News

It's like a 1960's Summer movie here at Fretshirt HQ this week, well apart from the weather, obviously.

Why's that? You ask. (You did, right?)

Well, you see, it's like this:

I needed something random, and hopefully interesting, to open the blog this week, in order to get all you Fretters intrigued enough to read through to the end of the post.

Oh wait!

I wasn't meant to write that bit, was I?

Instead I should have said something about how we were putting the band back together like they always do in those old movies and then lead into talking about our newly expanded Legends series.

Guess I've ruined that now, so let's just get on with it, and pretend that never happened, shall we?

Anyway, a couple of blogs back, I told you we were adding to our ever popular Guitar Legends design, with Vocal Legends and Drum Legends. Well now we've not only completed the band line up with Bass Legends and Keyboard / Piano Legends but we've added a couple more to the range as well.

What's more, for these latest ones, we've even included the full list of names our designer used to make them, to save you having to see if your favourite was included. Mind you, the chances are that they were, as the designer is THAT good at what he does, even if he didn't keep the lists from the earlier designs.

Still, we've tried to include at least one person from every genre of music, so there's people from Rock, Jazz, Heavy Metal, Progressive, Rhythm n Blues, and even some "pop" stars in there going right back to the original days or good old Rock n' Roll.

One musical genre that wasn't represented was Classical Music, so not wanting anyone left out, and seeing there's a lack of guitars in symphonies, sonatas and the like, our designer did what he does, and got all creative to brings us, and you, Composer Legends.

As with the others, all the greats are there. Beethoven, Mozart, and a lot of others I'm not even going to attempt to try spelling.

Guess what? The designer didn't stop there - no, of course he didn't - as he then turned his attention to the world of literature, novels, and authors to came up with the design that heads this blog post. Literature Legends.

Thankfully we've now managed to distract him with something shiny, so he's moved onto other items, or who knows where he'd have ended up doing. Still if anyone has any ideas for a new Legends design, then let us know, and we'll unleash the designer once more.

One of those things we distracted him with was, yet another, set of BREXIT designs, as that continues to roll on, and on. However, with feelings running high on both sides, he came up with something that we've been able to use to celebrate Europe Day, which also happened to be this week, in the Can We Still Be Friends design.

What else?

Well, our merchandising friends have been busy with their own updates and expansions.

Following the launch of our merchandise for their new, up and coming game The Riftbreaker [riftbreaker.com] last week, the wonderful team at Exor Studios, unleashed the very first live Riftbreaker stream on Mixer, [mixer.com] and yes, Fretshirt was there. So see if you can guess our usernames in the recorded chat.

Not to be outdone, the solo dev - yes it's just the one of him doing everything - over at Mashinky [official site] released a major update, which takes the game into the long awaited 5th Era of train transport. This adds not just an extended time frame to the game, but new locos, quests, industries, cargoes, sounds and even camera positions.

Only thing is now, we'll have to come up with new Mashinky Merchandise to encapsulate - that's a great word don't you think? - the expanded version of the game. Still it will keep the designer busy, which is what we all want.

Of course, our little Fretshirt Family wasn't the only one welcoming new content, as Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor arrived not to far from where Fretshirt is based. 

Naturally we did had some designs ready, - Including this cheeky, Instructional baby grow - because, well, that's what we do, and why else would we have been expanding our Baby Clothing section?

By the way, what's your preferred name for this type of garment? Baby Grow? Onesie? Body Suit? Something else?

 And finally - yes I'm going to stop soon - we hope everyone in the UK had a decent Bank Holiday weekend, and managed to get all your little jobs done? Still don't worry if you didn't as there's another Bank Holiday in a couple of weeks.

Personally I made the mistake of buying a new God Game just before the extra day off and then... well, see the screen shot.

Yes, I did indeed, spend thirteen hours, playing Raymond Doerr's (gotta love the solo indie devs of the world) Rise to Ruins, [risetoruins.com] something I've not done since the days of Civilisation II, III & IV (yes I'm old).

