Screen printing for Date's coat symbol pt.4

I should have written this already yesterday but I got home late and was tired as crap all day so.. lolnope. I will write it now instead but the actual process was done yesterday in school's art class. Oh, and excuse me most photos are a bit blurry...

Okay, so last time I said it's ready for test printing and this is what I did!
First up I cut out a fitting piece of black cotton fabric (from school) and then taped a piece of paper on the table where I would be printing to guard the table from.. well, getting paint on it. I used black fabric because then I could print with white fabric paint and that's better because Masamune's symbol is white.

cotton fabric and taped paper underneath

After that I put the fabric on top of the paper, stretched and taped it tightly along all corners. There was no iron in school so that was the only way to get the wrinkled fabric a bit less wrinkly lol. Oh, and obviously to hold it in place while printing.

Fabric taped in place

Okay, now ready for test printing! Here's the preparation and all items I would need. The white can is obviously fabric paint and those wooden things.. *googles* .. they seem to be called 'squeegee' in English. Sounds funny to me.. xD And then of course I'd need my printing frame.

Preparations complete

I took a spoon and put a row of paint at one of the edges of the frame...

The paint placed out (I used some extra.. you don't need that much)

And then took the squeegee and spread the paint so it fully covered the symbol.. wiped off the excess that was on top of the symbol and made sure there were no "paint lines". I left the remaining excess paint at the edge because I would be printing more than one.

It should look something like this..

When you lift the frame carefully the frame will look like this:

The symbol is almost transparent

I printed another symbol directly after the first. Can't wait too long between the prints or the fabric paint, especially the white for some reason, could clog up or something.. I'm not 100% sure of that but whatever. After the second test print my creations looked like this:

MAH BABIES 8DDDD

I had room to print a third one in the bottom center. Oh, and when test printing I put a paper on top of the already printed symbols so that the frame, complete with paint on it, wouldn't get on the already printed symbols. Then again if I were printing seriously (aka non-test) I would not do this because the paper catches up some of the paint of the already printed ones.. they don't dry in a second lol. If I wanted to print several ones close to one another I'd have to wait between each one so that the previous one would be dry. But yeah, because this was just a test to see that everything works as it should I did not care about slightly ruining my prints.

After printing the third symbol. Two previous ones still covered..

As you can see the printing is very exact and doesn't bleed or anything. Totally worth the extra effort at the start because after the printing frame is ready it's super chill; you could pretty much mass-produce almost perfect prints with little effort! Imagine how tedious it would be to handpaint each of these every time...

Oh, and after I had test printed enough I had to wash the frame. I used a sponge and just carefully rubbed the frame free of the paint under tap water. For some reason my tapes (which I put on earlier to conceal the holes) didn't peel off lol. I put it to dry in that same box I used earlier when developing the symbol with the water jet.

Drying drying.. (if you look close you can see the tapes on the other side)

And that's it. Next time I can print on the real thing!

Battousai wig styling + preview!

I got my wig for Battousai yesterday and today I decided cut it. It was originally sold for another character but the color was perfect for Battousai in my eyes and it also had a short clip-on ponytail, double yay!

The wig looked like this before my scissors attacked it:

le wig in its original glory

I cut off this much hohoh

I can't say I'm all that pleased with the wig, it's decent but could have been better.. I'm still really new to wig cutting and I hesitate a lot and doubt myself, hah. Oh well, maybe I can fix it a bit better when I have more proper hair/wig cutting equipment. Oh well. With the wig cut I decided to do a cosplay preview. The sun was about to set, but it wasn't dark yet outside, so I put everything on as quick as I could manage (while still looking decent) and went out in the snow. I must say.. wearing geta in snow was... interesting...

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli 

And those were pretty much the only decent ones.. OTL I will try to get better pictures after/during Närcon Vinter.

I find it a bit funny how when I earlier tried to be does-not-kill Kenshin I ended up looked super serious on photos and when I now cosplay Battousai I looked like I'd hug a squirrel before killing anything on most photos. Not sure if going the right way... x'D

Screen printing for Date's coat symbol pt.3

More progress on the screen printing!

Last time I finished all preparations needed for the symbol.. so now I had to get it over to the frame itself. I had kept the frame since last time, treated with photographic emulsion, in a dark room so it wouldn't get ruined by being exposed to light. Okay, so to get my chosen symbol traced over to the frame I put it next to the frame's "outside" (make sure the design will be the right way for how you want the final print to be on your fabric) and then put it inside an UV-light cabinet with a thick glass plate on top of it. I put my screen printing frame with the symbol transparent paper in there, put the UV-lights on, closet the doors and took time: 5 minutes.

