wanted to make her own shirt for the 2009 Xena Convention in LA (which is why this post is 3 months delayed; I couldn't share it until after the con was over). The idea is "Xena's not dead! She's still alive - and she's a cylon!" - and also to celebrate Lucy Lawless herself, who has been making a lot of well-performed guest appearances on various shows since Xena: Warrior Princess ended. "Still Alive" is what sums this up best but is also an homage to the wonderful Jonathan Coulton Portal song of the same name. :)

Trey had originally thought of doing this when my mom still owned her silk screening shop so we came up with an idea for a two-color design (white and red on a black shirt). In October we finally got around to putting the design together. I art directed and had Trey find as many profile-shots and other reference images as he could. In Photoshop, I put together a rough made out of 3 Xenas (head, body, arm/chakram) and 3 cylon images (head, body, cylon). The rest was an Illustrator lesson for Trey where I did the entire image, step-by-step and she followed along, copying me on her own computer and file. Trey's final decision was to use my file, though hers is nearly identical.