Now, wonder if Ray wants any merchandise, as then I can write all that time off as research?

Hey, that's what happen with most of our other Merch Partners!

Normal service has now been resumed, after the disruption of the stock take over the previous fortnight, or at least what passes for "normal" here at Fretshirt HQ.

So, what did we do first?

Take it easy? Do a bit of catching up, perhaps? Maybe some sorting things out?

No, of course not.

We dived right back into it with the release of a brand new merchandising range, for a game that doesn't even have a playable demo yet, from our friends at Exor Studios.

Not being ones to blow our own trumpet - Well other than in this blog, and on twitter, pinterest and.... Oh... erm... wait maybe we do play our brass from time to time - but this will be the third Exor game we've provided the merchandise for. Following on from Zombie Driver & X-Morph Defense. Each one of which was brilliant, and yet better than the one that went before, which we are sure, The Riftbreaker will continue to do.

Five new designs went live during the week, all of which can be found on The Riftbreaker page.

They feature the game's hero Ashley S. Nowak, and her Mecha-suit - Mr. Riggs - all in the usual hi-definition concept art from the boys over in Poland, but with some subtle extra touches from our own designer to make them even more exclusive.

What else? Well following on from last week's stock take, Embroidery is now back up and running again for Hats and caps as well as Polo shirts.

Not only that but we found another box of collectables from the release of the original Rage game, hidden in... well you don't need to know where they were any more than we want to know how they got there.

Anyway, there's Wing-sticks, a set of six badges and even a metal keyring. Each sealed in it's own original plastic bag, making them great for all you collectors out there.

We're even offering them separately or in any combination you feel you have the need for over on the Special Offers page.

That's not all, as our much promoted - yes I have gone on about it a bit - expansion into Mugs has been given the go-ahead - yes, finally - with our designer now working on the designs for them, starting with our merchandise partners before rolling out across the store.

Naturally any of our lovely Fretters - that's you lot BTW - have any suggestions for what you'd like to see on mugs, then feel free to let us know via any of the usual channels, including, of course, this blog. (Unless, of course, you are trying to sell Russian pushchairs/strollers, Chinese "Goods", or want us to follow a disguised link - none of which is going to happen!)

Whilst our designer has been busy with all the Mug stuff and The Riftbreaker launch, he's still found time to produce other designs, most noticeably in the Baby Clothing section of the website. 

My personal favourite being the "Level 1 Human" design, pictured here, with it's stats for the pre-gamer but there's plenty of others to choose from.

He's also expanded the popular "Do Not Disturb" range, with the addition of "Movie", "Music" and "Box Set" designs.

Added several new ideas for Father's Day, which we'll talk more about nearer the time.

And just done some rather random others, including "Rocking Boyfriend", which you can see here and which doesn't come just on ladies shirts, in case you were wondering.

If you want to see more, then just check out the New Designs page, and you'll see everything we add, when we add it.

You may have noticed that we've been a little quiet over the last couple of weeks, with much less activity both on our social media feeds, and here on the blog.

Well, the reason for that is simple.

It's been the annual Stock Take and Clear Out time here at Fretshirt HQ, when we count everything we want and get rid of everything we don't.

You know all those things that get put aside in case they will come in handy, but never actually do? Yeah those. We're getting rid of all that stuff.

Now we have a full list - well lists - of everything not just in our warehouse, but also the office, the packing area, the kitchen, and even how many toilet rolls we have. (Seven if you must know!)

On the plus side, we also have a lot more room, as what better way to avoid counting something, than to recycle it, preferable giving it to a charity? 

This being what we do with, not just all our end-of-line clothing, but any electronics, computers, printers, furniture and such like that we no longer have a need for.  After all these items may not be any use to us, but better someone else can use them, which is a lot better then just having them clutter up our warehouse, and inventory.

