First Cape Fabric Test

Seldom are my expectations and hopes met. Even less often are they exceeded. Well, dear readers, today is one of those rare days when the latter has taken place!!

Yup, this morning I finished up a test of the cape fabric, and I'm overwhelmed at how well it turned out. Take a look for yourself.

Here is the textured surface of the cape:



And here's a shot showing the fabric underneath.



Naturally, the colors aren't quite right, but that wasn't the purpose of this test. The purpose was to test methodology. And it worked like a charm. I was worried that the latex would not get deep enough into the mold to fill in all the little diamond shapes, but it did just fine. There are a few little bubbles here and there, but they are few and far between. Very acceptible level of quality control.

I'll still need to work on the color, but the opacity is just perfect. It's right where I want it to be. It's also very flexible, and extremely light. I'm feeling pretty confident that I've chosen the right materials for this part of the task, and that's pretty exciting to me. I'm going to do a little more experimenting with the lay up process, to make sure I'm doing it as best as I possibly can. But even if I just went with things as they are, I'm feeling pretty confident about the results.

The next step is to nail down the color of the latex, and to find the fabric that I will use for the inside. I'll have to dye that too, though I'm not overly worried about that. I think it would take far more time and energy than I have to match the color exactly, so I'm just going to shoot for a nice vibrant red. I'll take a similar route with the outer shell. I don't know if I can get it exactly, but I think I can get it pretty close. CERTAINLY close enough so that the casual observer won't be able to bust me on color.