How to Make Your Own Tee Shirt

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By bamthereyougo
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Make Your Own Tee Shirt

Want a super cool tee shirt, but have never found one in the stores that suites your style or needs? Why not make your own? With this How To, all you need is a little creativity.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

a plain tee shirt of any color (white is easier to color)
an assortment of acrylic, non-washable paints
several brushes of varying sizes
a mixing pallet (optional)
a small cup of water to wash your brushes and a paper towel to dry them off
a piece of cardboard, paper/plastic bag, or a newspaper
a sketch or reference of the picture/design you are going to design (optional)

Step 1

Step 1: Gather your supplies

Gather your supplies. I snatched an old tee shirt of my dads, some acrylic paints in basic colors (I'm cheap, so I buy mainly primary and secondary colors and then mix them to form the colors I want), an old plastic cup to rinse off my brushes, a few of my favorite brushes, a pencil, a piece of cardboard, and a pallet to mix paint.
Step 2

Step 2: Get a picture, design, or reference

For my tee shirt, I wanted to draw Uzumaki Naruto from my favorite Japanese anime, Naruto. I found this picture on the internet, but since I had never drawn it before, I went ahead and sketched the picture on paper so I could get the feel of the picture before I started drawing on my tee shirt. This step is optional, but recommended.
Step 3

Make sure your sketch is centered, both from the top and bottom of the shirt, and from left to right. This is very important! If not, your shirt will end up looking like my poor Naruto, with half of his head cut off!
Step 4

Paint the darkest shaded parts of your picture with black. Make a grey color and paint over the still-wet black paint slightly and gradually blend it into the white in a gradient-like fashion (you don't need a lot of paint here.)
Step 5

Step 5: Decide on layers and paint from the farthest back to the closest

After the paint has dried, paint the farthest back layer. Work your way forward, letting each layer have time to dry before you begin the next.
Step 6

If your shaded areas aren't dark enough, mix your color with some black or gray and add to the shaded region. I like to do this anyways because I think it looks better with both.
Step 7

Finally, paint any 'extra' parts like the mouth, whisker marks, eyes, and writing on his hand.
Step 8

Examine your shirt for anywhere you may have messed up or missed.
Step 9

Let your shirt dry COMPLETELY! Your paint will be stiff and hard. Throw it in the washer by itself so the paint will not bleed.
Step 10

Tah-dah! You've just painted your first tee shirt! Ya-ha!