And on that note, we'd like to thank all those that helped with our clear out, from our neighbours who helped in shifting some of the bigger machinery so we could get behind and under them, to those who kept the orders going out so all your fretters wouldn't even notice we were even doing a stock take.

Of course, all those lovely sheets of numbers we now have, were all pretty much out of date, as soon as we did it, given orders are coming in all the time, as is new stock, and other things get used (it's now 6-and-a-fail toilet rolls), and then replaced, but apparently it has to be done. So done it has been and now, finally we get back to what we do best.

Naturally this means I don't have much to report, even though our designer has been as busy as usual so there are a lot of new designs that need to be added to the store, so look out of those in the next few weeks.

We did, however, take a break from the stock taking, to add the design to the right, about the LBGT+ situation in Brunei, as that just couldn't wait.

In the meantime check out the latest versions in our "Legends" range, adding to the ever popular "Guitar Legends", are "Vocal Legends" and "Drummer Legends".  But don't worry if you like playing the keys or are limited to four stings, then we'll have you covered shortly along with composing and literary legends.

We did finalise some of the exciting new future plans, that I've been teasing you with in the last few blogs - well, we needed something to talk about between all that counting - so announcements will be forthcoming. Starting with....

As mentioned in the last blog, both Embroidery and Sublimation processes will be back up and running, just as soon as we have everything put back where it came from - assuming we can remember where it all came from - and can make use of all that lovely space we opened up.

In the meantime you may have noticed that the SOLD OUT messages that are dotted around the store have started to disappear as all our stock becomes available again, so feel free to have a nose around and see what you can find especially in the Offers section.

Until We Fret Again.

Another one of those busy weeks here at Fretshirt HQ, with us all doing our homework - yes I put that in just to justify the header image - and as we prepare to make several announcement of new lines being added to our catalogue, plus the return of some older ones.

But I don't think I'll tell you about those just yet, but see if you can guess what's returning.

One of the new items should be easy enough, as there's been enough clues over the last few months. I mean just look at the title of this post!  The other one, perhaps not so much.

So, until it's time for the big announcement, what else have we been up to?

Well, our designer continued to work through his Blue Planet Live fixation, as mentioned in the previous blog, with some quite stunning ideas such as his shark and Killer whales made out of plastic waste. One of which can be seen above.

He also celebrated National Unicorn Day - no, me neither - on Tuesday by mashing the mythological horned horse into one of the most iconic album covers of all time, to give us Dark Side of the Unicorn. Why? Well, because we can. That's why!

But enough about us, what about our partners?

Well, the launch of our favourite Pirate Beardaggedon's 1500 Subscribers shirt, went so well, that it made it into our weekly best sellers twitter post - posted every weekend  if you want to see whatever one else is buying - making Wookies very happy. And everyone wants happy Wookies.

Meanwhile, Exor Studios - Zombie Driver & X-Morph Defense - had some very successful trade shows with their new project The Riftbreaker, so we let our designer loose on their concept art.

The results were, fantastic, and you'll be seeing more of those in the next few weeks once the full Riftbreaker page here on Fretshirt.com is launched. 

In the meantime, there's a little taster beside this paragraph of the game's hero, Ashley.

BTW: The Riftmaker merch page isn't one of the announcements I was talking about earlier. So keep reading.

Also making a big announcement - again not us - was Bob, the solo Dev behind Survivalist, with a Steam page for the impressive looking follow up which is now called Survivalist: Invisible Stain. 

No release date yet, but the characters from the original game won't be appearing as it is set ten years later. Still we like to think Joe is still wearing his suit in the zombie apocalypse as in the Survivalist Merch.

There's also a new Discord server for both Survivalist games run by a fan on Bob's behalf - where you can often find "Fretshirt" hanging out with other fans and players, from time to time, just as we do in the servers for all our merchandise partners.

Okay, I think that's probably enough padding time to get to the announcements. (Well done all of you who managed to read down this far!)