UV-light cabinet (photo taken after I had removed my frame and lights were off)

After 5 minutes I took my frame out and it still looked totally... greenish. I couldn't see in the semi-darkness that anything had changed... except that not it wasn't light sensitive anymore. I held up the frame towards the door that was ajar (art classroom consists of two main rooms, I was in the non-main room were the heavier/special equipment is) and when I looked close enough I could see the symbol in a slightly fainter greenish shade along all the other... greens. Now to get it visible.. with the help of a high-pressure water jet thingy-whatever-it-is!

It looked like this ~

I put my screen printing frame into that.. err.. whatever it is called... to start "cleaning" my frame.. or well, to get the symbol visible. I find it a bit funny because that box I sprayed inside looked like something from a horror movie lol. I put earmuffs on because this water jet thingy makes very high sounds.

I just sprayed all over the frame in quick circle-ish motions.. making sure not to spray on the same place too long. I alternated the sides of the frame so that I would "clean" both sides evenly.

When I had sprayed once or twice.. you can see the symbol becoming visible (lighter green)

After I had sprayed more (notice the symbol turning transparent)

After I had sprayed enough to have the symbol turned fully transparent I took it out and attacked it with the blow dryer because.. well.. obviously it was soaking wet. I kept some distance with the blow-dryer, art teacher told me not to have it too close.

Speed drying for the win!

When my screen printing frame was dry I took it out into the light.. aka over to the main room of the art class. I taped around the frame's edges just to be sure of no paint leaking when printing.

Started reinforcing the edges with tape

I then held my frame up into the lights above me; I had to check for small holes and other faults (aka places were the paint could get through) and tape over them on the frame's "outside".. otherwise I would get small spots when printing on the fabric.. not cool. You have to be very careful when checking for holes, you don't want to miss any.. even if they are barely the size of a needle prick. So look many times to make sure there are no holes whatsoever.

Taping over all holes..

And that was all progress for today. My frame is now ready for a test printing!

Screen printing for Date's coat symbol pt.2

I said in the earlier screen printing post:

"And with that the art class had ended for me. More about this next week."

I LIED
Or well, not really, I just had forgotten that I have art class on Thursdays too... xD

Today I picked a frame to use. While I applied the photographic emulsion on the frame, in a semi-dark room (the stuff is light sensitive), the art teacher went to scan my symbol over from the A3 paper to two A4 halves on transparency paper. (no A3 available)

Photographic emulsion

Plan of attack: screen print frame and a metal scoop-ish thing with the emulsion in (it's actually more of a teal color IRL)

There was a certain technique how to apply the photographic emulsion. You would hold up the frame with one hand and hold the metal scoop with the liquid in the other. Put the scoop at the bottom of the frame and then carefully angle the scoop so that the photographic emulsion flows and touches the frame, when it does that angle the scoop sliiiiiightly back up (but have the emulsion still touching the frame) and run it up towards the frame. Just repeat until the frame's.. frame... is covered. After that do another run with the scoop but this time without angling it.. aka so that you don't get any more photographic emulsion on. Just run it down and up to wipe off the excess. I dunno if my explanations make sense...

When that was done I took some paper and wiped the corners of the frame clean (no need to have the liquid on those) and then used a very painted, if I might add blow-dryer to dry the frame super speed.

Before the drying operation

After that it was time to work with the symbol itself. As I said I now had two A4 sized halves which I had to match as perfectly as possible. My art teacher by the way printed out two of each half because just one alone looked so faded.. not dark enough.

If you look closely you can see that it's not perfectly matched..

I tried for a long time get the symbol to match perfectly but I noticed it was impossible to get all parts of the symbol to meet just right in the middle. If some part was perfect it was off somewhere else etc. But then, a lot of inner irritation later, I noticed that if I left a bit of space between the two halves all different parts of the symbol would match if I just drew a continuous fitting line over to the other half; it was as if the scanner had eaten a few millimeters of the symbol.

Next up was to use some clear tape to tape together the two halves to one. I didn't want them coming loose or having the layered halves (remember I had two of each half to get the symbol dark enough) move so that they are not perfectly on top of each other.

