Recently I've been getting restless. Maybe it's because I've not done much art work recently or it's because I'm seriously starting to loathe my job. Anyway whilst searching around on DA I came across a person called Bobsmade who basically customizes shoes and sells them. That sparked an idea in my head... Maybe I should look into doing something similar, it would be a neat way to make money on the side.

So I grabbed my old work converse, which I don't wear anymore because they are falling apart, and took some of my paints home with me (yes they are still at my work because I haven't finished decorating the staff room yet). So that night I put on a base of acrylic white to cover the dark blue of the canvas and started drawing on a design. Which looked something like this:





Then the next day on my day off I started inking the rest of the image and then painted the rest with the acrylic paint I'ld taken home. It took me literally all day, aside from maybe a couple of hours here and there to make a roast dinner (which was yum)!

The end result is this:











Excuse the crappy-ness of the images I took it with my phone because James' digital SLR was out of battery. I'll upload a link to a decent image when we've taken some.

Oh and the character... I'll explain about him too. He's the book monster. He came about last weekend when I explained to James that I had read 3 books in three weeks, to which he told me I was a book monster and then we both decided he would make a cool character. So I drew him. He's got a big head to store all the information from the books which he literally eats rather than reads. He's a vampire because I thought it was fitting that they draw life from people by drinking blood and he draws life from eating books!

I still have to paint the other shoe and I'm thinking about doing a totally unrelated design simply because I won't wear them. Part of me also thinks they would look better as a set so I might even do the same character in a daytime scene on the other shoe.

I have a new pair of canvass shoes on the way though, which I intend to paint so I can wear them about. I would be like a walking advert for my art but I'm thinking it could open up some opportunities for me.

Oh and in case you are wondering I will at some point be customizing shoes for people but I need to work out costs and such before I start and where to get some decent inexpensive plain canvas shoes from. I know though that I'll probably be able to work on one pair at a time so maybe when I've got everything figured out I'll make a topic on here and PM people who are interested individually... I'll let you all know though :D

Sorry for my well long post. I'm still a bit over excited about this project!

Wow, that's pretty sweet. I have an awesome pair of White Air Force 90's you can tamper with if ya want? :p

At first I was impressed with just the character in black on the white shoe. Then when I scrolled down and saw that you colored the whole dang thing it, I was really impressed. You got that skill though, so I shouldn't be too shocked.

So what's your future look like? Does it involve painting shoes?

:D

Once again your phone takes amazing freaking pictures.

The shoe looks pretty cool Vesp, if you can do something like this and turn it into a side job for extra cash or maybe even really fly and do it as a full time job then that would be cool, more power to ya. Definately find out how much it will cost to paint something and how much time is involved, do a few test shoes, maybe do some for some friends and they can spread the word around and before you know it you're painting shoes for people overseas =P

The whole shoe art has sort of become a thing here in America at least for a little bit where a number of artists will draw a design on a shoe and they will market it. Personally I never saw the appeal in spending $70 for a white pair of shoes that someone had graffitied when I could do it myself and draw stuff on there that I actually liked.

I'd like to make my own custom T-shirts, well I do, but I'd kinda like to turn that into a small business to share it with people, but yeah thats probably never going to happen. Some of my designs technically violate copyrights in a sense; although I've never seen any of the fanbased shirts that riddle the internet which also in technicality violate copyright laws get in trouble for it. Seriously theres people posting images of photoshoped and some just straight images of Final Fantasy characters as posters, wallscrolls etc, some via deviantART.
I don't see how they can get away with making money off of a character that is created by Square-Enix, all the fan bootlegs out there violate copyrights. Either Square among many other companies is too lazy to crack down on all of them or they partialy fear negative publicity for it. Now a fan drawn image of say Cloud Strife is a little different since that person actually took the time to draw it, though in technicality reproducing a Square-Enix character and selling it to make money is a violation of copyright. I just don't get how it works. I can guarentee you not all of the sites on the internet that sell wallscrolls/poster are officially licesensed by Square, hell they stoped producing some that stuff ages ago.
Anyway more than anything I need a methood that is more longer lasting than crappy t-shirt transfers.

oh WOW, I love the design. if you do ever start to paint some commercial shoes, I'd buy a pair =]

Ok James took some decent images for me, so if you want to see them looking even shinier then follow this link:

Shoe Set 2

Hehe you can see the other plain shoe in there too. I can wait to paint that one!

