How to Hack the Robot T-Shirt

I have several robot t-shirts, obtained thru contests.  I always wanted a black one, and thought they had a store on site, but instructables.com did not.  Only recently, they have opened a store, and I thought ah ha! Now I can buy a black shirt....but no, they just have one color.  So...the wheels started turning and I just thought "I will have to hack one for myself."  In this instructable, I show two methods to do just that.  Let's go!

First, is a picture of the robot so we can make our pattern.  It's really a very simple piece of artwork and I could have just drawn it, but chose to copy a picture I downloaded to make it an exact duplicate. Then, obviously a t-shirt or shirts, a light box, and assorted acrylic paints, a sharpie, a piece of cardboard to insert in shirt to prevent the paint from soaking thru, and other, miscellaneous items.

Here, I place pattern on light box so that I can trace it onto my shirt. This is one of the two methods I used, and the other follows with the black t-shirt. I used a sharpie as shown and made an accurate outline of the robot.

I tried to match the paint colors as best I could, although I think minor variations would not detract from the work at all. In fact, time permitting, I would like to make some different colored robots, but then, they wouldn't be quite the same would they?

The t-shirt is quite absorbent, so I used more than one coat to get good coverage.  In between coats, I used a hair dryer to speed the drying process. 

After painting, some of the lines had become obsure or hidden, so I just went back with the Sharpie and refreshed them.

This was my first method I used, and I tried it on an older t-shirt that was destined for the trash bin.  I wanted to see if my method would work, how difficult it would be, etc., and if indeed, I could make a decent project.  I think it turned out fine.

Since it would be impossible to trace through the black material, I took my original pattern, used the light box, again, and traced out the robot onto a piece of 90 weight cardstock. This would be the stencil used to create my design.  All I had to do was paint the area in the stencil and then draw over that with the sharpie.

To make this stencil, I simply cut out the traced outline.

Place stencil where you want it so that it is centered and at the appropriate height.

A different method than above, but effective,nevertheless. After filling in the painted areas with the same colors as used in method 1, I finished by drawing in the black lines over the dried paint.

Now I have my black robot t-shirt, a teal shirt, and I can add them to my existing supply of t-shirts.