ShirtPress

I am more of a satisfyzer (yes, just I made that word up) than a maximizer but I am not up for any compromises when it comes to t-shirts: If I have an idea about a certain print I want then I won’t settle for anything less than exactly that. Yes, I was looking for that perfect, one and only DeLorean-logo shirt!

The idea was quite simple: I wanted a gray or asphalt colored shirt with a white DMC logo on it because working in Maya on a DeLorean time machine for so long leaves its marks, especially on somebody who as is easy to manipulate as me.

If you try to find that shirt via Google you will spend a while until you end up at the DMC website where you can buy it for $18.95 plus $49.42 (ahhh!) international shipping fee. Seventy frickin’ bucks for a quite simple shirt is waaay too much! “I can make one myself for less!” I said to myself. And that’s how I started.

Yesterday I had a brief chat with my colleague Dansch Übleis who is famous not only for his Maya skills (especially workarounds and cheap time-saving fakes) but also for his hands-on creativity such as, but not limited to, printing t-shirts. Because I wasn’t eager for silk-screening and the hassle with it he suggested printing the logo onto a cheap ink-jet transparency, cutting out the shape with a paper knife, sticking it with tape on the shirt and filling it with Marabu brand window colors. “It’s as easy as that!” he said and I believed him.

Shortly after I was on my way to a shop of the Libro stationery chain to get my assets. Along with 20 floppy disks (don’t blame me — I just enjoy writing on my ancient ThinkPad from 1996), two DVDs, 1000 sheets of paper, a white ball pen and Final Fantasy XII I bought what I needed for my custom DMC logo shirt: A small can of Marabu fun&fancy window color (white) for 3.69 € and a pack of 20 sheets 3M ink-jet transparencies for 17.99 €.

At home I fired up Illustrator and quickly drew the shape of the DMC logo, accompanied by a line of type reading “De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd” and printed everything in gray onto one of the transparencies. Cutting out the shapes (especially the relatively small line of type) took me half an hour before I was ready. Before taping the stencil onto the shirt, an asphalt colored American Apparel 50/50 model, I applied a lot of paper-glue on the backside of the stencil so the thin bridges would stick to the fabric later that no color would spill where it shouldn’t. I applied plenty of the window color with a soft-foam form until the shirt was majorly soaked — I put it on the radiator so it could dry.

A couple of hours later the color had dried in and was anything but opaque nor white. I was a little disappointed about the outcome and pondered for a while how I could save the shirt. Luckily I still had a fresh can of white textile color so I decided to give it a try and stamped the new color over the pale window color with the foam-form again. This time it looked way better. Again I let it dry.

Another couple of hours later the textile color was opaque and dry and I was eager to see the result. I removed the tape from the stencil but it stuck to the shirt like crazy thanks to the thick color. I literally had to tear my transparency off the shirt which left my stencil’s filigree parts somewhat damaged; hence I won’t be able to reuse it if I ever want to. Bummer.

But apart from the slight off-centered orientation (I still have troubles aligning things with the naked eye since kindergarten) it looked really neat and much better than I had anticipated: No color bleeding, only silk-screen-like crisp edges and a thick and well-textured color. I don’t know if that’s the effect of the window-color base or not, the only thing I know is that I was happy making something myself and saving money with it too. In total the print (without the shirt) cost me as little as about two Euros — I spend more money on coffee everyday! I hope it will stay looking that good after the first washing because I cant iron it in.

I guess I will be trying out some more unique t-shirt prints soon. But at first I have to finish my work: Shading the DeLorean time machine in Maya photo-realistically. Maybe the next print will be a DeLorean too…

I am more of a satisfyzer (yes, just I made that word up) than a maximizer but I am not up for any compromises when it comes to t-shirts: If I have an idea about a certain print I want then I won't settle for anything less than exactly that. Yes, I was looking ...

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