The sketch that started it all.

Hey guys, Ryan here.

Hopefully you saw my little Insta reel about the first bunch of characters I created, if not I'll give you a run down then you can go watch it and make me go viral lol (but srsly).

So, Fair Bump is a little clothing brand based around a fictional island inhabited by cartoon characters I've been creating since I was a kid - niche right? If you've been following the brand for the last few years, you've already met some; Slappy the seal, Biny the orca, Loop the elephant and even Lloyd the Sloth.

Hand Drawn / Hand Printed: Slappy my Seal of Approval, Biny the Chiller Whale and Loop staying cool and relephant.


Since hitting the markets, I've been asked almost weekly "who was the first character?" and the thing is, I haven't actually printed any of the OG's on a tee yet, so I figured it was about time I introduced you:

The sketch that started it all: I've always imagined my characters living and chilling on a mysterious tropical island.


I drew this back in 1998, aged 7 or 8 at the time. After years of admiring Looney Tunes, Disney and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, I wanted my own little world of cartoon characters. While the above sketch is my first attempt at being original, there are definitely a few characters bordering along the lines of plagiarism.

The worm hanging from the balloon? Well, that's basically Lowly Worm from Richard Scary's 'Busy Town', British cartoon star Budgie the Little Helicopter is flying through the sky and that dinosaur looks a lot like Dorothy the Dinosaur wiggled out of her trademark hat and handbag. The rest are original. Moby the whale and Dick the bird (a little parody of Moby-Dick), Trip a clumsy tap dancing Rhino, Tub & Bub (my attempt at a classic cat and mouse duo) and Mango the monkey chilling in the tree. 

I continued to draw and build my world of cartoon characters for the next decade or so. As I got better at drawing, I continued to update their designs:


If you can't read my hand writing: 1) Mango the monkey. I would have drawn this around 2000-2001. TARZAN was my fav Disney movie, you can see the influence. 2) Tub & Bub. Circa: 1999. 3) Trip the tap dancing Rhino, I drew this around about 2004-2005.


If you have been following my little brand, you would know that the characters live on Fair Bump Island (the instagram handle is @fairbumpisland mainly because some old dude named Mick already has @fairbump). In my mind, all the characters I've created are currently living on this fictional little island, you guys just haven't met them all yet.

Since launching Fair Bump, It's been a giant personal goal of mine to redesign one of these OG characters and officially bring them into the world of Fair Bump. 

So, I'd like you to meet the new and improved, Moby.

If you don't know, Moby Dick is the name of the whale from Herman Melville's 1851 epic novel 'Moby-Dick'. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. So yeah, Moby is a sperm whale and thanks to public domain, I'm gonna have some fun with him! 

Moby will feature on the next Fair Bump design, a design I first rough sketched back in 2022. Why has it taken this long you ask? Because running a niche clothing brand like Fair Bump, on a shoe-string budget, is fucking hard - though now that so many of you beautiful people have been supporting my little brand at the Bondi Markets every Sunday, I finally have some cash flow to print new designs which means introducing you to more of my cartoon friends! :)

I'm really excited to show you this design. I'm really excited to introduce you to more characters. I really appreciate those who read this far, so use Moby1998 for 10% off the next design (feat Moby) when it drops! :)

Thanks for all the support legends,

Fair Bump 👊🏼
Ryan xx