FEATURED
Enter the Dome T-Shirt
SunOne / harmDome
back/front\back
Origins
The Enter the Dome T-shirt is the first
SunOne /
harmDome collaboration.
We've appreciated each others art styles for a long time and tossed around ideas,
sharing drawings and files, eventually we decided to do a T-shirt. It seemed like the right idea since
I had done significant investigation into laser bleaching fabric and Vincent
had created an
incredible artwork that was used for the front. The back is my digital art combined with Vincents drawings
and was inspired by the dark magicians and the shadow realm from Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Oliver
- Oliver
[scrollable]
Technique
Front: Screen-print
Back: Bleach stencil and airbrush
I found during the testing of bleaching cotton by laser that doing it directly caused too much structural damage and wasn't suitable for a T-shirt, although I loved the results. This was a major setback but lead to me developing and refining a different technique, bleach stenciling. The stencils were made of mylar plastic that had been laser pulsed millions of times in a dithering pattern to engrave the negative of the design. The stencils are so delicate that screen-printing rips them and pressing the bleach through leads to bleeding. Painting bleach or using a spray bottle didn't work either since the holes were so small at the desired resolution that surface tension became an issue. I needed a way to get the bleach through the stencil while keeping it intact. Finally, I realised airbrushing would work since the bleach droplets are small and fast enough to make it through the stencil. This came with risk though since chlorine gas is produced which is highly toxic. To mitigate this we did it outside and used gas masks. I also didn't realise bleach reacts with metals and after the first day of testing I had almost ruined my airbrush, from then on I rinsed it regularly. After days of working on spraying techniques with help from Vincent and changing the laser settings we had found the way.
- Oliver
Back: Bleach stencil and airbrush
I found during the testing of bleaching cotton by laser that doing it directly caused too much structural damage and wasn't suitable for a T-shirt, although I loved the results. This was a major setback but lead to me developing and refining a different technique, bleach stenciling. The stencils were made of mylar plastic that had been laser pulsed millions of times in a dithering pattern to engrave the negative of the design. The stencils are so delicate that screen-printing rips them and pressing the bleach through leads to bleeding. Painting bleach or using a spray bottle didn't work either since the holes were so small at the desired resolution that surface tension became an issue. I needed a way to get the bleach through the stencil while keeping it intact. Finally, I realised airbrushing would work since the bleach droplets are small and fast enough to make it through the stencil. This came with risk though since chlorine gas is produced which is highly toxic. To mitigate this we did it outside and used gas masks. I also didn't realise bleach reacts with metals and after the first day of testing I had almost ruined my airbrush, from then on I rinsed it regularly. After days of working on spraying techniques with help from Vincent and changing the laser settings we had found the way.
- Oliver
model: Jaspur Ross