I put a lot of strips of tape along the middle on both sides

Okay, I had the symbol taped together into one piece.. but there was now a line of empty space in the middle which needed to be filled in with the missing "eaten" parts of the symbol. Marker to the rescue!

After using markers to fill in the missing parts..

That was all the progress for today. :)

Masamune's undershirt feat. [not so] bling-bling sleeves

 Hello and greetings to you!

I've been working on and off the past weeks on a sort of undershirt for Masamune because even though it's not really obviously visible if he has something under that torso armor plate or not.. I can't imagine it being terribly comfortable if there wasn't anything under it hahah.

I have not written about this earlier even though I did not make it all in one day.. I decided to write everything in a single post when it's done, which it now is. So I warn you now, a lot of ramblings and progress photos ahead. If anyone wonders why I take so much progress photos of the steps when I work on my Masamune cosplay it's because it's a big "project work" I have to do (yes, I chose to do a costume) and therefore I need to show how I work and document all progress so my supervisor can follow what I do and blah blah.

The first progress on this undershirt I made on the 6th January. I decided to use very dark blue tricot fabric because it was what was easily available and I figured that because Masamune's undershirt isn't shown it wouldn't really matter what color it was (and besides it would hardly be seen anyway) ... but I wanted either black, dark gray or dark blue.

I found some close enough pattern (or not, it was some kind of top.. I don't know really) and decided to use it. I fixed the fabric and pinned the pattern in place. It was a bit short so I lengthened it a bit too. Also I cut the sides straight instead of curved.

Pattern pinned on fabric

The pattern I used didn't originally have a sleeve pattern but mom told me she had used this pattern quite a lot and found that another pattern's sleeve pattern fit it. I went and searched for it and then I found it. I didn't need the "mouth" of the sleeves as wide so I skipped the seam allowances except at the shoulder attachment part.

Sleeve pattern pinned on fabric

Because I've never sewn a long-armed shirt before I wasn't sure how the sleeve would fit.. yes, I found that upper shape weird. So to reassure myself I went and wrapped it around my arm after I had cut it out. At the same time I also decided to mark with a pin how far down I wanted the chainmail net fabric to reach.

Sweet Jesus, it indeed will become a sleeve! :DD lolololo

Next thing was to cut out the net fabric for the sleeves. It would be on top of the sleeves, like a second skin. First I just put it on top of the fabric to see what it would look like when finished.

Net fabric on top of sleeve. (pin marks how far I want it to reach)

Close-up photo

It looked surprisingly good so I decided to go ahead and cut out fitting parts. I folded the net fabric and put the cut out sleeve on top, to act as a pattern. As you can see on the photo below the full sleeve is not on the net fabric, I only wanted the net fabric to reach to that pin placed horizontally... the uncovered parts of the sleeve would be hidden by Masamune's gauntlets anyway.

Reference photo. As you can see the gauntlets reach pretty high, something elbow length..

Net fabric cut out to right shape and pinned in place

After I had all the parts cut out for the sleeves I started sewing the undershirt's shoulders closed, right sides facing each other as usual. I used an overlock machine.

Sewing shoulder seams..

That was all the progress I did on 6th January. Next progress was on 11th January.

I started by zigzaging the net fabric in place at where it ends on the sleeve, some 5 or so centimeters before the sleeve's "mouth".

Net fabric zigzaged in place..
(I chose to zigzag because it felt more secure than just a straight stitch)

After that was done I could go ahead and sew the sleeves to the undershirt... lolnope. Mom told me I had forgot to mark which part of that sleeve curve attachment thing is front and which is back. It was not like I had forgotten.. it was more like I had no idea long-armed shirt sleeves were so fancy that it mattered which way you sewed them on to the shirt itself. OTL (note: I've never sewn a long-sleeved shirt.. or heck, any sleeved shirt before.. just kimonos and a sleeveless shirt)

So I went and grabbed the sleeve pattern and put it beside until I could figure out which way it was supposed to be sewn on.. luckily the pattern was marked.

Notice "Etu", it means front in Finnish

Looking at the left sides of pattern and sleeve you'll notice it curves slightly deeper..

Okay, so that side which curves more will be sewn to the shirt's front. I went and got the body of the undershirt and pinned the sleeve in place.

Sleeve pinned in place

Sleeve attached to the body of the undershirt

Next step was to sew the sleeve closed as well as the sides of the undershirt. Still using an overlock machine.

