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I have a few questions about tshirts and design styles.
Here are some Volcom shirts. Does anyone know where to get the vintage, stained shirts that look like this? Also how do they print the entire front of the shirt?
and finally,
How in the world is this shirt made?
Re: Stained, vintage tshirts, & full front prints?
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Here are some Volcom shirts. Does anyone know where to get the vintage, stained shirts that look like this?
Since Volcom is such a big company, it's very likely that they had them custom made by the t-shirt manufacturer. You can get it done by outsourcing the garment production (usually requires 1000's of shirts, which is no big deal for Volcom).
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Also how do they print the entire front of the shirt?
Since they are printing t-shirts by the 1000's, they have a lot more capabilities at their disposal
They can get the fabric screen printed before the garment is put together, or they can find a screen printer with all-over printing capabilities. I think M & R makes a press that can do all over prints, it's call the "Predator" or something.
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How in the world is this shirt made?
Most likely a screen print that is done before the garment is sewn together. Could be water based inks or discharge. Part of the effect is the garment and part is the design and printing used.
Re: Stained, vintage tshirts, & full front prints?
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Originally Posted by Unik Ink
Does anyone know where to get the vintage, stained shirts that look like this?
To get things looking exactly like that you'll probably need to invest money into getting them made for you. If you want the next best thing try places like Continental, Alternative Apparel, etc.
You can do it with all over printing, or by printing fabric lengths and then making the garment with the pre-printed fabric. Given the small repeating pattern on that shirt it was almost certainly made as cut and sew (since that would be very economical if you were doing decent quantities - possibly even more so than a normal print on the front of a shirt), but the easiest way to tell is by looking at where the sleeves meet the body (i.e. does the pattern cut off, or continue) and that photo isn't big enough to do that.
The short answer is I don't know, but here's my best guess:
First they've made a new type of t-shirt (with taping down the middle and back). Then they've either dropped it into a bleach bath, or sprayed it with bleach (I'm guessing spray, as I think the bath would use too much bleach and not work with one of the later steps). Either way they've been careful to just leave the garment as it were, and not stir it as you normally would for evenness: they're essentially letting the folds of the garment act as a resist like shibori. I'd wager that next they've pressed the garment in a large commercial heat press. That would give you the pressure marks where the collar has pushed onto the back of the shirt, and made the bleach more effective at those points. It also sets the bleach. Then it's been washed out and printed.
It's one of the stupidest things I can recall seeing in the t-shirt world, but it's creative and amusing to be sure.
Re: Stained, vintage tshirts, & full front prints?
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Originally Posted by Rodney
Most likely a screen print that is done before the garment is sewn together. Could be water based inks or discharge. Part of the effect is the garment and part is the design and printing used.
No, it was definitely printed after being sewn. For one thing the print goes straight over several seams, for another the distressed effects had to be done to the garment after it was sewn, not before (and the print was done after those effects).
This is a discussion about Stained, vintage tshirts, & full front prints? that was posted in the Need Help Finding a T-Shirt DESIGN section of the forums.
Stained, vintage tshirts, & full front prints? 
