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Chet
Phillips Illustration
Great
original woodcut-style digital art with dogs, cats, Tikis,
and space monkeys.
Chet
Phillips is a commercial artist with an enviable client list
and a style that puts the ink in distinctive, or certainly
would, if there were just a K in that word.
These works are digital - but you'll
immediately think of hand-colored woodcut illustrations when
you see them. There's a skillful handling of line and tone
throughout the work. Here, in his online
store, he's had a chance to get his personal yayas out
and all over the place.
Tikis!
In anything as big as the World Wide
Web there are bound to be creatures who could be described
as Tiki purists. I'm not quite sure what they'd be like, but
they might not enjoy Phillips' Tikis as much as the rest of
us are sure to do.
 These
are stylized, fun and cartoonish Tikis
that range from elemental ("Fire
Tiki", "Tree
Tiki", "Ocean
Tiki") to fanciful ("Monkey
Tiki", "Robot
Tiki"). The Tiki t-shirts and Tiki hoodies are available
in mens' and womens' styles - Tiki tykes have slightly more
limited choices, but there are infant creepers and t-shirts
in toddlers' and kids' sizes, too.
There are plenty of other items to choose
from, too, like messenger bags, greeting cards, and journals.
But of all these Tiki gifts and products,
my favorite would have to be the Tiki
calendars; there's a 12 month calendar with a whole chorus
line of Tikis, and also poster style calendars, each with
a single picture of a Tiki design.
Dogs
& Cats
Phillips
takes on the Cat
/ Dog
dichotomy without apparent prejudice toward either one; each
pet gets the same highly polished vintage woodcut treatment
(though remember, these works are purely digital).
On the canine side, we get a couple
of things that we might have expected (like "Bad
Dog" and "Top
Dog") but there are surprises, too, and the happiest
of these has got to be the Literary Dogs like "Edgar
Alan Pug" or "Jack
Russell Kerouac"). The calendar
full of these characters - including cats, like "Jane
Pawsten") is a real, um, treat.
These would be a natural for those book bags you see at Barnes
& Fido.
 Similarly,
there are some illustrated slogans on the cat side, like "Phat
Cat", but some unexpected things, too. Tigers
make an appearance - and a whole pride of their relatives,
in "Big
Cats" - as well as the hep
cat shown on the right.
I'd especially recommend the calendar,
but you're likely to also be pretty fond of the dog tshirts
and cat tshirts, depending, of course, on your sympathies.
As before there are plenty of mens' and womens' styles to
choose from, along with a few items of kids' clothing, in
each design. And shirts for dogs, too!
Loads
of Other Fun Stuff
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There's
a whole section called "Monkey
Bidness" that keeps going and going and going,
with subsections like"Famous
Monkey Monsters". More fun than, you
know.
And another bunch of dog and cat
designs, in "Dog
and Cat People", which does double duty as labeling
you, one way or the other, and in showing anthropomorphic
dog and cat people. You'll find varieties for lots
of dog breeds and cat breeds.
And finally there's "A
Collection of Eclectic Foolishness", which sounds
like home to me - here you'll find Phillips' almost inevitable
penguins, the practically Weird Tales "I
Love Sushi" (lower left), and some other animal
and anthropomorphic art designs with slogans.
In every case there's pretty much
the same variety of tshirts, kids shirts, posters, coffee
mugs, greeting cards, and some other gems, like jewelry
or keepsake boxes and pillows.
This is the sort of online store
I like the best. That's because it doesn't merely offer
lots of neat gifts and swag - you can see that it's the
personal venture of a gifted artist who's had a chance
to sell his work directly to the public. It warms my little
heart when I see that happen.
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What's
not to like?
If
your computer's desktop resolution is less than 1024 x 768,
you'll have to scroll sideways to see everything on the page.
The thumbnails and section graphics are just too wide, at
four across, to fit if you're at 800 x 600. In fact there
are pages that may even be a problem at 1024 wide.
This is a design problem with the site,
which otherwise is nicely laid out and pleasant to use - but
you might think about setting your desktop to a higher resolution,
yourself; there are very few computers in the wild these days
that can't support at least 1024 x 768. Give it some thought.
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