How I Created My Martial Arts Designs
As some of my readers know, I was a former martial arts competition champion. Although I don’t do intensive martial arts training anymore, I still do some moderate martial arts as part of my overall fitness training. As part of my creative side, I also made some martial arts designs to be put on t-shirts and coffee mugs too which I would like to show here.
The first design is called “Martial Arts For Life” which features four different silhouettes of martial arts poses. An interesting background story is that these four silhouettes are actually of me when I was in my martial arts prime years! There are actually two different versions of this design with one with the orange background that you can see in the above photo and one without this background as shown in the coffee mug just below.
I’ll explain what these four martial arts poses are. Starting from the left, I’m doing a crane stance which are typical of Chinese kung fu and wushu martial arts styles. Then next to it is the dramatic flying side kick from tae kwon do, karate as well as some kung fu styles. The photo below was taken during my prime years at a Japanese garden park across from where I lived in Mississauga, Ontario and that’s me doing that flying side kick. This is one martial arts technique that I unfortunately don’t do anymore since having ACL knee surgeries on both of my knees since I don’t want to risk the impact when landing. So I’m certainly glad that I still have photos of when I actually did such jumping techniques.
For all four poses, I took old photos of me doing such different martial arts techniques and then I used Photoshop software to paint black over the outlines of me. I extracted these outlines of me to create these “Martial Arts For Life” designs. The text quote “Martial Arts For Life” just means that one can do martial arts in some capacity for life, not necessarily at full intensity like when I was still in my prime years. That’s exactly what I’m doing today and I hope all folks out there who take up martial arts will realize that they can do it for life, again in different capacities over time and still enjoy it.
Just to the right of the flying side kick is a reverse punch stance which is pretty common in all martial arts styles in karate, tae kwon do and kung fu. Then lastly on the far right side is a classic side kick which again is pretty standard for most martial arts like karate, taekwondo and kung fu.
Here are links to direct listings on Etsy for this design on both t-shirts and coffee mugs. Note that there are different listings for each of the Canadian and US markets since I partner up with different local suppliers in each country to get the fastest domestic shipping. This will eliminate cross border customs duty taxes but each country’s supplier may have slightly different colour and size schemes.
Martial Arts For Life (orange background) on t-shirts for Canada market
Martial Arts For Life (orange background) on t-shirts for USA market
Martial Arts For Life on t-shirts for Canada market
Martial Arts For Life on t-shirts for USA market
Martial Arts For Life (orange background) on coffee mugs for Canada market
Martial Arts For Life (orange background) on coffee mugs for USA market
Martial Arts For Life on coffee mugs for Canada market
Martial Arts For Life on coffee mugs for USA market
Karate Queen & Tae Kwon Do Queen Designs
I wanted to create some martial arts designs specifically for the ladies and girls who participate in martial arts. So this is how my “Karate Queen” and “Tae Kwon Do Queen” designs came into mind. I think it’s extra special when women and girls take up martial arts so I wanted to help them celebrate that.
Both of these designs feature a high kicking female black belt with the text “Karate Queen” or “Tae Kwon Do Queen” which is a bold statement martial arts ladies can be proud of. I also added the Chinese character symbolizing female at the top.
Karate Queen on t-shirts for Canada market
Karate Queen on t-shirts for USA market
Karate Queen on coffee mugs for Canada market
Karate Queen on coffee mugs for USA market
Tae Kwon Do Queen on t-shirts for Canada market
Tae Kwon Do Queen on t-shirts for USA market
Tae Kwon Do Queen on coffee mugs for Canada market
Tae Kwon Do Queen on coffee mugs for USA market
When I was designing these for my new Etsy shop, I was quite pleased that all of my martial arts designs worked quite well on both t-shirts and coffee mugs so I made these designs available on both types of items. This is the same for my scuba diving designs and Canada designs.
T-Shirts For Martial Arts Kids
The majority of martial arts students in various karate dojos, taekwondo dojangs and kung fu studios are kids so it’s logical that I make my martial arts designs available on t-shirt sizes for kids. These kids sizes are coming and they will be shown in a future post real soon.
