Product Spotlight: Natural 20 Shirts

Published on August 26, 2020, Last modified on April 14th, 2022

We reviewed the Gelatinous Cube T-Shirt and the Critical Hit Mug sent to us by Natural 20 Shirts!

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The items reviewed in this article were sent to Arcane Eye free of charge.

In this product spotlight, we will be covering two products sent to us from Natural 20 Shirts: the Gelatinous Cube T-Shirt as well as Critical Hit Dungeons & Dragons Mug.

What is Natural 20 Shirts?

Natural 20 Shirts is your home for awesome nerdy t-shirts and more!

They specialize in Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt designs, with prints ranging from spell and class designs to the retrowave style Critical Hit design. Also available are a number of designs for different nerdy fan bases adjacent to D&D like Star Wars, Rick & Morty, and Bob’s Burgers

Their designs are sold via Tee Public, Threadless, and RedBubble. At the time of writing, the Tee Public store has over 200 designs, all of which are available on t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, notebooks, and tons of other merch options. To see the full extent of their designs and merch line-up, check out Natural 20 Shirt’s Tee Public store.

How does the merch hold up?

Gelatinous Cube T-Shirt

I chose the Gelatinous Cube T-Shirt design in large, vintage black, tri-blend and I am extremely happy with the quality of this product.

Design

The design is crisp and is a great size for the shirt. Because the design has a light blue in it, it only really works well with dark colors. The tri-blend shirt is also available in other colors such as red and blue. I found it worked best on either the vintage black or the navy heather backdrop.

The design itself is a great example of the D&D merch that I like to wear. I like that it’s not too “in your face” by keeping a minimal design and only using 2 colors. 

This design was actually picked out by my girlfriend, who knows nothing about D&D, because it had a “cool, retro, minimalist” vibe. She has provided her stamp of approval that I am allowed to wear this shirt out in public, not just to my weekly D&D sessions.

The decal has held up great in the wash. I stuck it in with the rest of my laundry for two wash and dry cycles and the material shows no signs of wear and tear.

Fabric

I’m extremely glad I went with the tri-blend fabric. I have ordered a couple of shirts from Tee Public in the past and I found that the regular t-shirts tend to get “crispy”, for lack of a better term.

The tri-blend has remained soft and is extremely light so it’s been a great thing to wear throughout the Southern Ontario heat wave of this summer.

I have noticed a couple stray threads after the first couple of washes, but I don’t think that any t-shirt I’ve ever purchased has been any different. Just burn them with a lighter and you are good to go!

Critical Hit Dungeons & Dragons Mug

I chose the Critical Hit Dungeons & Dragons Mug design and unfortunately, I wouldn’t suggest following in my footsteps.

The mug itself is sturdy for sure! I’ve drunk probably a dozen cups of tea out of it to date with no cracking or shifting in the ceramic. 

I also absolutely love the design. The retro vibe with a D&D theme is an awesome combo that totally caught my eye.

Probably the biggest pain point I have for the mug is the fact that the design doesn’t fully wrap around and cover the original white coloring of the mug. With that said, this is my fault for not noticing that this is how the mug is advertised on the Tee Public site.

I would suggest that if you would get bugged by something like this as well to either get the travel mug option, or choose a different design that works with a white background.

The other thing I noticed is that the design is kind of pixelated. It’s not super noticeable unless you hold the mug 6 inches away from your face, but unfortunately the quality of the print takes away from the great aesthetics of the design.

What is the Verdict?

Overall, I really like the design on the shirt and mug I received from Natural 20 Shirts! They feel fresh and the products are high quality enough to make me consider purchasing from them in the future when I’m inevitably looking for more D&D merch. 

As I mentioned above, if you are going to be bugged by the black design not wrapping fully around the white mug, go with the travel mug over the regular ceramic mug.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.

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