Fabric Textures - Examining Captain America (Avengers) and Black Widow (AoU)

Absolutely amazing!

What ink do you use? I'm super new to screen printing and I'd love to get my texture correct, particularly getting it raised. I've been using Tulip's Puff Paint and that's a nightmare on the screens. It also doesn't "sit" on top. The fabric soaks it up and after about 2 washes, it fades away. Found out the hard way after making my cousin a Man of Steel costume.

I was literally about to order silicone ink within the next day or so, but in your first post you said you don't know anyone that uses that type of ink.

Thankfully E60flip34 made a post regarding the print of the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" thread and directed me to your thread. ( http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=263243&page=2&p=4050918#post4050918)

The Prop Lord said:

Absolutely amazing!

What ink do you use? I'm super new to screen printing and I'd love to get my texture correct, particularly getting it raised. I've been using Tulip's Puff Paint and that's a nightmare on the screens. It also doesn't "sit" on top. The fabric soaks it up and after about 2 washes, it fades away. Found out the hard way after making my cousin a Man of Steel costume.

I was literally about to order silicone ink within the next day or so, but in your first post you said you don't know anyone that uses that type of ink.

Thankfully E60flip34 made a post regarding the print of the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" thread and directed me to your thread. ( http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=263243&page=2&p=4050918#post4050918)

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Hey Prop Lord,

I use special screen printing ink to get the textures I need. Yikes, I wish I could have warned you about using Puffy Paint on a screen. It's best to use ink that has to be cured in order for the ink to bond well onto the fabric.

You can use silicone if you want to, if you get the results you want with silicone then go for it.

I experimented once with puffy paint and a screen (like actual window screen lol) to try and get a poor man's Deadpool fabric. It soaked into the Lycra and lost almost all its elasticity, not to mention it didn't retain the pattern. It was fun trying it out, though.

Actual screen printing with high density or screen printing puff ink is going to be the way to go.

Did you make this, if so then could you give me some info on how you did it as i have been trying to work this texture out recently with no success, If you didn't make it then could you please send me in the right direction to find out how it's done, or even easier, if its being sold per meter, where could I purchase it?

Hey gang...

So I've tried and failed three times to make Widow's Bites, and just gave up and bought a gorgeous pair off of Etsy. I still have much to learn to make props up to the standards I keep for sewing things. These bites are for the first Avengers movie, so this is the suit I'm going for this time around. I am starting to play around with silk screening, my current project is to make the stripes on the sleeves of Jyn's jacket for Rogue One. These are a textured 3D print, and I have a puff additive I'm going to be playing with for that as well. Once I know what I'm doing, I was also going to play with silk screening flat and texture onto heavy spandex. With the Avengers suit, I know a lot of people think it's a mesh laid on top of spandex, I'm now wondering if it wasn't silk-screened like everything else, but I can't for the life of me find anything close enough or hi-rez to verify if it's silk screened, and if so, are they black dots on top of blue fabric? Or is the blue the part that's raised? (Which doesn't make sense to me since it's the majority of the fabric, would it crack when stretched?)

Does anyone have ANY closer detail of this fabric? This is the best I have:

Bueller?

verdaera said:

Bueller?

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It’s definitely screen printed. Looks like it’s a blue printed texture on top of black fabric.

Since the blue texture is most of the surface area, wouldn't it crack when the fabric is stretched?

Partway down this thread is a quote from a magazine where Scarlett said it was like a wetsuit: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=126079&page=3&highlight=black+widow+fabric

I know all the others are screen printed, it's just so hard to tell with this one. Maybe if the fabric has a sheen and the dots are printed in a flat... I'm just worried with most of it being a print that it would crack.

verdaera said:

Since the blue texture is most of the surface area, wouldn't it crack when the fabric is stretched?

Partway down this thread is a quote from a magazine where Scarlett said it was like a wetsuit: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=126079&page=3&highlight=black+widow+fabric

I know all the others are screen printed, it's just so hard to tell with this one. Maybe if the fabric has a sheen and the dots are printed in a flat... I'm just worried with most of it being a print that it would crack.

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No it would not crack. Almost every superhero suit now is entirely screen printed across all of the fabric from Deadpool to Spider-Man to Ant-Man, etc. It seems like black widows texture on that suit is most similar to Deadpool’s screen printed texture as seen here. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that raised portion of the squares would be blue, and the fabric would be black spandex. Obviously the texture design is not exactly the same as Black Widow's but it's just an example. It certainly makes sense that Scarlett would compare it to a wet suit due to the tight spandex and the screen printed texture causing it to become more restrictive and having that unique texture. I know a couple of screen printers that work on superhero suits that I’ve asked to confirm this!

kiyominai said:

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The process used here: screen printing on durable fabric, nice layered sewing/patchwork. 3d embossed fabric techniques to give it a raised look. and most likely 3D-printing for the Star and urethane/foam of some type for the thick stip that branches off from the star.