It is by no means perfect. But the color is very nice, though not a dead on match. It's a nice, bold, vibrant red. Naturally, you cannot tell this from the pictures, but it is. You'll have to trust me. It's also 74" wide, which gives me plenty of wiggle room on doing the cape layup.
The texture is also decent. While not an exact match to the screen used cape, it's close. It has a similar style to the weave, and it is thick. It has a very soft "hand", as per the website, which is cool. It's probably a little heavier than I would like, and theres a bit more stretch to it than would be optimal, but if this ends up being the final fabric I use, I'm pretty happy with it.
For the record, here is the link to the fabric on trimfabric.com. Because it's not an exact match, I dont' really feel like I'm telling tales out of school.
Of course, I'm excited now, but it wasn't until I did some tests to make sure it was going to work. I cut up a couple little pieces, and did an adhesion test with the edge of the cape. The fabric has two very different qualities on either side, and I wanted to see which one would stick the best.
One worked better than the other, so now I know which direction to go with it. Cool beans. The fabric at this very moment is in the washing machine. There was a big crease down the middle of it from the way it came off the bolt, so I am washing it in hot, and will then spin dry it in order to get it out. I tried ironing it before that, and it didn't work.
And time for a little product placement! I accidentally spilled a TINY drop of So-Strong urethane pigments on my carpet, and in my attempt to blot it up, ended up with like a six by six inch red smudge on my carpet. I then followed up with a drop of black a week later. Nice! I went to target and picked up some carpet cleaner, and the stuff worked like MAGIC! I highly recommend this product!
You can sort of see a slightly faded pink smear below the can. That used to be a GIANT smudge of dark red. I need to do one more pass at it, but I have faith. Where's that dude Billy Mays when you need him??
And in slightly less impressive news, my shipment from Smooth-On showed up the other day, so now I can complete my latest pour of the chest emblem. Just a tiny touch up.
Overall, I still get a very giddy feeling when I crank out a chest emblem or a belt. After SOOOO much leg work, prep, research, and just plain sweat, it's really a giant relieve and very satisfying to see them come out so well.
2 comments:
I Love your blog, how will you be attaching the cape? Will you be going under the armpit, or will you be making a vest style like they did in Superman Returns?
I will be attaching it the same way they did the screen used capes in Returns. The vest, to my knowledge, was only used on a couple of test capes, and did not make it into final production. The one I am making will velcro onto the back, and halve clips that go under the collar. No armpit straps.
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