From pencil sketch to tshirt print

39132 Views 20 Replies 14 Participants Last post by JHanching, Oct 5, 2009

ShadowDragon

Discussion Starter · Aug 18, 2006

Question...

Im fairly adept at both drawing and painting. In fact I excelled to the top of my fine art class in college.

I am going to be using t-shirt heat press transfers and im wondering how to convert both painted canvas work AND pencil sketch work to tshirt.

Pencil sketch -
I am thinking of sketching out what I like, hard-lining the drawing with a clean black pen and then scanning it to touch up colour in photoshop.
Then print onto the heat transfer paper and heat press the final design onto the shirt.

Canvas painted works-
I am thinking of taking a clean, straight, well lit, no glare, photograph of the paintings I want on a tshirt, scanning the photo and then printing it onto the heat transfer and then heat pressing the transfer onto the tshirt.

What do you think of either methods guys? Thoughts?

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

Fluid

· #2 · Aug 18, 2006

Pencil sketch -
I am thinking of sketching out what I like, hard-lining the drawing with a clean black pen and then scanning it to touch up colour in photoshop.
Then print onto the heat transfer paper and heat press the final design onto the shirt.

Exactly how I would do it. ( I print rather than transfer but same workflow)

Canvas painted works-
I am thinking of taking a clean, straight, well lit, no glare, photograph of the paintings I want on a tshirt, scanning the photo and then printing it onto the heat transfer and then heat pressing the transfer onto the tshirt.

This will work but your best bet would be to have professional digital photos made. Skip the flatbed scanner with high end 8.1 or higher photos. If your painting are not too big a drum scan would be the ultimate way to go. this can be a bit on the higher cost end yet the csan yeild the best images.

Vicks

· #3 · Apr 10, 2008

Fluid said:
Exactly how I would do it. ( I print rather than transfer but same workflow)

Hi there Richard
I'm a newbie trying to print my own designs (pencil sketches) on t-shirts, so is screen printing better for this than transfer in your opinion?
I'm starting small, by having someone else print them for me and keeping my dayjob..
Thanks for your help

Rodney

· #4 · Apr 10, 2008

Vicks said:
Hi there Richard
I'm a newbie trying to print my own designs (pencil sketches) on t-shirts, so is screen printing better for this than transfer in your opinion?
I'm starting small, by having someone else print them for me and keeping my dayjob..
Thanks for your help

Overall, screen printing is better quality than inkjet transfers.

There are lots of different types of "transfers" though (inkjet, plastisol, vinyl, dye sub, etc)

If someone is is printing them for you and you are getting several of the same design printed at the same time (like 20+), then you probably want to look for a screen printer in your area.

Reactions: 1

Goodbyesoberday

· #5 · Apr 16, 2008

Hmmmm i would go for screen printing.The thing with scanning images and then working on them is that ur always work more in the end.Get urself a drawing tablet and go to town on it.U can't vector scanned images....and that will piss u off someday..like it did me lol

Vicks

· #6 · Apr 17, 2008

Goodbyesoberday said:
The thing with scanning images and then working on them is that ur always work more in the end.Get urself a drawing tablet and go to town on it.U can't vector scanned images....and that will piss u off someday..like it did me lol

Yes I see what you mean.. They seem a bit tricky to draw with though, but that may be because Ive only tried a crappy one. What are you using if you don't mind me asking?
Cheers

Goodbyesoberday

· #7 · Apr 18, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

i got tired of doing all that stuff by hand so i bought a Genious tablet which is HUGE plobally 9 by 12 or so for about $200 brand new and works wonders. I make some of the most amazing shirt ever,If u ever want to make the best out of your skill then i highly suggest you do that.You might have the ideas but the tools are super important....and guess who im in contact to promote our shirts....FLO RIDA and RICK ROSS!...LMFAO sorry im happppy.Sooo good luck man but u leave those 2 rappers to me

chance_b

· #8 · Apr 19, 2008

I think it kind of depends on the look you want to achieve. I can comment more on the sketches rather than the canvas work.

Tablets are definitely great tools to have and will often come in use for graphic design - but I don't think they can replace pen and paper 100% of the time.

