The One with Zelda

As you may know, I'm kind of in love with the Zelda franchise. I grew up playing the Ocarina of Time, and have played just about every Zelda game in existence. I mean, come on, it's pretty awesome. I mentioned recently how I had stumbled upon an old Zelda shirt design I had sketched out. Given my luck with my dr who shirt, I figured that I should just go for it.Who can say no to a free, custom Zelda shirt?

I had an old grey shirt hidden away in the back of my closet, and some old acrylic paint left. I also had just enough freezer paper left from my last shirt project to use. I love it when I have all these materials just laying around-- it's nice not having to go out and buy materials. Even if the acrylic paint is probably over ten years old and is kind of sketchy. It's free. That's all that matters.

 Freezer paper! I had just enough to cover my design. Which is good as I didn't want to go out and buy like 100 ft of it at the store.

 My design! Well, Nintendo's design. It's called the Hyrule Crest, and is a big symbol of the Zelda games. You can't really see the triforce that is in the center of the design.

All of my materials! I've had that grey shirt for years, and don't wear it anymore. So I decided it needed a facelift. Also, if it all went horribly wrong, I could just throw the shirt away.

I placed the freezer paper over my design and pinned it down. I'm not the most patient person, but I did my best painstakingly cutting out the design with my x-acto knife.

 Pin cushion!

The cut out design.

 And done! After I cut out the design, I carefully picked up the freezer paper and put it on my shirt.

 I used my iron to adhere the freezer paper to the shirt. Funny story-- always make sure that the shiny part of the freezer paper, aka the waxy part, is facing down onto the shirt. You want to adhere the paper to the shirt, not the iron. Which is kind of what I did. I was trying to adhere the little triangle in the middle of the triforce and I didn't check to see what side was facing down. Which meant that as soon as it hit the iron it stuck there. Frantically I scraped it off, not wanting to mess up my parent's iron.

So yeah, if you're making a shirt, definitely check that.

I mixed the paint and the fabric medium and applied a thick coat to my shirt. I hoped that it would not bleed, as it my dr who shirt kind of had. Even if it did bleed, it would simply added to the...rustic flair of a homemade shirt. ;)

Et, volia! The finished product. :D I loved the crisp, clean lines of the design. It definitely turned out better than my Dr. Who shirt did. To help speed the final stages of drying, I pulled out a hair dryer. It helped to dry the paint, and didn't seem to have any adverse side effect. 

I love it. Cheap, easy, and a nod to my favorite video game!