As you can see, I went through quite a few styles in the many months. Yeah, lot's of skulls. But it occurred to me that if I was going to work in a different medium, such as t-shirts, maybe I should try a different style from my usual illustrations.
My illustrations tend to be hyper- detailed, so I hit upon the idea of making the graphics bolder by simplifying them. I was inspired by Henri Matisse's cutouts. No outlines, no rendering, just simplified blocks of color. I also like the idea of using some gradients in the designs.
You can see these two details above show a bit of what I'm talking about. Overall, I think the panther tee was the most successful and perfectly encapsulates what I'm going for. If you read this far down, you must be bored at work. But thanks!