My cousin, Rosa wanted me to do a pair of sneakers for her son, Ryu. Immediately, I thought about Street Fighter, but this was not the direction that would make any sense to this 7 month old later in life :) "Ryu" in Japanese means "dragon" so that was the appropriate theme for these customs. Ryu turns 1 in October, so these are an early birthday present for the little guy.
Rosa let me have free range on the kind of dragons and the colors. She just asked that I have his name and birthdate on there. On an infant shoe, there isn't a ton of room but I was able to utilize the space pretty well. At least "Ryu" is only 3 letters! Haha! As I was brainstorming and sketching ideas, I started drawing letters that looked like dragons. I thought they came out playful and cute. On the inside, I have another dragon in a "field" of fire with a little smoke ring puff coming out of its nose. On the other sneaker, I have a happy flying dragon with some more flames and a few trees to set the scene. Then inside has Ryu's birthdate "10/31/11" with a meaner dragon dividing the month-date-year with it's teeth. To add more detail, I drew dragon teeth on one toe, and a curled dragon tail with "RYU" on the other toe. Also, on the back heel strip, I repeated Ryu's name and his birthdate.
These little size 6 infant Stan Smith sneakers came out fun and playful. Infant sizes are always a fun challenge. Ryu isn't walking yet, but has started crawling. It'll be a while until he can fit in these, but soon enough he'll be running around in them :) I mailed these off the Las Vegas today, so I'm excited to see how Rosa likes them and when Ryu eventually wears them!