I decided to make a t-shirt for my friend Mike Starke, because he saw my other t-shirts and loved the designs.
I have known Mike for over 20 years and have watched him in many shows in Liverpool. I designed and made this unique Scouse Super Star t-shirt for Mike because what's good enough for Michael Ball is good enough for Mike Starke - it took a lot of patience and countless hours to complete the t-shirt.
I instructed my personal assistants how to create it step by step. I always use Photoshop and Illustrator on my Mac computer to create my initial designs. Once they are printed out on card - they are cut to make stencils and used to create the outlines on a plain t-shirt. Then the transferred design gets coloured in with fabric pens, to help to visualise the different sections and apply a base of various background colours.
To make the colours permanent, the design had to be ironed over. Then each individual rhinestone needed to be glued on using fabric glue, the t-shirt was left to dry thoroughly before the fabric paint and glitter could be applied. Each individual coloured fabric paint and glitter was then applied separately. The time-consuming aspect was waiting for the paint and glitter to dry before the excess glitter could be shaken off - before another coloured paint/glitter could be applied. The finished t-shirt looks professional and effective, I'm thrilled with the final result and the fact Mike was delighted when he found out I had designed and made this for him.
