Sources for Vector Images

Purchasing or finding creative commons vector images is a strategy that many artists and I use to save time and add complexity to our shirts. I would also venture to guess that many of the t-shirts you see marketed have at least some purchased vector images. Using these images does not suggest that you forgo using creativity to create a design. The vector art is used as a medium rather than a subject. Here are some examples:



Here is a good thread regarding vector images and where to find them:

T-Shirt Forums

Here is where I have found some great images at a reasonable price:

VoomStock

More Stencils!

Great Stencil Tutorial

This guy has spent years mastering this technique and very generously shares it with us:

http://www.stencilrevolution.com

Fit.

It's my largest garment bugbear. Not only do I have to find the shirt with the right color, style, and texture, I have make sure it will fit. I don't have the strangest body. Why is it so hard to find a good shirt? Well, one constant I have discovered: fit correlates directly with quality. Sure, every so often we run into a great shirt that's cheap and looks great on us. In general, however, manufacturers of higher quality shirts spend that extra little bit of time on fit.
Unfortunately, many t-shirt designers spends enormous amounts of time and talent on t-shirt art and end up putting it on poor quality shirts. I have my favorites: American Apparel and Alternative Apparel. I have my least favorites: Hanes, FOTL, etc. I do not want to denigrate the names of the aforementioned companies. I have many of their shirts and they serve a purpose. I am only rendering an opinion on what works for me and what I think will work for others. With that said, I plead with designers: focus on art and canvas.

www.americanapparel.net

www.alternativeapparel.com

Texture

Just like in cooking, texture is an important part of t-shirt art. I guess we can say that texture itself is an important part of any art. In Photoshop, you can achieve texture in a variety of ways. I have been experimenting with texture brushes. I used three different, custom brushes to create the following margle-like texture:
Here are the Photoshop brushes I created and used to do the above:

Three Cool Brushes

Great Shirt Graphic Tutorial

Some great tips regarding design and t-shirt production. Requires a pdf download.
Photoshop t-shirt design tutorial

Useful Dingbats

Here's a site I ran across that gives some great dingbat graphics that would very useful given out recent discussion on grunge:

Useful and Free Dingbat Fonts