Busta: Thanks! I was thinking about doing trainers, but I decided to stick to canvas shoes for a while when I saw a video on youtube of a guy customizing some Nike's. You need Acetone to strip off the wax they put on the leather and then special trainer paints and some varnishy stuff too. Maybe in the future when I've become more confident! Saying that though I have seen people customize leather trainers with acrylic paint and waterproof pens, I'm just not sure how well or how long it would stay on them!

TMC: Lolz! You're probably going to pee yourself some more when you see how much better the pics are from James' camera! Thank you though, I'm definitely gonna try and stick to this side project. I'm not sure about making it a full time thing but it'll be good for when I finally get my illustration freelancing off the ground.

Hehe I'm glad you mentioned about the shoe trend over in america. It's kinda kicking off here too. You can get your own custom Nike's and stuff but I know what you mean about the paying loads of money for a white shoe with something on there which you don't actully want. So that's why I was thinking about going for more like a request thing, that way people wil be getting more of what they want. I also thought about doing custom t-shirts too, but again I need to look into materials that I can use on them. I know that Acrylic won't work too well as on cotton it tends to peel off if it's too thick.

As for the copyright issue it is a tricky subject. A good example of this fine line actually happened once at work when Prince was playing a 21 night stint in the arena. In the shop we had put up Prince wallpapers and screensavers on all the computers and phones you know to join in on the Prince fun. Lets just say that one of Princes staff came in and told our manager if we didn't remove all the images from the phones and macs then we would be in biiiig trouble for using his image without permission. So yeah it's definitely a tricky subject seeing as all the other acts we did it for didn't care! As for fanart. I think as long as you say that the character is owned by the creator so for example Cloud then they don't mind. In fact after the contest Squenix did for The World Ends With You on DA I think they are keen to promote people doing fanart.

lykoleon: Thank you :D Stayed tuned for shoe number 2 and I'll let you know when I start doing them for people!

Those look really cool, i love the little guy from the side of your shoe, the first thing i thought when i saw him was "he looks like King Boo from mario games" ive got some converse which are falling apart, sadly they have skulls on them, otherwise id give you mine to paint on!

@Vesp: Man what is it with you brits and phones that can take quality photos. Why does all our American stuff suckass, I need a new phone.

@SG: Dude you could still decorate it. Turn the skulls into flaming skulls!

@anyone who will bother reading: On one of my older pair of shoes I drew on them a bit, they were grey, but they had a white rubber edge and sole. In class I'd randomly color in some of the lines with a pen or sharpie or whatever I had, everyonce in a while drawing stuff on them...thus I take credit for starting the trend (jk). Those shoes lasted a while too for cheap $20 Wallmart shoes, didn't throw them away till the sole was so thin I could poke my big toe through it.

I've seen a number of people here decorate thier own shoes for fun with markers or paint, some did it in art class. I think I've even seen some people use duct tape, but hey they have a prom schoolarship contest for creating a suit out of duct tape...I was suposed to be in it with my friend and we were going to go as Jack and Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas, but procrasitnation and lazyness reared its ugly head for both of us. Thus I went to prom dressed like "Dumb and Dumber" acompaned by another mate, though he couldn't get an orange suit only a red one :(

I still want to make a yelllow Misfits tie out of duct tape.

Of course there is no limit to peoples creativity, take goths for example which are known to make and modify much of thier own clothing. Thats always been how you could tell a true goth, punk or rocker from a trendy poser who bought everything at Hot Topic. Take the clothing modification even further and you have Cosplay which leads us to Final Fantasy and this forum and Vesps original topic about shoes: go!

Edit: I'm probably the only person that can write so much about abosolutely nothing.

