Indian

I remember growing up in McGrath Alaska.  Everytime I would get a tootsie pop I would look for the lucky Indian.   The Lucky Indian was rare,  but the local shop owner would give you a free tootsie pop if you found one.  I guess the lucky Indian was an urban legend,  that was so strong that a lot of stores adopted.  If you found a lucky indian you could redeem him for a prize.



I changed my design slightly from the original tootsie pop indian.  I gave him Timbs and a backpack.   Thought about giving him dre beats headphones but I liked the face how it was. 

I had to think about where I wanted the design on the shirt,  I wasn't sure if I wanted it off to the left,  or if I wanted the center of the weight to be in the middle.  I printed on some test shirts until I finally got the placement where I wanted. 

Permaset Supercover ink was used.   I printed on brown shirts with white ink.  Different color options were suggested,   I thought about other options but couldn't make my mind up so I went with white.

Alex a worker at Nomadic Stars told me I was pulling my shirts wrong.   He showed me a way that can prevent some stretching,  as well as keeping wet ink from getting on the shirt in places it shouldn't.   You start at the bottom and pull halfway up the shirt,   then go to the top and pull the shirt halfway.

After that is done you pull the shirt from the shoulders and put it in the oven.  The Lucky Indian Shirt is available at Yukon River Creations, in the Tanana Valley State Fair.

Nuchalawoyya Red and White

For my Nuchalawoyya sweaters I started off with American Apparel  sweaters.  I like them because they are light weight and soft.   I know in Alaska a lot of people want heavier sweaters in the winter,   but I think the sweaters are small enough to throw on under a jacket.

Before printing sweaters I have to make sure there's a lot of tact layed down.  When there isn't enough tact the sweater can lift off of the surface,  which can really mess up a print.

I lined the sweater up where I wanted it,  and made sure to press down,  so that the sweater would stick to the surface.

I printed the Nuchalawoyya and stars layer first. I chose to print this layer with white ink to make sure that it stood out from the black sweater.

I didn't like my first red color so I had to clear the screen out and start over.  The color wasn't bad it just was a little too dark.  I mixed in a little bit of yellow,  as suggested by Gary,  to brighten my red up a little bit. 

The red was still a little dark so I had to flash it.   This means that I put it under a heat source to dry the ink,  so I could print on it again.   I wanted the red to be bright,  but no so bright that it competes with the stars and Nuchalawoyya layer.  

After finishing the Nuchalawoyya sweater I put it in a rotating oven.  I would show this but this blog only allows me to post a few pictures per post.   The oven dries the ink and cooks it into the shirt.

After printing several shirts I noticed the white ink was starting to gunk up.   The finish line was really close with just 7 sweaters left to print.   Oden the owner of Nomadic Stars,  where I printed these shirts suggested that I take the white ink out and thin it out,  then reapply it to the screen.   Because the printing process was taking a long time and I still had another design to print,  my initial tendency was to just power through the gunky ink and get it done.  

However I remember what happened in my last print when I tried to just go through some gunky ink,  and how it messed up my last couple of prints.  So I did what was suggested.   It may have slowed me down by half an hour,   but it payed off.    

The final result is shown below.