Captain Mo's Memorabilia

Merchandise is progressing nicely, with one more t-shirt in the collection:

T-shirt Front

I would also like to make a ship necklace which will swing down across the waves, creating Captain Mo's bumpy voyage.

T-shirt back

The Mini-cards and postcards from Moo also arrived this week:

Mini-cards

Postcards

I have started making badges with the same images, and ordered some exciting paper from Crafty Computer Paper. All of their paper is printer-friendly, so I ordered double-sided cotton, shrink paper, repositional sticker fabric and magnetic paper. I can use all of these sheets in my inkjet printer.

The shrink-wrap paper turns into a hard, plastic-like object after it has been put into the oven. The images printed onto the paper must be cut out and placed on a baking tray, and left in the oven for 2minutes. After this time, the tray is removed and the images will have shrunk to approximately half of their original size, and hardened into a thicker, more durable state. I have experimented with this and think they will make effective brooches, pendants and zipper pulls.

I have printed my images onto the double-sided cotton to sew up into purses, and have yet to try the magnetic paper. For the repositional fabric stickers, I would like to print a seascape of various waves and a ship, lure and monster. These can then be played with and rearranged to tell the story of Captain Mo.

The merchandise I am creating is intended to present a selection of ideas for playful items which continue to tell the tale illustrated in the animated film. Although my competitors such as Disney and Pixar are able to use only a silhouette of a character to create a recognisable image, my film merchandise is still in its infancy and plays a different role. My t-shirts are more crafted and expressive than the placement of a single character in the centre. A better comparison would be to relate my merchandise to that of The Moomins, as shown earlier in the blog. ("Captain Mo Likes..." posted on Wednesday 30th June 2010.) These bags are more playful and illustrative, and capture the inventive, wholesome character I hope to achieve in my own work. My t-shirts aim to be an extension of the animated film, but at the same time aim to raise awareness about it and provoke a curious interest into the origin of the images.