Fashion Illustration Design for T Shirt Printing

Handmade Business Studio Vlog

In this video, I will go over some of my fashion illustration design drawings for T-shirt printing. From idea to illustrations, this is how I make them. Preparing art for a t-shirt design so that it can be edited in Illustrator and made into screens for printing.

I've got some of my drawings laid out on the table. Some of these are older.
This Magical Zebra-corn is one of my favorites. It is no longer in print but I might be bringing it back. I think I have it on coffee mugs currently. 

This illustration is probably about six or seven years old. This is the original sketch for one of my mermaid designs. The mermaid is still in print, you can see it on my website - revivalink.com.


I added more details and here to give it this like Art Nouveau look more details in the show. I finished illustration all of her scales down and changed her tail. For the final one that's on shirts so that kind of gives a little illustration of my creation process like they all are just little sketches and then I add to them.


Another of my favorites designs is the zombie bunnies. It was on a hoodie for a while but for some reason, it didn't sell very well. I don't know why, I think they're adorable.

This is another illustration that shows my process. This was an idea called the bearded bear.


Here's this bear and he's gonna have these little birds in his beard. You can see there's just different parts of them. Then, this is the final. You can see how I'll make several different sketches of the parts of the design that I want and then I will scan them all in to my computer. I draw them in pencil first and then I go over them in a micron pen. Then, I scan them and combine all the parts together to make the final design in Adobe Illustrator. That has been my process for the last 13 years now.

I know there are other ways that people do it. You could get like a Wacom tablet and illustrate on there. However I'm kind of old school and I like to just draw everything onto paper. The reason why I use transparency paper is so that when I'm drawing different parts I can see how they'll line up together. That really helps me kind of see the design come together before it does. You can see I drew these birds a little bit bigger... but then in the Illustrator program I can shrink them down so that they fit in the beard. 

I tried to get one of those Wacom tablets and just draw right into the computer and it's just not the same. I like the feel of my pen on paper. I like holding the pen and it gives it a different look. More of a sketchy, hand-drawn look.

I draw my cat a lot. This is my cat and Cheebra. She has stripes and spots so she is a cheetah and a zebra. Hehe, Chee-bra.



This is when I was doing some Zentangles. Little illustrations that are fun. You just start with one shape and then start filling it in.


It's very meditative to color these things and I still like to do that in my free time. But that one I made into a howling wolf shirt design.


I love this squid, he's ready to face off with a jellyfish! I couldn't find the drawing of the finished jellyfish though. It has been lost to time. 

Oh yes, the coffee cat is one of my latest designs that I absolutely love. 

I had four different cats holding the mug here. I posted it to my Facebook group of nature loving fans saying, "Which one of these sketchy little over-caffeinated cats do you like best?" It was actually a tie between this one and this one. Then, I ended up changing this cat a little bit and it was the final one that I went with. I did it as a two-color design. The coffee cup and his eyes are yellow and then the cat is black so the eyes really pop. It turned out really great! You can see the final cat design here.

I have so many more, but we are running out of time today... I will probably do another video for the rest.

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