Shirt Designing

Hello Steamy Steemers. At the moment I'm trying to learn to make artworks in a few colors. The reason is that I have been designing shirts for a while but they're all DTG. It stands for Direct to Garment which means it gets digitally printed right on the shirt. This is perfect for images with lots of colors and usually looks great and you only have to worry about CMYK. But I'm doing that for a long time now (usually floating blobs of creatures with many faces in faces and other normal daily stuff you see floating around) and now working more digital it makes it possible to work in more layers.

And having the option to more layers makes it easier to do screen printing. This is a more time consuming process because it's usually by hand and multiple ink layers when printing. You can only add one color at the time. But the print can last so much longer. I mean I have metal shirts who still have a good looking print after years of abuse. And those are screen printed (and yes even in screen printing you have prints that fall apart after one wash).

Problem is that you have to order a minimum to make it worth it. Which isn't needed with DTG because they don't have to set it all up like screen printing. I don't see myself ordering quantities of shirts so I could do a screen print and have to sell them all to get close to a break even. That's is the reason I keep using DTG but I want to learn how to do it. Guess it's getting out of a comfort zone and challenge myself to do it a different way.

doodling ideas and shapes today for shirt

But...

But the print can last so much longer. I mean I have metal shirts who still have a good looking print after years of abuse. And those are screen printed (but yeah even in screen printing you have prints that fall apart after one wash).

It always got my interest how designers can make a strong image with only 1 or 2 colors. So it's kind of limiting myself and learning the workflow. Also it would be awesome to do shirt designs for others in the future and would be nice to know how it works before I start doing that lol

Cool designs

The fact that I want to try out screen printing doesn't mean I'm unhappy with the DTG shirts I designed. Still got a lot of cool designs at my online shirt shop: https://shop.spreadshirt.net/sanderjansen/

I'm planning to make some blogs about my previous shirt designs. I did write one a while ago which you can find here: https://busy.org/@sanderjansenart/floating-creature-shirt-design

This one for instance was created for DTG an image on 1 layer with multiple colors (and shades)

And

The image on top (or below) is a shirt design I didn't release (yet). I usually don't place an artwork on a shirt but make an artwork specially for a shirt (without rectangle shape) but I thought this one could work maybe :)

Anyway

I'm not a professional and never see myself that way. I just have fun creating them and don't feel like creating mainstream stuff to make money. I'm really happy when I sell one and the buyer is happy (I always order myself one to see the result and quality). I really feel honored to see people wearing my designs. :D

But if I create a design and it doesn't sell it can be hard to keep on going and stay motivated. Which happened to the last one which I thought was my best ever....Guess my taste is from a different universe...

My first design made with pencil and slightly enhanced digitally for printing

shirt above is still available: https://shop.spreadshirt.net/sanderjansen/sphere+design+1-A25008654

Enough rambling (did you read it all?) time to learn and do stuff ;)

www.sanderjansen.net
https://shop.spreadshirt.net/sanderjansen/