T-shirt Camaro

[SRD Art]

Just finished this one up. I've wanted to do a couple of T-shirts to sell from my website for a while and finally finished up the art for first. Normally I would've done art like this in photoshop but I had to have it all vector art with a minimal amount of colors for the printer so I did this one in Illustrator. Took me a while to figure out the techniques but I think it turned out o.k. Thanks for lookin'!

[DVierstra]

Nice work Ben! I only do vector for T-shirt designs.

[mlomaka]

Looks like it turned out great. It seams that transition is kind of hard till you get used to it. Nice job.

Mike

[GrafixxMan]

Originally Posted by DVierstra

Nice work Ben! I only do vector for T-shirt designs.

I am just curious, but why? It isn't needed for t-shirts. You can only print so big and if you have the artwork "to size" @ anywhere from 200-300 dpi for outputting, then that is plenty. Is it you just like doing vector better? I only do t-shirts for my living and everythign I do is all done in photoshop....WITH THE EXCEPTION of my lettering. I do it is illy only because is the sharp/hard edges don't get rounded off like the do in photoshop when you stroke them and it stays a little crisper.

[DVierstra]

Originally Posted by GrafixxMan

I am just curious, but why? It isn't needed for t-shirts. You can only print so big and if you have the artwork "to size" @ anywhere from 200-300 dpi for outputting, then that is plenty. Is it you just like doing vector better? I only do t-shirts for my living and everythign I do is all done in photoshop....WITH THE EXCEPTION of my lettering. I do it is illy only because is the sharp/hard edges don't get rounded off like the do in photoshop when you stroke them and it stays a little crisper.

Graffixman,

The reason being, most screen printers out there have difficulties separating colors. The first time I did it, the screen printer printed eight screens and it came out crappy and thick! I do not seek printers, I leave it up to clients. Is there a way to separate colors in PS for screen printers? Do you do it in channels or separate using spot colors?


EDIT: This is what I found...http://www.teedesign.com/Technical_I...Separation.htm

Are these the basics? Is there a step by step?


DV

[GrafixxMan]

To be honest with you, I don't have any idea how other people color seperate. I only know how I do it. Whenever I do a design, I build it in seperations from start to finish. I damn sure wouldn't want to try to seperate a done design down to 6-8 colors if it was all flattened. I may have as many as 80-120 layers as I am designing, but each layer is a color. When the design is done and approved, I get busy condensing everything down to 8. It may be a long way around, but it is the only way I know how to do it and it works flawlessly for me so.....I know some people do it in channels, but I don't know anything about it. Layers only for me. If you ever have a question, feel free to ask. I am no guru, but this is all I have done now for the better part of 10 years give or take.

Tyler

[Roberts68]

A couple of you guys mention selling T's that you designed. Anybody know where I can get cool T's made with my car on them? In relatively low quantities? Any other media I can get the same design on? Coffee mugs etc... Do you keep a file so I can reorder when I trash a couple shirts with shop stains?

[SRD Art]

I'm in the process of working out the finances to purchase a "DTG" (Direct To Garment) T-shirt printer. That's the only cost effective way that I've found for me to print in small quantities or to print as they're ordered for clients. All the local printers don't like to do less than 24 or 25 at a time or you end up paying like $60 or $70 for one shirt. From what I've seen so far it's looking like I can print one-off shirts for about $20-$25 retail price including set-ups and the cost of the shirt. The price would go down if you ordered more than one at a time since the set up charges would be divided across a few shirts instead of one. I'll give more details as I get the machine and get up and running. I'll check on the mug thing, I think again that most companies have a minimum order or they're way expensive. The machine I'm getting comes with a golf ball printing attachment, I'll find out if there's a mug one too.

Any art I do or print I keep on file for future printing purposes. When I'm set up you'll even be able to send me photos that I can print on a shirt as this is a full color process type deal.

[Roberts68]

Ben

Thank you for the reply to my post. There is a company called Write-On in Cannon Falls MN that my parents used numerous times for custom emroidery on horse equipment. They eventually developed the ability to put scanned images onto coffee cups, that's where I got the idea. I would think that digital photo's would vastly speed things up as customers could send their image in email. I would like T-shirts made similarily, perhaps with a custom background like the green flames above and have the car in the foreground.

[SRD Art]

Sounds good, I should be set up in a few weeks.