Inspiration and motivation can come in many forms. The Spoonflower Desert challenge inspires designs that highlight the resilient animals who’ve adapted to thrive in the harsh desert heat. Bucketfeet is building a collection of desert themed footwear to raise awareness of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). (Yes, NARF! Pinky would love it.) The winning design will be a featured shoe in this summer’s collection release.

For every design entered into the February challenges, Spoonflower will also be donating $1 dollar to NARF! How awesome is that?!

So now comes the time to explain what I designed and at the end of this strange fairy tale, if you like, you can vote for it!

The Muse

I had just re-watched Galavant, a musical, comic, fantasy, television series that aired on ABC and is currently on Netflix. While not laughing non-stop at King Richard (played by the talented Timothy Omundson, also from Supernatural, Psych) and the Unicorn....

my all time favourite animal on the show is Tad Cooper, a fab bearded dragon, whom King Richard believes is a REAL dragon! 

Of course it is the musical number King Richard and Tad had together that really gets me, right in the feels....

The Actual Concept

Ah, ok, laughter subsiding...After doing some real research into where these lizards thrive, many image searches and getting mesmerised by their fantastic scales, I took to my drawing board and highlighted their scales, ridges and horns with all kinds of various lines. 

The shape and lines also represent the home of these bearded little guys, which is mainly Australia (not the lush hills and dales), from the circles which represent the grains of sand in the desert to the lines and ridges representing the tall buttes found on the continent I one day wish to visit.

Due to my vision issues, I prefer high contrast and bold lines in most of my art, so that's the way I've left him, to stand out amongst the crowd!

Now set to repeat and there you have it! A pattern of Tad Coopers, er, I mean bearded dragons, or perhaps REAL dragons??

VOTE for THIS design - "Just a Tad of Bearded Dragon-Desert King"

Public voting is now open! You can vote for my design called "Just a Tad of Bearded Dragon-Desert King" as well as for any others you think are super awesome and support independent artists!

CLICK HERE TO GO VOTE

01/26/2017: Public voting opens TODAY!
02/01/2017: Public voting ends at 3pm EST to determine top 25 entries
02/02/2017: Spoonflower will announce the winner

Thanks in advance for being so cool, I SUPER BELIEVE IN YOU!