Oh, I read your original post a little wrong. I thought you were asking about if those were DTG prints that you saw somewhere. Sorry.
But why I think screen printing is the perfect for designs like that is for these reasons:
1st, print size. That would be considered a jumbo print. Sublimation can only print on white or super light colored garments. To get that print with a base color to the garment other than white (or super light color), you would have to do cut & sew. DTG (newer large format machines) and screen printing can handle that size well.
2nd, color. It is a gray scale image. While all the printing methods mentioned can deal with a gray scale image, the inkjet based methods have such expensive inks, a gray scale image does not take advantage of their superior high color abilities to make the expensive ink cost effective. Screen printing can achieve this image with one or two spot colors at most using its inexpensive inks.
3rd, production costs. The inkjet based methods are slow per piece, and can not come near the production speeds of screen printing, especially with a one or two color (on the press) screen print. You could easily bang out 100s of those per hour screen printing.
My thoughts about the different printing methods are:
DTG, very good for super high color short runs on cotton garments where setting up for a screen print run would actually cost more for the same amount of garments. Or, where a manual screen printing press would not provide the consistency of color in a high color image requiring a color method other than spot color.
Sublimation, very good for super high color, bullet proof print, no hand to the print, and sports apparel. If you want to print every darn inch of a garment with super high color and/or super detailed images, cut & sew sublimation is superior in many ways. Also, polyester has some attributes that are desirable for certain types of apparel such as moister wicking sports apparel. Then sublimation also provides one of the most durable long lasting prints in the industry with no hand on the fabric.
Screen printing, very good at all image types and the least expensive per piece costs on pre-made garments. Screen printing is the tried and true method of printing in our industry. It offers many advantages because of its inexpensive supplies and fast production rates. Although, the more color in an image required, the more skill of the printer required to get an excellent result. Also, a top of the line production floor is an expensive proposition equipment wise, more than the other printing methods.
