Horn-cry of Buckland T-shirt design

Occasionally, I get ideas for a t-shirt, but seldom do anything about them, and even more rarely have them finalized. This one breaks the mold, as I even got it printed. Twice, even, as the first shirt had a small print error on it, and I got the second, corrected one for free after reclamation. Nice service, and I fully intend to do more t-shirts by this company, when I get around to design them.

The phrase "Awake! Fear, Fire, Foes! Awake!" is of course from the chapter The Scouring of the Shire from the Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, where it is used to transliterate a horn-call in times of trouble. I had had the text design ready for a while in InDesign, and initially my intention was to make the shirt just by using the ring design. It did not feel complete, though, and eventually I realized what was lacking. Still, it took a while until I finally managed to muster myself to draw the horn design. My first draft was a bit more heraldric in design, but it drifted towards the more naturalistic one during the sketching process. And yes, I realize that the name of the Shire province, Buckland, most likely refers to the bucks of the deer variety. However as in the Finnish translation the region is called 'Pukinmaa', the land of the ram, I instinctively went for the more domesticated species. In either case, the shape of the horn itself is pure fantasy. The drawing itself is traditional black ink on paper, although for the design I had to invert it for it to work as a negative. The colours are those traditionally favoured by Hobbits, and also inspired by the fact that my wife has a Riverdance t-shirt that utilized this colour scheme.

So, I now have a t-shirt that say I like Lord of the Rings. But most importantly, it also says that I Liked Lord of the Rings Way Before It Was Cool and if You Have Only Seen The Movies You Won't Most Likely Even Get The Reference. Which, of course, is the most important thing ;-p