Camouflage – probably the first thing you think of when someone mentions this word, is the currently out of fashion look inspired by the military.

One easily forgets the real origin and purpose of Camouflage.

Camouflage is the method of hiding in ominous situations and a lot of animals make good use of this effect.

I came across this blog post on web Urbanist the other day, which inspired me to introduce you to camouflage in a new light – as part of a creative concept. Apart from appearing as a fact of nature or even in fashion, camouflage can be a great theme to inspire you to create amazing artwork.

Two prominent artists that like to use camouflage in their work are Desiree Palmen and Liu Bolin.

Both are talented artists and photographers who paint or colour in suits to match them to certain scenes or surroundings, and then photograph the camouflaged scene to end up with beautiful photographic pieces of art. The interesting thing is that even though they start out with the same idea, the results are usually very different .

Desiree Palmen is a Dutch artist and seemingly more inspired by European motifs.

She likes to walk through the streets to get her inspiration and then simply starts painting a perfectly camouflaged suit. With great attention to detail, she finishes up the suit in such a way that they are virtually hidden in the final photographs, making for very interesting artworks.

Compared to Desiree Palmen’s work, Liu Bolin likes to find his inspiration in his Chinese surroundings and is a real perfectionist. He puts a lot of effort into the creation of every single photograph, which sometimes takes him up to 10 hours to get just right.

These two artists provide great examples of how artists can take their creative inspirations from nature.

It’s yet another way in which we can express ourselves. Isn’t creativity a wonderful thing!?

(Please note: this post is written by Miriam, but posted by Maike due to technical issues)

1UP!!!!

Springleap.com sends out a mega congratulatory WOOOT WOOOT to our latest winner Eggzoo.

This super talented designer walked away with our November 2 Open Theme win after his retro video game inspired Old Friend design made huge waves with our community.

Everybody knows the classic Mario Brothers characters from the legendary Nintendo franchise. Mario & Luigi have appeared in countless sub-culture designs over the years, but this is certainly the best that has ever come through on Springleap, or most other design contest websites for that matter.

Our Open Theme November 2 was Eggzoo’s first contest with Springleap and also his first win! This is a rare phenomenon. Usually new designers need to find their groove and see what kind of designs work for the community. However, Eggzoo chose the perfect design to kick off his Springleap career. Using such a universally popular theme like the Mario Brothers is always sure to generate interest and popularity quickly…as long as the quality is there - and that it definitely is!

While the Mario Brothers theme is relatively common with regards to sub-culture, it does not mean that it is always easy to win with it. The very fact that it is ‘popular’ means that you have to work double hard to just make it equal to other top submissions. Old Friend is so much more than we are used to seeing from the Mario Brothers theme, and the community echoed this sentiment from the start. The design received massive ‘vote recognition’ and a stream of positive comments from Springleap members the world over!

This design is going to be a huge seller and we have no doubt that our certified resellers will be ‘chomping at the bit’ to get their hands on it.

If you want to say hello and congratulate Eggzoo, please pop across to his Springleap profile page, or comment on the Old Friend design page.

We for one are very excited to see what this designer comes up with next. Will it be retro, something quirky like his Strawberry Crab, or perhaps something totally unexpected? We can't wait to see more!

Well done & welcome to the Springleap family !

Duncan

Hi there guys and girls .

Its time for another thrilling Springleap OPEN THEME competition!
NO specific theme, only regular guidelines apply! You know the drill NO OBSCENITY, NO HATE SPEECH…all that jazz.

This is your chance to show us your creativity on your own terms. Don’t be shy – just put it out there! Let the world be your inspiration. We wanna see what lives within your artistic mind.

You can submit up to 5 designs so go wild! The more designs you submit the greater chances you have of winning!

So, get designing peeps. The time is now to show us what you got!

One winner will receive

… 4 printed t-shirts, a cash prize – US$500 (R4000)

DATES TO DIARISE:

Submissions for designs open: 14 December 2021

Submissions for designs close:  17 January 2021

Voting starts: 19 January 2021

Voting ends:  05 February 2021

Winner is announced: 06 February 2021

You could be the next winner on Springleap.com and gain exposure for yourself! You also stand a chance of winning amazing prizes and loads of cash .

