This design was my submission to the t-shirt contest hosted by Chaotic Good for the 2026 Lexington Renaissance Faire.
T-shirt requirements:
Must fit a renaissance/medieval or fantasy theme
Must include: "Lexington Renaissance Faire" and "August 22nd & 23rd. 2026"
Must be minimum 300 dpi and at least 8 x 10 inches
Full color or black and white
Must be original art, no copyrighted characters or AI
The page on the left is the first initial ideas, I wrote down the basic requirements for the design and brainstormed subjects I associate with fantasy/medieval themes. I then did a couple basic thumbnail sketches before settling on the idea of a fairy or elf, which led to the final sketch shown on the page on the right.
Color Palette Experiments:
I wanted to use colors that reminded me of nature because fairies and elves usually have elemental or nature related abilities. For that to come across, I chose color palettes that had more muted tones and incorporated blues, greens, and browns. I ended up landing on the color palette below since it was the most fantastical looking. After the base colors, I used shades of purple for the shading and line art to make the piece still colorful while not overwhelming.
Typeface:
Enchanted Land by Sharkshock on Dafont
Once I had picked out a typeface, I brought the design into Adobe Illustrator to place the text. Below are the first iterations of the text placement.
After some feedback from my peers, I started considering the axis of the orb and the elf. After I drew in the axis lines of both the orb and the elf, I placed the text to align with the orb, which led to the final design.
Final Design:
