Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest - The reveal

This is what the cut-and-sew fabric looked like when it came. I was really pleased, and very excited to get to work on my new bag.  After all the hard work I'd put into designing it, it was hard to believe I was about to see it come to life.

This is the front of the finished bag. It's so cute!!
Just as I wanted, it's got plenty of room for books or groceries. It would work well as a purse, shopping or beach bag, tote bag, or even a book bag. The fabric is 100% kona cotton, so it's durable.  I washed the fabric in hot water, dried it on the hottest setting, and ironed it to ensure that all the shrinkage that might occur already had. The colors stayed nice and bright, too.

Animals of the Rainforest Cut-n-Sew bag. And the backside of the bag.  Looks great, doesn't it? All in all, I'm really very pleased with the way the project turned out. I thank my mom in a huge way for constantly pushing me to actually get this bag made, and to the Art Institute Online for assigning me a shopping bag project in the first place. Who knew that only 9 years later, I would end up making this?











If you would like to order this cut-and-sew pattern for yourself, you can visit my shop at Spoonflower by following this link here: Animals of the Rainforest bag

Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest - Step 5

Since my end goal is a cut-and-sew pattern that will fit on one yard of fabric including the instructions (thanks to Spoonflower for putting together a contest that would motivate me to finish what I started!!), I needed to figure out how big each panel would need to be in order for this to work.

A single yard, for those who have never done this, is 36 wide x 42 high.  I settled on front and back panels being 16"x16" each, side panels being 8"x16" each, a bottom panel of 16"x8", and two straps that were 5"x22" each.  This gave me plenty of room for instructions and made the bag sufficiently large enough to be useful as a shopping bag in addition to a tote bag, reusable gift bag, or even a purse.

I built the seam allowances I wanted in to each panel so that it would be harder for people who purchased the pattern to make mistakes by adding a colored border around each piece.  This also helped the pieces to stand out from one another once cut out.  Each edge was labeled to match up with the one it was to be sewn to in order to make it easier.
Finally, it was time to assemble each piece and put the instructions together.  In order to test that the edges were marked correctly, I created a half-size version of the bag out of paper and scotch tape using the techniques I would give in the instructions.  Confident that everything worked correctly, I finally finished putting together the cut-and-sew pattern, just in time to upload it to Spoonflower's bag contest!!

Here is a small version of the finished piece:



I hope to have pictures of the actual bag in the next few weeks :)

Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest - Step 4

Now that I had the overall fabric for the bag design the way I wanted it, it was time to create the back panel of the bag.  After all, this was what would really "sell" the bag and make it more than just a bag - it would be an educational tool as well.  I chose the Segoe Print for the font, used illustrator's object->expand and then added a stroke outline in a lighter color.  To the stroke I applied the fern brush stroke I had created in the first step, which gave the lettering a nice organic feel.  I then added a small paragraph of information about the animal underneath its name in the same font, but without the stroke outline.

Each animal got its own info file, and then I put them all together in the back panel like so:

Now that the main fabric pattern was designed, and the back panel was done, it was time to put the bag together.

Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest - Step 3

Arranging the animals in a pleasing configuration that allows for a repeating pattern was the next stage of the project.  The thing to remember when creating a repeating pattern in illustrator is to match the placement along the x-y axis.  Anything placed in one corner must appear in the other three corners as well.  Anything on a side edge must appear on the opposite side edge.  For example, in a 2inx2in square, if you place an object at (0,2) you must also place that same object at (0,0), (2,2), and (2,0) in order for the object to tile properly.  This is the hardest part of it.  

Now I had the animals where I wanted them, but I still wasn't satisfied.  The maccaw was blending in with the environment and, honestly, didn't seem to be a very accurate representation of the maccaws to be found in a tropical environment. The green was overly dominant, and there were too many areas of plain brown.  I did a little more research into some flowers to add into this picture and found the orchid and another flower to add to the scene.

Revised maccaw

Finally, the revised design.  The design tiled perfectly (I verified this using Photoshop), and I was ready for the next stage.

Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest Tote Bag - Step 2

The second step in creating the project, of course, is to render it in digital format.  I did this using Illustrator.  I began by creating a single fern leaf and making that into a brush, and doing the same thing for a strangler fig leaf. This way I could paint the background scenes for each animal with relative ease and change colors as I chose.  If you would like to access a tutorial on creating a brush in Illustrator, I highly recommend tutsplus.

Every animal received its own slightly unique coloration and arrangement of ferns and fig leaves. This was to give the finished design a feel of being more natural, as nature is rarely uniform in anything it does.

Eventually all of the animals heads were finished to my satisfaction and it was time to start the next phase of the project: putting the design in place.

Project 2: Animals of the Rainforest Tote Bag

This idea goes way back to my days in school at the Art Institute Online.  Our project assignment was to pick a retail restaurant or store chain and design a shopping bag appropriate for the venue.  At the time I was completely enamored with The Rainforest Cafe, and so this is the venue I chose to work with.  My initial potential concepts were for a canvas backpack-style shopping bag, a tote bag, and a more traditional square paper shopping bag (made on recycled paper, of course!).

 The first step in creating the bag was research. I combed through lots of web pages looking into what kind of plants could be expected to be found there - I was looking for plants that would be easy for me to draw with the skills I had at the time. I chose the fern and the strangler fig to model my plants after, since these are very common to the rainforest and are also easier to draw.

 Next was to choose from among the many animals possible. My final selection included the capybara - the largest of the rodents; the sloth, the leopard, and the ocelot for the mammals, the African grey parrot, the Macaw (though, why I chose the less colorful Macaw I'm not sure), the quetzal, the harpy eagle, and the toucan for the bird species, and finished it off with the red-eyed tree frog and the Monarch butterfly.

Unfortunately, during our many moves the sketchbooks containing my original concept artwork was lost. However, I did scan images from the finished project to help me recreate everything.  The bag back, however, which contained images of each of the animals along with some facts about each one was also lost and so I will have to look up the facts again and re-create that part.

Now, to get to work.