DesignerTuts

In this tutorial I will be teaching you how to design a t-shirt using photoshop, specifically a Skull Design for a T-Shirt, like the one below:

If you want some background on designing shirts in photoshop, have a look at my Useful T Shirt Tips Section at the end of the Tutorial as well as the following

• my skull design page and
• a great collection of T-Shirt templates.

Some questions have been asked about the skull and red splat images with respect to copyright. Sadly the origin of these images has been lost in the mists of time. I am using them because I believe I do own them as I took ownership when I bought the website. I have tried tracking them down using TinEye but without success. As positive identification of their origin is unknown I’m afraid that to err on the safe side I would say they are for personal use only. Do not use them on the internet or for commercial projects.

Many free suitable images can be found such as this one.

Jump to the Useful T Shirt Tips Section at the end of the Tutorial or continue on this page with the photoshop t shirt tutorial itself.

Step 1:

Before we start we’ll need a few resources. You’ll need to download the following images:

T-Shirt

Splat

Skull

Step 2:

Next you’ll need to download the font I used here.

Option: You can always decide to use a different font to make your shirt more custom

Step 3:

Now that we’ve got all our resources, we can begin the designing!

First let’s open up all the images you just downloaded, in Photoshop.

Drag the Splat image into the T-Shirt document and position the Splat so it’s at the Top-Center-Left of the T-shirt. Now close the Splat image. You should now have something like below:

Step 4:

Now let’s add the Star Shape. Get our the Custom Shape tool and on a new layer, draw a good-sized Black star with a 2 pixel White stroke.

Make sure this layer is over the Splat layer. Use the image below as a guide:

Now we’re going to start playing around with the perspective of this Star Shape. Press CRTL + T to transform the shape and click Perspective.

Use the image below as a guide:

Now use the the Transform Handles to change the perspective and position of the Star Shape to how you want it.

I choose to make it look sort of 3D, like below:

Starting to look good already, huh?

Step 5:

Now we’ll be adding the Skull image under the Star shape but over the Splat image. Get the Skull image in Photoshop and drag it in the document you’ve been working with.

Simply, position the Skull image so it’s under the Star shape but over the Splat image.

You may use the images below as a guide:

Here’s how my Layer’s Pallete looks like:

Step 6:

To finish off our Skull/Grunge T-Shirt Design, we’re going to add some text using that font you downloaded (or you can use your own).

Using Planet Kosmos, Size 8, Sharp type out Skulls in Black with a 2px White stroke.

Now Rotate it a few degrees to the left and position it so it’s on the right side of the Star shape. Use the image below as a guide:

And now you’re finally done with your Skull/Grunge T-Shirt Design!

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Useful T Shirt Tips Section

• If you want to take the next step and get more serious about t-shirt design you must read this article by Jeff Finley at GoMediazine which is really good advice.
• Another Jeff Finley article about SceneXCore which goes nicely with the Skull theme of course.
• When creating your Design, use a stock photo as a guide. It makes things a lot easier than staring at a blank canvas
• Always use strong visual elements when choosing t shirt images. Subtle and delicate shapes don’t work.
• Combine text and graphical elements in believable ways. e.g. text going through skull eyes
• The file you give to your printer must be inverted as it will become the template for screening ink onto the shirts.
• Light t shirts need only one pass at the printers. Dark shirts need a double pass and will of course cost more to produce.

Other high quality tutorials and T Shirt links

• RVCA T Shirt
• How to screenprint onto a t shirt
• Jared Nickerson tutorial
• Dave from Go MediaZine’s T Shirt tutorial (using Illustrator) that just happens to also be a Skull
• Some nice free skulls
• Some basic advice about colours, layers and screenprinting
• Matt Kloskowski at Layersmagazine.com has a great video tutorial explaining how to put artwork onto a t shirt
• …and finally although I am proud of my little skull t-shirt tutorial, if you want to see some truly amazing designs go and visit Design By Humans.

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