That being said, I would like to know if you see anyone selling these t-shirts, so I can promptly bring it to Dev and Dan's, and DC's lawyers attention. If you WANT to make a Young Heroes T-shirt for profit, please just let Dev and Dan know so that they can get their fair shake.

Please also note that I am not responsible for any damage that is done by following these directions including (but not limited to) damage to: fingers and other extremities, irons, your ego, t-shirts, ironing surfaces, and buildings where the ironing occurs.

If you have never used an iron before, find someone to help you.

I left all of the actual images on other pages to make this easier to print out, so you can have a copy handy while you work on this.

Then my friend Sean told me that he was planning on making a Danger Girl T-shirt to wear to the con. "How can you do that?" I asked, "T-shirt printers charge $20-$25 dollars for a single shirt." Well, he explained that the guys that run the local comic shop had made some t-shirts with iron-ons for a sale and they looked pretty cool. If they could do it, we could do it. How hard could it be?

Oh, man...

These are not the heavy plastic iron-ons from the 70's. These are light and breathable. If done right they look and feel a lot like a silk screening, pretty nifty.

What happens is one side of the paper is covered in this light plastic film stuff. When it goes through the printer, the ink gets sprayed onto the film and the film soaks it up. When you iron it on, the film (being some kind of thin plastic) melts a little and sticks to the cloth, taking your image along with it. There you go! That's all you have to do to get it to work.

It seems pretty simple, and it is, but there is a lot of room between "It works." and "That looks pretty good."
These instructions are to help you make it look pretty good.

• An inkjet printer.
• An iron.
• An ironing board, or a formica surface with a pillow case over it.
• Some light colored t-shirts.
• A graphics program. Get Paint Shop Pro 5

(Paint Shop Pro 5 STRONGLY recommended, you can download a free evaluation version)

• A scanner.
• Scissors.
• An X-acto knife.
• Some colored chalk.
• Some pins, or scotch tape.
• A washing machine.
• A non bleach detergent.
• Some vinegar
• A test shirt.
• A shirt with a layout that you like, for measuring distances.
• A basic understanding of how your paper travels through your printer.
• Patience. Lots of it.
• My YHIL T-shirt designs

You will want to do a test print on regular paper before you actually print to the transfer paper. These things use a significant amount of ink, so I wouldn't try this if it's about time to get another cartridge. If you don't want to print a test copy to save ink, it might be a good idea to go ahead and buy a new cartridge.

Sean tried printing some transfers out at work, and they came out all faded. He checked the cartridge head and it was all gummed over. After he cleaned it, it printed just fine. If a lot of other people use this printer, you probably want to just go ahead and check that.

After you print, you will want to let the image dry for a good while. I let mine sit for over 24 hours and the black parts still could smear a little. Don't touch the printed parts at all! The ink will scratch off in an instant. Just treat the transfers like your CD's and you should be ok.

Even if you get a few scratches, don't panic. When you iron and melt the plastic film it flows a bit, so it is a LITTLE forgiving, just be careful.

Once it has printed and dried you probably want to trim the excess paper off of your image. All it will do is add transparent plastic to the shirt that you don't need. Don't get carried away, where there is no ink there will be no color, so you don't need to cut out EVERY little bit of white, but removing excess paper will mean less film gets transferred to the shirt, making it lighter and more comfortable.

Sean's instructions told him to leave a 1/4 inch border around the entire transfer when he cut them out. Hogwash. I trimmed mine down to 1-2 mm and they worked great. You do want a wee bit of border, just to protect the edges though.

What they mean: "Unless you use a light color (white) it looks like crap."

A dark shirt is more forgiving of scorch marks from the iron, but you can't see the transfer. The shirt WILL be slightly visible through the image. So if you have an athletic gray "speckled" kind of shirt, the dark areas will show through, and if you have a dark shirt, then it will drown out the transfer.

I tried printing the Junior design on a dark green T-shirt, and even though it transferred real well even the reds and yellows got eaten by the shirts. It was unwearable. There was just this big muddy blot in the middle of the shirt. Arrgh! T-shirt down the drain.

