Too much body-hugging fail

Hi all,

I'm trying to make a shirt for a child, so the last thing I want is for the design to show every curve of the chest she's not supposed to have a curvy one of. Unfortunately, that is what's happening.

Sunflower fail: http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd123/leknaat_star/wips/sunflower-fail.png

I just want the image to look, well, properly flat, and not turn into a squished sunflower heart. I tried stretching it horizontally into a sunflower oval in hopes that it would look round when SL inevitably squished the shirt in, but that didn't really make a difference. I even considered sticking a prim on her front, but it would be obvious that it wasn't part of the shirt for the exact reason that the shirt won't be flat. And of course, the "loose shirt" slider doesn't really work; the shirt puffs out like an inflated balloon around her chest, but the curves are still there.

I just can't seem to figure out where or how to do this so that the flower looks good. I know it's possible for this sort of thing to look good, because it somehow looks good here: http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd123/leknaat_star/wips/bb-gingerbread.png (I didn't make this; I only wish I were that good), but I can't figure out how... Someone please help!

any shirt texture you make flat will follow the contours of the avatars mesh when worn.

The only way to have a completely flat looking shirt would be to have the avatars chest be completely flat too.

From your pic I would just move the flower pic higher up on the chest so there is less distortion where the ribs meet the stomach area of the avatar.

I tried moving it up, but it wouldn't go high enough to avoid the distortion. After all, it's a very small shape.

The other dress I showed a screenshot of made it look fine, so there must be a way.

You should create a dress using using a basic grid or a series of squares for the chest area. When you wear it you can see exactly how the grid is distorted on your avatar's chest. You can take a screenshot and figure out how to draw your design. The texturing in the chest area is pretty screwy. Actually it's screwy all over. I remember having to draw a crooked line in the template just so it looked like a straight line on the avatar...

I would probably just avoid making geometric shapes on your dress altogether. For example a flower is a circle and everyone knows that it's distorted because they all know exactly how a circle should look like. A gingerbread man is not any particular shape, in fact when you bake them they can become seriously deformed, so when people see a deformed gingerbread man on your shirt they don't really pay it much thought.

Hmmm. You have a good point... but, that's kind of sad because so many things are geometrically-shaped. Sigh.

the trick (i have made lots of logoed shirts) is to learn how to deform geometric shapes so they form the correct shape on the avatar. Try a flatened oval (almost a hot dog shape) and go from there. Also the mesh is seriously not going to work. Make it larger or go for a solid color.
The other solution is spend money for a 3d desgin program where you can paint on the avatar its self. but that is expensive.