[adfw76]

This is artwork for a lucky brand tshirt. There is some interesting effects on here that i have no idea how to achieve. I normally work in vectors in illustrator and this tshirts artwok could not be acheived in vectors.
If you look at the lettering "THE" at the top left of the image and the "HIGHER THAN THE MOON" at the bottom there is some very fine fading there. The lettering at the bottom has an almost painterly effect whereby there is no full tshirt coming through the ink on the fading and looks almost translucent in parts.The moon in the background looks like its been painted in watercolous. How can such an effect be acheived in your artwork?Is it possibble its been painted then scanned in? if so what do you do once scanned in? thanks a lot , Andy

 

[joeshaul]

The lettering was probably done with a distress filter. Distressing can be done in vector or raster form. I believe AdvancedArtist has a single free vector distress filter available at:
Welcome to AdvancedArtist.com FREE Corel DRAW turtorial training and downloads

They also have a mod that applies all kinds of different distressing. There are a few areas on the shirt where it looks like it may have been distressed as well. Unsure about the moon.

 

[adfw76]

Thanks for that , anyone got any ideas as to how this was done?

 

[queerrep]

You can create in Illustrator and then import into Photoshop and use image filters – like Mister Retro: Mister Retro - Image Filters for Photoshop

 

[adfw76]

I know what you mean but do you not think the moon looks like its been painted first , as the mr retro textures are very randomised??and what about the translucent lettering, it looks like its been painted.Theres no textures ive seen that follow the flow of the letterign like that?what do you think?

 

[devious1]

This design is just a water-based distressed image. you find prints like this at hollister, ambercrombie, and old navy.

 

[adfw76]

the thing is hollister and the abercrombie seems to use the usual style evryone knows about of how to distress . They look like standard tutorials you get, this however seems to have more detail , different consistensies -almost like process colour, anythoughts?

 

[studog79]

This design is just a water-based distressed image. you find prints like this at hollister, ambercrombie, and old navy.

I concure with this. Its like some items we print for a client. They have full time experienced artists that take days working on the fine details of where and how they want the distress. You could pretty easily produce this in either AI or Corel as vector artwork.

 

[adfw76]

really? id of thought the file size for vectors would be massive.How many colours would be used in the image, i dont undestand how this is broken down.Look a the "THE" theres like a pink area which isnt vectors it cant be, i produce tshirts professionally for 5 years so i do know a bit and even using live trace in ilustrator pixel for pixel on a bit map that effect cant be acheived. Fading can be acheived like that but not in the translucent effect you have here. If they have id like to know how the break down of screens and colours would work? what do you think?I think parts of it have been watercoloured and scanned in, which would explain some of the effects, does anyone agree/ disagree? thanks for the inputs so far

 

[studog79]

The THE is achived by printing half tones and a distressed filter on a very high mesh thus you can maintain very small dots on your screen. It also probably a discharge print since its a red shirt.

 

[smutek]

I do see what you mean as far as the subtle differences go and that it looks a little more than your averge distress, like the way the halftone fade in the center of the moon just sort of looks like it is crumbling apart, and the parts on the left and right side of the scroll that look like they've been burned, and how parts of it look kind of "dirty".\.

It looks pretty nice.

My guess is that it started its life as a vector file and then was dumped into some sort of imaging software like photoshop to have the distressing effects applied. Whatever they were is any ones guess.

 

[adfw76]

AAGAGAHAA!!!Iv eben trying t find a straight answer on this for weeks on via various means. No one seems to know for sure. Ive posted a few times and no one has given me a specific/satisfactory answer. Is there any Lucky Brand artists on this sight!!If so help and your stuff is amazingly unique!

 

[smutek]

I don't think anyone will know for sure until they try to re-produce it themselves.

Stuart mentioned discharge ink in a post above, I think you may want to explore that further.

Check out the image posted by Fred in this thread : http://www.t-shirtforums.com/graphics-design-help/t65395.html - it has similar textural qualities and was done with discharge ink.

 

[adfw76]

anyone know about the watercolour effect on the moon/lettering ??

 

[Solmu]

do you not think the moon looks like its been painted first

Nope. Just looks like a fine halftone and waterbased ink.

Fading can be acheived like that but not in the translucent effect you have here.

I think what you're describing as translucency is just the result of using waterbased inks that aren't completely opaque (which is far from unusual). It's the same thing that causes the texture of the shirt to show through to the body of the bird.

does anyone agree/ disagree?

Yes, it looks like several people have already disagreed.

 

[Ribano]

If it was me trying to recreate this id use waterbased inks and a a variety of halftones like the ones available on gomedia (or other vector sites) then use the pen tool to achieve the right shapes and proberbly overlay them to achieve the gradients, but thats just me, im sure there are much better ways for people who are more accomplished at illustrator.

Adam

 

[adfw76]

Thanks to everyone whos posted on this topic, i feel i know how its been done now from bunching the answers together. A lot of it would seem is down to the printing process itself. I guess my 2 final questions would be then is -
if im doing halftones for the moon would i use a bitmap with diffusion dither or haltftone cirles for the detail?
if i had a high mesh count screen how would that relate to dpi?is 300dpi high enough for very fine detail, would 400 -600 dpi be any better or would it just be a waste?thanks a lot everyone again, Andy

 

[srabadan]

I think 300 dpi would be plenty since tshirt material can't display a resolution like that anyway.

We are doing one similar to this at work as a sample for american eagle not so many colors though.

We have ours on our 305 mesh screens and I did the art at 45 LPI we should be printing them next week I expect the prints will look great.

We don't do discharge printing at our shop but that red one probably was a discharge print.

 

[boxcar22]

This looks to me like a layered distressed print. Take the moon graphic - you create a somewhat solid graphic in photoshop with a fine distress all over it using the dissolve brush - just paint in with various heaviness. This color would be based down 70-30 or so.
Then you create a another graphic of the chunkier "painted " parts. this would just be your regular plastisol. Save both of these phostoshop files as bitmaps, put them togrther in illustrator and output the films so 1 layer prints directly onto he other layer. This way you can build your texture from the shirt up.

Sorry for the long post, but that's how I would handle it from a graphic standpoint.

 

[HelpRunMyShop]

its simple they washed it jk