“Love Bites” Patches

It all started at TCAF 2019 (Toronto Comic Arts Festival). Creativity had electrified the air and I was feeling good…but also very hungry.

My friend asked if I could watch their table/merch while they took a look around the convention. In that moment of idle contemplation and merch guardianship I thought to myself, “man I could go for a burrito”.

As I started to explore my love of burritos I considered the relationship between the ones who hunt and the ones who are hunted. Who is really in control here? You would think it’s the eater who is in control, but is it not the eaten that has all the power? The predator would wither away without the prey. The same is not true in reverse.

It’s really the burrito that has a hold over me. I am at your mercy burrito. *chomp*

Since I’d drawn the lineart at the convention all I needed to do when I got home was trace it in Photoshop and get to coloring.

I am happy with the final result! These were fun to design!

UPDATE August 2023

Finally in September 2022 the patches became real! I worked with a manufacturer to produce them for Small Press Expo 2022. There was a lot of back and forth with the manufacturer to make sure the colors translated well from the artwork to the physical patches. Below you can see the final patch colors on the left and the OG artwork on the right. They were able to capture the original colors pretty well!

These ended up being sew-on patches (as opposed to iron-on) all about 3x3 inches and they performed well at SPX! I also made stickers out of their designs to give people options. Some people prefer stickers over patches! The stickers were also very successful :)