About three fourths of the way through my campaign I'd gotten it into my head to make T-Shirts for the players in my group based on their characters. (Actually I'd gotten an idea for a Zornesk based T-Shirt, but I couldn't very well give only Alex a shirt, now could I? Could you imagine the dirty looks and complaints? Why does he get a shirt? I want a shirt. Do you like him best? etc. etc.)
Initially it was just a funny idea, but as the campaign droned on and on I felt I owed it to those that managed to survive this fantasy endurance trial. So, as a thank you for their patience as I learned the ropes of DMing a game I still didn't fully know the rules on, I embarked to get this project complete. On Beth's suggestion I went to DeviantArt.com to find an artist.
First, I'd like to say that the community there was amazing. I posted a thread explaining the commission. I expected to get one or two bites. It was more like 30. In one day. And some of these people liked the idea of rewarding my players so much they were willing to bend over backwards as far as price went. I managed to narrow it down to six artists fairly easily. If any of you are interested those artists are:
Saputras and,
And, believe you me, it was difficult to pick just one. As you can see, all of their work is good to great. They all found my little project fascinating. They were willing to work with me on the price. In the end I went with Martin Paz Romero for the first three. After that we had some trouble communicating. I know he had trouble with his computer, and time was running out. I ended up contracting PaladinPainter to do the last picture.
Then it was time to add captions and create the T-Shirts. I got a little help on each shirt from the other three with that. Everyone knew what everyone else was getting. No one knew what they were getting. And, hearing others talk about their shirts was driving them mad! Here are the final shirts. MPR's are the first three.
Had they remained in the game, Dave's shirt would have been of the knights of the dinner table stick figure holding a sword, yelling 'I like adventures!' (because he does). Also it would have had the 'this guy needs a beer' image on the upper left breast, except it would have said 'this guy needs a heal'. Dan's would have been a picture of an Oread on a table labeled 'The Six Thousand Platinum Oread'. With a list of all the various builds that character went through.
They saved me a good amount of money by quitting, honestly.