Started sewing the sleeve closed

One sleeve sewn, about to sew armpit and go over to sewing the shirt's sides closed...

After both sleeves and both sides of the shirt were closed I could put it on and it would resemble clothing, yay. I put it on and it seemed okay so far.. but what was not okay was my face, hence the face censor.

Excuse me very dark photo..

That was all the progress I did on 11th January. Next progress was on 14th January.

With the sleeves sewn on and the sides closed I had the hemming and collar left to fix. I decided to hem the shirt's bottom first... but it was uneven.

I used the overlock to cut it straight and sew the edges so they don't fray. Then I switched over to the "normal sewing machine" and hemmed the bottom with a straight stitch.

Hemming hemming ~
(alien camera color anyone?)

Next up was to hem the "mouth" of the sleeves. I had to take off a part of the sewing machine so I could fit the sleeve around that part on which the presser is. I didn't want to risk accidentally sewing the sleeve opening shut.

Zigzaging the opening of the sleeve..

.. and hemming it with a straight stitch

That was all the progress I did on 14th January. Next progress was on 22nd January.

What was now left was the collar. I had pretty much no clue how to make a collar so what I did was pretty much impromptu. I started by taking a measuring tape and measuring around the collar on the undershirt to figure out how long the collar needed to be to fit. Then I went to get some white fabric that had some stretch in it but still wasn't overly.. floppy. Found a fitting fabric at home.
Because I couldn't find the fabric pen I had to use pins instead to mark the fabric where I would cut. I thought a 10 cm wide collar would be enough. I added some extra length just in case.

Fabric marked with pins

Collar fabric cut out
(I cut off those.. err.. sides of the fabric with those small holes.. you know, which keep the fabric from fraying.. I have no idea what they are called)

I figured I would need some light interfacing fabric for the collar...

Went to get the roll of interfacing fabric, put collar half on it...

... and cut out two fitting pieces

I ironed on the interfacing fabric to the wrong side of the collar pieces. I cut off the excess. I then went to sew the collar pieces together at one end to form a single long piece.

But when I thought about how to attach it things got weird; it wouldn't really work. I would need to sew the other ends together too so I would get one closed donut collar...

Like this. Now it looks like it could work...

Buuuuuuuttttttt. At this point I realized I had made a measurement mistake, d'oh! Of course I would have to fold the collar in half because there's the interfacing fabric on the wrong side... and because of this I should have cut the collar twice the width I wanted it to be when finished.

Collar folded in half, now only 5 cm wide...

I thought it wasn't too bad of a mistake so I continued. I took the undershirt and test pinned the collar around the collar opening of the shirt. The collar was way too long...

Notice the huge collar bump/gap.. ill-fitting...

I had to cut off a few centimeters from one of the ends I had sewed together and resew it closed.

After I had cut one end open again for a better fit

After resewing it closed I test pinned it in place again. This time it fit much better, not perfectly but better. Also I noticed if I aligned one of the shoulder seams with the corresponding collar seam the seams at the other side would not match up.

Better fit but both sides can't have aligned seams...

But I think I know why that is - because the undershirt's collar opening on the front and back are not of the same size while the collar has exactly the same length between each seam. I can't win haha.
I just decided to go with it and went to the overlock machine to sew the collar on.

Sewing collar on

I had to stretch the shirt's fabric a bit to get the collar to fit around right because it was still a bit longer than the shirt's collar opening. (both of them stretches lengthwise)

When I was done I noticed the collar is more.. err.. bigger, than when I put the shirt on without a collar. Probably because of the fabric stretching during the sewing.

Finished undershirt

I don't mind so much even though the collar isn't super accurate for the character; when it is looser and isn't hugging my neck I don't have to worry about restricted neck movement or face derps. I know my face tends to look bad when I have a high collar.. so I guess this kind of went from an unwanted cosplay mistake to an unplanned adjustment for a more flattering fit for the wearer, hahaha.

This sums up my feeling about this "fail" perfectly:

Oh, and during the collar progress, which I did today, I was in fact wearing kimono. I had worn kimono before deciding to sew and I didn't feel like changing clothes sooooo... as a final BONUS PIC here's my sewing outfit of today:

Yes, that's a measurement tape and yes, I tied my sleeves so they wouldn't be in the way ~
(mirror photo, I'm not dead...)

That's it. Next time I think I'll start on Masamune's coat for realz.. or at least that's the plan, hah!