vril garments by kukubal

there's so many things that i've learned in the recent months. never thought that leaving and quitting my job was a blessing in disguise.

i'm venturing into some other new things. things which alien to me. i'm learning entrepreneurship in depth. i formed my own company. i learned more about the game of business. market share, business model and strategies, pricing and so forth. never knew that i could have explored into these.

here are some updates on what i'm doing now. i'm now venturing into my long childhood dream business which is t-shirt business. i've been always a fan of fashion. i'm a shopaholic, not that bad but quite acute for a guy. i used to design and sell t shirts when i was young back in my malay college years. but now i'm doing this quite seriously.

some of my friends and relatives laughed at me when i told them i established my own company to sell t shirts. you know, can i make a living selling garments in the streets. but it's okay. i forgive them. i never really care about what people say or what people might think of me anyway. all i want to do is pursue my dreams and do things that i like, things that i love. as long as i'm happy. an answer to my so called early mid life crisis.

i've discovered so many business opportunities and factories that offers original equipment or services manufacturer in china. i've made some contacts and friends over there. i've studied about fabrics in depth. i even learned about fabric spun, blending and dye processing from friends in china, bangladesh and pakistan. seriously, there's bunch of new perspectives, a lot to be learned. who have ever thought that an engineer can get himself all drown into clothing business.

now, the next stage, the next step. i have the products, readily available. based on my market surveys. now i need business models, like where to sell them, who are my niche markets, what kind of people that i target most, the right price for right people, margins, balance sheet, capital turn over, return of investments, etc.

i'll start with the first batch of order. there are 4 of them. roundneck short sleeves t shirts, v neck short sleeves, round neck long sleeves, and v neck long sleeves. there are 5 colors available. the material chosen is 50% polyester 50% cotton blend. they call it CVC polycotton blend in textile industries. i made the designs myself. inspired by several favourite brands like zara, pull and bear, bershka, massimo dutti and etc. i really like inditex grupo, a clothing company from la coruna, spain who owns those brands. and american apparel, a clothing brand from the states who offers cool stuffs too.

i'll be launching my brand i.e. vril garments by january 2012, here in the kuala lumpur. inshAllah. we'll see how. will i survive in this rugged and jagged world of street business. the next batch will be women clothing and pique polo as additions to current products.

the key is patience. perseverance and keeping the flame burning. i'm really exploring both sides of my brain, using both sides since kukubal maju is a sole proprietary company. i'm all alone. the right side which is very much natural to me in designs, colors, networking with potential customers bla bla bla, while planning, costing, scheduling, risk calculation via the lefty. it's not easy, but this is the path i chose. i have to be patience, as i have a family to feed.

work smartly hard, pray and tawakkal. basic recipe for success :)

gradually better

i've been playing with illustrator quite geeky lately. and i think i'm getting better and better at it. when i said better, i mean way better than i was last year.

here are my latest artworks produced fully using adobe illustrator. i used to created the smart object or shapes in illustrator then exported them into photoshop for further tweaks. but now, i can do it all in illustrator. it's not that hard actually once you figured it out :P

stay tune guys as more cool artworks are coming! oh, i love being just me! :)

waterfall

deriving from my previous water drops photography project, i decided to transfer my mesmerizing thoughts of them into an artwork that can be linked with another t-shirt design.

hence my new artwork called the waterfall. it is for mcoba weekend t-shirt design. there's a water pipe and a tab just at the back of the west wing with high pressure water coming out from it. we used to bath and do our laundry there since the water pressure was strong enough to cut down the queue or waiting idle time :P we call it the waterfall.

this is the artwork associated with it. it is not finalized yet. it is roughly finished in terms of the strokes but the colour or sizing of the artwork or the coverage or the font can still be tweaked around for better illustration or ease of public visualisation.

all in all, i think i kind of getting better and better with illustrator. things get easier for me now. strokes, expanding paths, creating objects and font editing. i think i can even create my own font in near future. give it a month or two and i'll nail it! so much of the enthusiasm ait? :P

my career transition consultant told me that i can use or switch between both sides of my brain any time that i want or feel like so. don't know whether that can be beneficial to me in terms of dollars :P i can be very right brainedly different kind of different as i am a natural right brainer anyway. i was born with it but i also picked up the lefty skills along the way in the form of experiences which make me unique. i graduated in engineering after all.

that's all for me now folks. i'm out.