Firstly we are highly excited to be adding sublimation Mugs to product range. (You got that from the blog title, right?)

Two styles will be appearing shortly both standard coffee mug sized.

One in ceramic mug, and another in enamel so we'll have you covered - oh I haven't said that in a while - where ever you like to partake in a refreshing beverage. 

Oh and don't worry, the former will be dispatched in a purpose made protective box that the makes say can withstand being thrown down stairs - yeah, of course we did and metal stairs too! - to ensure we don't add to the sales of Superglue.

We're also, and somewhat randomly, looking into doing cushions too, once we are sure if there is a market for them, or not. Personally I'm guessing the latter, but you fretters tend to like what you like.

In any case, our merchandising partners will have first shot and then we'll roll them out in the general store, so look out for those.

As for the second announcement, that concerns some items that you may have noticed have been missing from our store for a few weeks. Namely those involving  embroidery and sublimation processes, be it Polo shirts, All over prints, plus hats and bags.

Well, we are pleased to say that finally all those items will be returning to the store, as we've sorted out our warehouse issues.

Not at once, as that would flood the store, but slowly over the next couple of months so all those items will no longer be "Sold Out" and many more that are currently hidden, will become live and available to buy once more.

Finally, here's a little something to keep in mind for our new range of garments and designs to celebrate all those that are legendary at what they do. But more on that next time when we'll be putting a band together. (Sort of!)

 Until We Fret Again.

Another busy week here at Fretshirt HQ, comes to a conclusion with a celebration. No, not just that is the end of another week but something far more worthwhile that that in the release of a special edition shirt for our pirate partner, the Real Life Wookie himself Beardageddon.

You may remember from several blogs ago - just nod if you don't I won't know the difference - that The Beaded One, recently went through the milestone of having 1500 subscribers to his twitch stream?

Well, since then his partner, Puzzle, and ourselves have been working hard to put all those names legibly onto a shirt.

This week we finally cracked it and all the names are perfectly readable on the t-shirt or sweatshirt of your choice. No hoodies, or child sizes, as the text just got to small on those.

It comes, naturally, in the pirate colours of purple and green along with the standard black and white, and yes, all the names are there. We checked and counted them. All fifteen hundred of them. 

 Or perhaps we got the office cat to do it?

No, that would have been stupid mainly as we don't have a cat, and even if we did, they'd probably spend all their time doing what the Modern Mouser is doing in one of latest releases. (Smooth product placement, eh!)

What else?

Well, other than counting beards and Wookies we've been mostly all at sea. At least our designer has, after they watched Blue Planet Live, and got all (rightly) upset about the amount of plastics polluting the world's rivers, seas and oceans.

Naturally that set him off drawing with the first result being The Great Plastic Wave, you can see above, which illustrates the issue rather starkly, don't you think?

But the designer wasn't finished there because, well, once started on something, it takes designers quite a long time to get it out of their system as you may have noticed from the amount of Dog and Cat shirts that have happened recently?

This time a Mana Ray came to his attention, only one trapped inside a plastic bag - no he didn't do this to save having to draw the ray - but so he could use his latest rhyming couplet.

And, yes that's what he calls them - rhyming couplet - it's the sort of thing artistic people do. Apparently.

Either that or he's testing my ability to spell weird and wonderful words. (It's okay I looked it up!) just like X-Morph Defense and their American ways - even though they're Polish. (It's DefenCe guys!)

Anyway, no doubt there will be more designs on the theme of maritime pollution in the coming weeks as Blue Planet Live continues, so look out for those.

In the meantime we did attempt to distract the designer with a Golden Labrador Retriever pretending to be the legendary shark Jaws, and it worked.For a few minutes while he came up with the Paws design you can see beside this paragraph, then dived right back into the plastic filled ocean again.

Ha, "Dived right back into the plastic filled ocean" - Come on, that's good stuff.

Sometimes I just amuse myself without realising it.

Anyway.....

Until We Fret Again.