When I want to turn a pencil sketch into something digital, after scanning it in (300dpi or more) I go about things one of two ways. I either,

A) Import the sketched drawing directly into Illustrator or Flash (I actually prefer Flash for this even though it isn't really a graphics program) and then go about the time consuming process of actually tracing all my lines - and I actually will OUTLINE each pencil line, then go back after and use the paintbucket to fill the lines in. It takes time, especially for complex drawings, but the result are easily worth it. Other thing I do is,

B) Run the sketched drawing through Photoshop first. I usually start by cropping and positioning the sketch the way I want and then, with the graphic selected, press CTRL + L. This allows you to adjust the white/black levels of the artwork. Drag the black/gray/white tabs closer together somewhere along the scale and you eventually will have a straight black and white (no gray) version of your drawing. At this point, either leave it as is, apply filters or export to Illustrator.

Once in Illustrator, you can select your graphic and use the Live Trace button to convert the graphic into vectors. If you click the little drop down arrow at the side of the button, it gives you lots of different tracing options, so have fun and experiment with them.

See less See more

Reactions: 1

chance_b

· #9 · Apr 19, 2008

Very cool graphic - Is that screen printed? I'm curious, can you achieve graytones using black ink? I've always wondered how that works exactly.

BKSARTS2

· #10 · Apr 19, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

Goodbyesoberday said:
i got tired of doing all that stuff by hand so i bought a Genious tablet which is HUGE plobally 9 by 12 or so for about $200 brand new and works wonders. I make some of the most amazing shirt ever,If u ever want to make the best out of your skill then i highly suggest you do that.You might have the ideas but the tools are super important....and guess who im in contact to promote our shirts....FLO RIDA and RICK ROSS!...LMFAO sorry im happppy.Sooo good luck man but u leave those 2 rappers to me

Ouh yeah guys nice info furr suree, auh specially the size and price of that tablet and where can u get that he he!! I need a tablet!!!

Goodbyesoberday

· #11 · Apr 24, 2008

Genius MousePen 8" x 6" USB Graphic Tablet with Wireless Mouse 31100001101 at TigerDirect.com thats the small version of mines..works amazing man.dont get none of those 600 dollar ones when u can get one made in china by a jet lee looking kid

Vicks

· #12 · May 1, 2008

ImageIt said:
Pencil art looks very cool scanned and printed in 1 color. No need for vectors, just scan into photoshop, adjust and output. Each pencil line can be clearly visible in the final shirt.

The attached image is a pencil sketch. The pencil was so light, that i had to crop all of the outer white area of the image using the polygon lasso tool in photoshop to trim all of the pencil smudges which were darker than the pencil marks.

fred

THANK YOU, that's exactly what I meant, and that's a great looking picture
cheers

gothicaleigh

· #13 · May 1, 2008

Why is everyone on this forum so cheap?

<ducks and runs>

I agree that a graphics tablet is the best way to go for sketching digital designs, but this is the cheapest tablet you should ever consider:
Intuos3 6x8 - Product Overview
There is only one brand when it comes to pen tablets. If you're a designer of any kind this is one of the most important investments you will ever make, so it's best to do it right.

jackal1117

· #14 · Jan 22, 2009

so wait, the flaming skull graphic, was that printed with a single screen?

HulaArt

· #15 · Jan 23, 2009

I got the Wacom 6x8 at Cosco online. It's awsome. It does seem a little bigger than I need. I wound up reducing the working tablet size to about 4x6.
Takes just a little getting used to, but once that's done, it's much faster, more precise and little or no hand cramp/fatigue.
Plus, with Cosco's return policy, it was a no-brainer.
I just wish I could afford the touch screen tablet.

Reactions: 1

HulaArt

· #16 · Jan 23, 2009

ImageIt said:
Yes, just one screen.

The shirt was printed using a halftoned screen. The original image was a small pencil sketch, which was scanned into photoshop, adjusted and output to film.

fred

Very nice work Fred!

smutek

· #17 · Jan 23, 2009

Here's a pretty cool, relevant post on gomedia - How to Draw a Classic Hand using a Graphics Tablet|GoMediaZine

Lacuna Vaegus

· #18 · Sep 18, 2009

Vicks said:
THANK YOU, that's exactly what I meant, and that's a great looking picture
cheers

I'm new, am I missing something?? Where do you see the images...I don't see any posts by ImageIt, but I see 2 quotes and responses...

Turning a pencil sketch into a print is something I am very interested in and image examples would really help!

Thanks!

Lacuna Vaegus

· #19 · Sep 30, 2009

So... I guess nobody knows.....

R1

· #20 · Oct 2, 2009

Lacuna Vaegus said:
I'm new, am I missing something?? Where do you see the images...I don't see any posts by ImageIt, but I see 2 quotes and responses...

I was wondering the same thing?

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.