Custom Capes

[nanuck95]

So, I decided to play around with making some custom capes. I tried out the printer fabric and that seemed to work pretty good, there were a couple of things I need to tweak. First, the colors are more washed out on fabric than they are on paper. The reds turned more pinkish than I wanted to, so I need to tweak that a bit. The brown on the forestman cape also came out a bit washed out, so I need to play around with that a bit.

The fabric comes in 8.5 x 11 sheets, and I was curious at how much the ink would bleed through to the other side. It doesn't actually, so you wind up with printing on one side of the cape, and the back is left white with no real way to feed it back through the printer. I also didn't like that the fabric was much more flimsy than the LEGO official capes once you pulled it off the backing paper. So, I tried gluing two halves together and it seemed to solve both problems. I now have printing on both sides, and the glue makes the capes much more rigid like the official ones. The glue also seemed to help prevent some of the fraying when you cut them out. The only drawback is you essentially only get half as many capes per sheet.

Anyway, comments and suggestions are certainly welcome as well as any questions.

[andhe]

Nice work! Do you have any closer pictures? It's hard to assess the level of detail. The colour and quality seems to match well. Are they the same size as a regular cape? Be interesting to see how patterns would work as well as the insignias.

[Ryclen]

Does anybody know what's the best fabric to use to simulate an actual lego cape? I've heard something about broadcloth.

[Quickblade22]

Commented on Flickr, but felt the need to say here how nice they turned out. Having colors on both sides is a nice touch.

[legokilt]

Those are great cloaks. How well do they hold up to usage?

[nanuck95]

Those are great cloaks. How well do they hold up to usage?

Sorry for the delayed response. I treated the edges with an anti-fray glue so they shouldn't easily come apart on their own. Since it is two pieces of material glued together, it should hold up fairly well. I'm going to guess they will hold up to moderate play-wear, but they aren't water-proof and with enough handling, they will show dirt and probably fray.

[Lego Stu]

Nice work. I made some custom capes with that printable fabric last year. I sprayed them with acrylic clear matte on both sides, then painted the inside with the cheap acrylic craft paint that comes in hundreds of colors. I had some problems with paint bleed through on holes in the weave that were not sealed, so I needed multiple coats of clear matte. Next time I think I'll try your method. What kind of glue did you use?

[nanuck95]

What kind of glue did you use?

Just an Elmer's glue stick. Seems to hold them together pretty well, although it gets a little messy if you're not careful.