What are laws regarding copyrights of using characters in shirt designs?

Like cartoon characters.
For example: Pikachu from Pokemon or Mario.

Could I get in trouble if I use a character in a t-shirt design if I'm not doing a copy and paste? If I drew the character myself into a design to print, etc. I know the Christian line Kerusso does it with logos but I'm not sure if this is different, or even if they work out special deals.

Thanks!

You can get sued for every penny that you've ever even SEEN for putting a copyrighted character on a T-shirt, whether you drew it or not. The only legal way to do it is to get written legal consent from the copyright holder(s) before hand.