Winners will now be chosen using votes as an indicator. The top 10 voted designs will get the golden stamp of approval and go in for review . The final verdict will come down to our esteemed design panel here at Springleap . For those that don’t win, you still stand a chance to have your designs printed! We’ll be keeping all top 10 designs in our re-seller catalogue and who knows we could be printing and selling your designs nationwide!

Everyone WINS!!

In order to get started on your designs download the Springleap t-shirt Submission Kit and get started right away!

Confused or uncertain about anything?

Post your questions about the OPEN THEME competition below or click our online support button to the left of our header.

Good Luck and Happy Designing!

The Springleap.com Team

Now here is some amazing art that will make you go dotty!

Put your hands together for ink art ‘stippling’ guru Miguel Endara.

The art of stippling is when you create a design by painstakingly ‘dotting’ a page using an ink pen. This is a design style that is most certainly not for the impatient types, it takes hours upon hours to achieve an effect that looks even half decent. Thats right boys and girls, the designs you see here are not sketched...they are dotted (stippled).

Stippling is by no means a ‘new ink art’ technique. Heck, I’m sure most of us have made a rudimentary attempt at stippling in art class, or randomly when we are doodling at home.
However, there seems to be a definite resurgence in the style by artists who mean business and who take on very high-difficulty projects…like our man Miguel!

The design that has been created in this video is entitled "Hero" and features the face of Miguel’s father. How many dots did it take Miguel to create this piece? Try a mind-boggling 3.2 million ink dots (closer to an exact number of 3,213,000).
The entire process took him 210 hours, with a dot rate of around 4.25 dots per second.

The first time I saw the art of stippling done on any form of technical level was a good ten years ago, by my cousin’s best friend. She had also created a face using stippling for her buddies birthday and I was pretty impressed.
To speak honestly, and I mean no offence to her, but Miguel Endara’s Hero design is on a whole different level and has revitalized my interest in stippling!

I would love to see stippling used to create an awesome t-shirt design on Springleap.com
Now that I think about it, what would be an easier technique – stippling on paper and then scanning, or stippling directly onto a tablet?
Shame maybe this would be too abusive for a tablet….it would hate you afterwards :P

Just in case you are interested Miguel not only created the design, but he also put together the video, which I thoroughly enjoyed watching….nicely done sir!
The music he used was also really cool: Noctuary by Bonobo

If you would like to see more design from the nimble hand of Miguel Endara, please cruise across to his website.
I highly suggest that you do, becuase you can really zoom in nicely and see all the crazy dottery ;)

Get stippling :D

Tiago Hoisel is an artistic dynamo!

This insanely talented designer began his professional career after graduating from the University of Estado da Bahia in graphic design. Ever since then his skills have increased exponentially with a transition into the world of digital design which has amplified his power to new heights of awesome! He has now been smashing the norms of the design world for a good 5 years.
While I suppose this may not seem like a very long time for some, it is obvious that he is one of these geniuses that are not confined by the pathetic human concept of time, hehe.

Tiago was born in Salvador and grew up in a relatively sleepy little town called Ilhéus. He worked as an illustrator at an image retouching studio back in 2008 but has subsequently moved to São Paulo, where he runs his own studio together with 4 elite design partners, who are reshaping the world of illustration as we know it, one sexy pixel at a time!

It seems that his main weapon of choice is Adobe Photoshop. He employs this mighty piece of software to full benefit by making use of its amazing brushes. This allows him to create a more vivid and striking final product.

You will no doubt see that his illustrations are full of their own unique humour. Tiago Hoisel is a designer who has the ability to take even a cartoon character and bring out its own innate ‘realness’! He creates his own weird and wonderful style that borders on both the world of realism and surreal. Tiago is very much in-tune with the world around him and takes much of his inspiration from his surroundings and the people he meets. Even the madness of his dreams finds its way into the real world and is conjured to life through masterful illustration.

I’m beyond blown away by this guy!
I take my hat off to this dude and I look forward to seeing how his skills evolve.

If you would like to see more of Tiago Hoisel’s fantastic artwork please visit his website and Techno Image page…you will not be sorry!