^^ ohh, can't wait then. i think I'd want shoes with a buncha' my fave ff characters, hmm, i wonder how much that would cost me /: ohh, but then they'd prolly not be water-proof, and would prolly easily smudge if they get hit..hmm, so i can only wear them during certain occasions that are contact-free. they shall be my god shoes!

I started to post this on Saturday while I was at work but I got pulled away for some reason so I had to abandon the post!

Anyway the left shoe is now complete! Huzzah! I decided to go for the same character in a different pose and in a daylight setting. I'm not sure what shoe I like more... The colours on the new shoe are really bright and eye catching and I prefer what the Book Monster is doing... But the right shoe has a lot more detail and was technically more challenging to do because of that...

I'll leave it up to you guys though to decide what one you like the most! You can see the left shoe:

Here

And both of them together:

Here

I've also designed the pattern (they are going to be Okami themed) for the pair of shoes I intend to wear. So I may start painting them on thursday. Although James finally got my portfolio up and running so I need to finish some work to put on there first (although the freelance stuff I'm colouring is SOOOOOO boring!).

Anyway comments and crits are welcome as always!

I think that your creative imagination has great potential and if you were to take this seriously into a career path I hope to see you on Dragon's Den. ^^

I am fascinated by what you've created and it makes me think that there could be endless designs.

Hehe thanks RS ^_^ I can't imagine being on Dragons Den though... I did business studies for like 2 years when I when I was 15/16 and I sucked at it! I wouldn't be able to come up with a coherent business plan... Infact I would probably just be like....

"GIVE ME MONNNNEEEEEZZEEEE..... Please?"

Hahaha!

Stay tuned for the next pair ^_~

This is really awesome vespi! :P... i would never think of making anything like that.. but may be due to the fact that my creative skills are as high as Squalls social skills..

I really like how the two shoes turned out, i know alot of people who would literally kill to get those :P.. (even pay maybe).


Though with my gentleman/casual look.. i think i would have to pass on the painted shoes... if anyone painted on my black italian inspired men shoes.. i dont know how i would react :O

thats amazing...inspired me lol...I need to get some convers lol. I miss my old pair...but when I do, I want to do some shit like this.

STOWA: Thank you! I'm hoping people will pay to have shoes like that, then I can make some money! I think if you had your expensive shoes painted on you would probably cry. Although saying that I found a sale shop on saturday for a big shoe shop called Office and decided to have a look in there, I found some smart black leather shoes with a canvas tongue and top section. I nearly brought a pair to customize but I decided against it because I'm going to be rather busy for the next few weeks.

Kingtard: Thanks, I'm glad I inspired you. Maybe when I've got the finer details of how I'm going to get people to commission me to do custom shoes I can do a pair of converse for you :D

Hah! STOWA cries over shoes! (jk don't Masamune-pale me =P)

They both look good but I think I like the first shoe better just because I have a thing for night. *flashback fog* it reminds of a time when I was a young lad and my mother would read stories to me before bed time *insert other reminiscence here*

Does the paint you're using only work on cloth shoes as opposed to leather or does it matter?

Hope to see pics of the next shoe.

Thanks TMC! I think I prefer the night one too, just because it was technically more challenging than the day one. To my surprise though more people seem to like the day time one. I think it's because of the bright colours.

You know I have no idea if the pain will work on leather as I've not been able to test it on a pair of leather trainers. I did watch a tutorial on YouTube that suggested using paint meant for leather trainers rather than Acrylic, BUT the person I watch on DA who customizes shoes seems to use Acrylic on leather trainers so I'm really not sure what works and what doesn't. I will experiment eventually, I just need to locate a pair of leather trainers I can work on... Either that or I'll note Bobsmade on DA and ask her :D

I'm not sure when I'll get the other pair done but when I do I'll be sure to post them up here!

I thought I had already posted saying I really like both shoes, my favorite though is the night one...
heh, this reminded me of middle school when everyone used to get white shoes and use markers and write their names or something "appropriate" on there

really good work on both of the shoes... if you ever do decide to start making more let me know ^___^