Sugar and spice and guns and knifes
Loliraptor® started out as an experiment on the side. I wanted to try a new way of creating line-art in Illustrator. I wanted to play around with fonts and different languages. I wanted to create an illustration with my favorite contrast: attraction and repulsion.
The character that popped into my head was kind of a reaction to the ‘Lolita’ phenomenon, the fascination with super-cute little girls. Instead of sweet and innocent my character had to be scary and dangerous. So I started out with one of the loveliest things I could think of: a little girl in bikini. Then I merged it with one of the most frightening things I could think of: a velociraptor.
The illustration had to be simple and easily recognizable so I chose for a cartoony, pictographical style. The name of the character became a mix of ‘Lolita’ and ‘Velociraptor’: Loliraptor® . For the Loliraptor® logo I chose a font that looked modern and poppy. The use of pink was pretty much obligatory, and the choice for the colour green was also pretty obvious.
I placed some early versions on the internet and people liked the design. I was still toying around with the details when Xiao wei from Onigiri asked me if I could work it out as a T-shirt design. We chose to put it on a women’s T-shirt for all those tough girls out there who want the world to know that they are more than ‘Sugar and spice and all things nice’.
-Michel Kok-
This Dutch design T-shirt is for sale at ONIGIRI in Eindhoven, the Netherlands
