How I Create My own Custom T-Shirts

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This is a chronicle of the steps I go through when creating new merchandise for my Etsy shop.

So the other night, me and my buddy Cam were looking into getting a new co-op game to play. I wanted something upbeat and lighthearted to lift my spirits after all the dreary Don’t Starve Together gameplay we’ve been doing. We settled on Splatoon 3 and promptly ordered them from GameFly. (click here for a 1-month free trail!)

This colorful, action-packed, family-friendly, wildly fun Nintendo game inspired some of my designs!

After getting utterly decimated for the first few matches (those squid kids are ruthless!) we were finally able to upgrade our weapons and purchase some fresh gear. We spent a few minutes testing out our brand new arsenals, changed clothes, then hopped back into a few more online matches for the night. The game was good and fun and all, but something else stuck with me after that… I couldn’t stop thinking about the style of the game! More specifically, the clothes.

Splatoon 3 for Nintendo Switch @ Amazon: https://amzn.to/3JuJqEg

Splatoon 3 for Nintendo Switch @ BestBuy: https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/oqRdZE

I wanted this shirt in game, and IRL as well!

I took a few screen shots to use for reference, then got to work replicating the design. This time I imported the images into Photoshop and traced over them (filling in where needed as some of my screenshots were a little blurry) I saved my newly made design as a PNG file so the background will be transparent when I upload it to its t-shirt. If Photoshop is unavailable to you, Canva can be used to the same effect. (Canva Pro free trial here )

Shirt design being replicated in photoshop.

It’s nothing special but I use a cheap Wacom drawing table that I got off of Amazon a few years ago to sketch these designs. It can be purchased here

Next head on over to Printful.com and create an account. Printful is a digital printing service that will take your designs, print them on merchandise, then ship them out for you. No need to house any physical products at home!

Once in, open up the product template tab on the left and choose a piece of merchandise worthy of our sweet Splatoon 3 design (we’ll use a shirt this time)

On this screen click on “choose file” to upload the PNG to be placed onto the t-shirt.

After the image has been added, it can be edited and adjusted for the perfect angle.

Your creations can be saved for later to be ordered and shipped to your home. There are loads of other templates to display your designs such as coffee mugs, face masks, and bandanas!

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