Actually, I would not use ANYTHING besides a white shirt. Any color that you use, even a VERY light one, will tint your image in that direction. Planned for, that might make some real neat effects, but it just seems like a pain to me right now. I guess that's the drawback from the thick plastic transfers from the 70's. You could put those on ANYTHING.

Bigger shirts are more expensive than smaller shirts. My white XL cost $2.75 but a white XXL cost $4.75. Baggy and loose is good, but it costs more.

I don't make t-shirts professionally, but I have had to make t-shirts for local sporting events several times in the past. This means that I have spent a lot of time talking to the nice blonde woman at the T-shirt/Trophy shop here in town. She believes in educating her patrons, so they know what they are getting, and so that they understand the charges. She rocks, and I've learned most of this T-shirt stuff from her.

I went by her shop to pick up some individual t-shirts (single solids without pockets are hard to get anywhere else) since I didn't want to buy four packs to get a single shirt out of each one. Naturally, a conversation started up, and we started talking about t-shirts.

The nice blonde woman said that she does not use inkjet transfers, since she does almost entirely silk screening, but from what she had seen 50/50 cotton/polyester blends work best. The plastic in the film seems to bond with the plastic in the polyester real well. In hindsight, we probably should have taken her advice.

We used Hanes Heavyweight 100% cotton t-shirts. These worked out pretty good, but I also got a green Fruit of the Loom Heavy Cotton shirt and aside from not being able to see the transfer was hands down the best shirt. The Heavy Cotton shirt was about twice the weight (and cost) of the Heavyweight, go figure. The shirt was more robust, the weave was tighter, and (as best we could tell) took the transfer better. Makes sense, denser weave means that there would be more transfer area.

Anyway, I recommend either an Oneita Power/50 shirt, or a Fruit of the Loom Heavy Cotton. The Hanes Heavyweight was not bad, but you can really tell a difference in the fabric.

They should also all be white unless you really know what you're doing.

You MUST wash the T-shirt before you begin, to remove any leftover processing chemicals in the shirt. (bleach, sizing, dye, etc.)

Now these measurements are for an XL shirt. XL shirts are the most popular size of shirts sold right now. Just remember, for smaller shirts, shrink the distances, and for larger shirts, increase the distances.

Another trick is to pin or tape the transfer to the shirt and have a friend check it out or look in a mirror. This will let you know if the placement is right before you actually make a permanent change. Just remember to take the pins/tape off before you iron.

You might also want to try making light chalk marks where you want the transfer to go. These wash out real easy, but you will want to be careful not to trap the chalk between the transfer and the shirt. Mark the corners, instead of making a big "X". We used this trick all the time when I worked in the university theater costume shop. I think it should work great with transfers, but I have not tried it yet.

The two most important things to do are to keep a good pressure on the transfer, and to keep moving the ENTIRE SURFACE of the iron. If you keep a lot of pressure on it, then the colors will go on well, and it will keep bubbles from forming in the transfer. However, do not sacrifice pressure for mobility, because only mobility keeps your transfer from scorching.

IF YOU SMELL SOMETHING BURNING, IT'S TOO HOT OR YOU ARE NOT MOVING IT ENOUGH!

When ironing on the back transfer, you will want to put a piece of paper between the breast transfer and the ironing surface, and another piece between the chest and the back of the shirt to keep it from sticking. However, as we discovered, the edge of the paper will leave a line on the back transfer, so use a big piece. If you have an actual ironing board, then you probably don't need to worry about this, just spike the shirt on the pointy end before you do the back.

Anyway, once it's been ironed on good (the package will tell you how long , probably about 12-15 seconds) and tight, you need to peel the transfer paper up in one quick sweep. Caution! This might hurt! Maybe you should get gloves or tweezers or something, but I singed my fingers a bit doing this. It wasn't bad though, just irritating.

Additionaly, Seans instructions said to wash with vinegar after ironing. I don't know how, but it claimed that it would make the colors last longer. Didn't seem like it would hurt, but I didn't have any vinegar that wasn't allready in salad dressing, so I couldn't try it.

"When you begin making levels, you have to accept one thing. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, your first level will suck. Accept it. Live with it. Deal with it, and whatever you do, don't show it to anyone. Just move on, and the next one will suck less."

Good luck and please, tell me how it goes!