I've been learning how to make what I would call a ticker-tape or banner-type logo for my videos. Below is my first attempt at an idea that I had in my head.
I will need to now learn how to make it a live link when I add it to my YouTube videos.
​Let me know what you think.

Manuals:
4492 - Star Destroyer
7708 - Uplink
7711 - Sentry
7711 - Sentry
8102 - Blade Titan
8103 - Sky Guardian
10721 - Iron Man vs. Loki
30531 - Sons of Garmadon
41629 - Boba Fett
71700 - Jungle Raider
71720 - Fire Stone Mech
71738 - Zane's Titan Mech Battle
75101 - First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter
75137 - Carbon-Freezing Chamber
75144 - Snowspeeder
75153 - AT-ST Walker
75156 - Krennic's Imperial Shuttle
75165 - Imperial Trooper Battle Pack
75168 - Yoda's Jedi Starfighter
75169 - Duel on Naboo
75179 - Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter
75189 - First Order Heavy Assault Walker
75197 - First Order Specialists Battle Pack
75199 - General Grievous' Combat Speeder
75208 - Yoda's Hut
75209 - Han Solo's Landspeeder
75210 - Moloch's Landspeeder
75214 - Anakin's Jedi Starfighter
75228 - Escape Pod vs. Dewback Microfighters
75235 - X-wing Starfighter Trench Run
75246 - Death Star Cannon
75293 - Resistance I-TS Transport
76031 - The Hulk Buster Smash
76034 - Batboat Harbour Pursuit
76101 - Outrider Dropship Attack
76102 - Thor's Weapon Quest
76104 - The Hulkbuster Smash-Up
76107 - Thanos: Ultimate Battle
76124 - War Machine Buster
76140 - Iron Man Mech
76141 - Thanos Mech
76146 - Spider-Man Mech
76164 - Iron Man Hulkbuster versus A.I.M. Agent
76168 - Captain America Mech Armor
76170 - Iron Man vs. Thanos
80010 - Demon Bull King
MOCS:
MOCTFOSF_jaroslawksiaczyk_brickvault_001 - First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter
MOC - Reys landspeeder

T-shirt No. 1 - Motorbike T-shirt.

​Initially, I created all of my T-shirt designs in GIMP, but I wanted to take things to the next level and produce something far more intricate. I had several concepts floating around in my head, but I simply didn't have the artistic ability to turn them into reality.
My first concept was a new motorbike T-shirt.
​
The idea:

I wanted an image of someone riding a Suzuki DR-Z400 through the Australian bush.
Since I didn't have any suitable photos of myself, I borrowed one from the interwebz as the basis for the concept. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I found a photo of a rider on a DR-Z400 stopped in the middle of a dirt road. As I didn't own the image, I made substantial changes to ensure the final design became its own original artwork. I wasn't creating the shirt for commercial resale, but I still wanted to avoid simply reproducing someone else's photograph.

My first step was to ask ChatGPT to convert the image into a black-and-white comic book illustration, which matched the style I had in mind.
From there, I removed the Alpinestars branding from the rider's jersey and replaced it with my Explorerist logo. I also removed a few distracting details, added a race number to the bike's side plate, and inverted the image colours so it would work better on the black T-shirt.
Although it looked good, something still wasn't quite right.

Then it hit me: I much prefer the look of manga artwork over traditional Western comic books.
So I went back to ChatGPT and had it rework the image into a clean manga style. That completely changed the feel of the design and was much closer to what I had envisioned from the beginning. By this stage, the artwork had evolved so significantly that it had become an original illustration rather than a stylised copy of the original reference photo.
The finishing touch was adding some Japanese text. ChatGPT enthusiastically embraced the manga theme and even included furigana, which was a little more authentic than I had anticipated! After a bit of back-and-forth tweaking the wording and layout, I finally achieved the look I was after.

With the artwork complete, it was back into GIMP to add a rectangular border with rounded corners. (No, Apple—despite the Samsung court case, you didn't invent rounded rectangles!)
The final step was the front of the shirt. I wanted my Explorerist logo to match the manga aesthetic on the back, so I once again turned to ChatGPT to transform it into a manga-style graphic.

With that, my first T-shirt design was complete.

T-shirt No. 2 - Gunnie T-shirt

The second T-shirt followed much the same process as the first. Once again, I had a clear concept in my head, but this time I already knew the finished design had to be in a manga style.

The Idea

If I was going to embrace manga, I wanted a character with unmistakable Japanese roots to represent the Gunnie trade. What better place to start than Astro Boy?

As before, I sourced an Astro Boy image from the interwebz as the starting point for the concept. To make it obvious that the character was an armourer, I wanted him holding some recognisable trade items. I found an image of a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) for one hand and suggested a spanner for the other.

Of course, Astro Boy is a trademarked character, so I couldn't simply use him. Instead, I asked ChatGPT to transform him into a new manga-style character that captured the same spirit without infringing on copyright. There were a few hiccups along the way—the spanner wasn't being held correctly—so I worked with ChatGPT to refine the pose until it looked natural. During this process, the military clothing also found its way into the design.

Astro Gunnie was born!

This time I fully embraced the manga aesthetic by keeping the furigana alongside the kanji, as it helped explain the slogan. If you're curious about what it says, feel free to point Google Lens at it.

My wife also made a great suggestion. The star on the character's sleeve had to go. The Explorerist logo was a little too intricate to reproduce well at T-shirt size, so I replaced it in GIMP with my bomb logo. It was a small change, but one that made the design both cleaner and more personal.

The front of the T-shirt also needed a matching manga-style logo. I already had one that I'd designed in GIMP for an earlier Gunnie shirt, so I updated the font to better suit the manga theme before asking ChatGPT to convert it into the same illustration style as the artwork on the back.

With that, my second T-shirt design was complete.

Astro Gunnie isn't finished yet, though. Another piece of Astro Gunnie artwork is currently making its way from the United States as I write this. Watch this space; I'll reveal it as soon as it arrives.