Calling all cosplayers and sewing people!

[Taboo]

I've decided that I want to make this dress. Possibly because I'm insane. So I'm looking for any suggestions for how to get that exact print onto the fabric. I don't mind if the outer part of the dress ends up being a different shade of yellow from the print, btw, I can always make it a big enough color difference to look deliberate.

I thought about screenprinting it but I'm worried it'd crack as the fabric moves, since that might happen with paint. I'd also worry about it not being washable.

I'm looking at making the design as a vector in InDesign, scaling it appropriately, then printing my own fabric through Spoonflower. Seems like the best option so far though it'd be fairly expensive.

Any other options? I thought about quilting it but I dunno, with how complicated the curves are. It would be more durable that way and it would have the yellows match but I dunno if I'm quite competent enough with quilting.

BTW, it's from a CLAMP manga called xxxHolic for those who are curious. This is the only time this dress shows up so I could take some liberties with it if I wanted and nobody would really notice. Pattern is tiny in the thumbnail, so clicky:



Added note: Doesn't matter how time-intensive the process is to duplicate or make it, because I don't know when I'm next going to a convention anyway.

[AnaKhouri]

I have never made my own costumes, but I know some people do very elaborate fabric painting. I'm not sure how hard it is or anything though.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

XD my sister freehands stuff like that.
Also, I have a shirt that appears to be dyed, as in, no plastic stuff or anything, and it hasn't faded or done anything nasty like that, so maybe that's an option? Batik is one type of dyeing option, and I know there's others out there.
I honestly think sewing/quilting/actually piecing the fabric of one color onto another looks classier... and who knows? there might be upholstery fabric that looks like that. I wouldn't be surprised one bit. And, don't worry about being good at sewing. It'll happen, and if you take your time, and be patient, it'll work out.
tl;dr I honestly think your best option is to do it by hand, drawing.

[Taboo]

I guess my main concern with dying is that the edges of the pattern might not be that crisp, you know? So I'm tempted to do it applique style, quilted... hmm...

[teh_blumchenkinder]

I'm obsessive over clean lines, so that's mostly why I don't do any fabric work at all.
Batik gives really pretty and very crisp lines if you do it correctly, and that includes washing it right. That shirt I mentioned does not have crisp lines in the least.
Applique' might work in conjunction with sewing, but you'd do just as much cutting with actual fabric, and actual fabric stays longer than plastic/applique'.
EDIT: or you can use dye, and then sew around the edges carefully so it doesn't look funny.

[Kanalah]

It's a very pretty dress!

Of course I'd say applique myself, but I'd look for a print first, cause that's a hell of a lot of applique work.

maybe fabric paints or dyes though, but then I'm worried they'd bleed/look splotchy.

[Amanita]

There's something else you could try called fabric foiling. You first apply an adhesive rather in the fashion of fabric paint. Then you put the metallic foil over the adhesive and iron in place. The garment is washable afterward, but dry cleaning is not reccomended.

And yes, you can use metallic fabric paint, which can be washed afterwards. I use Pabeo brand, which works pretty well- no spotchiness or bleeding to be had. And you could use fabric foiling to accent parts of the design, which would be a helluvalot cheaper than trying to foil the whole thing.

[Taboo]

Quoth Amanita

There's something else you could try called fabric foiling. You first apply an adhesive rather in the fashion of fabric paint. Then you put the metallic foil over the adhesive and iron in place. The garment is washable afterward, but dry cleaning is not reccomended.

And yes, you can use metallic fabric paint, which can be washed afterwards. I use Pabeo brand, which works pretty well- no spotchiness or bleeding to be had. And you could use fabric foiling to accent parts of the design, which would be a helluvalot cheaper than trying to foil the whole thing.

That's interesting, I'd never heard of it before. Hmm.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You will need Illustrator for vector art. InDesign is a layout program. Call around to some printers and see if one of them can do a print on some fabric for you.

That pick might be difficult to convert to vector, but it might to doable to an extent. I know there is a "convert to paths" function in Illustrator. If you have a high resolution file of the art, that might yield better results (of course, the print process will ultimately dictate that).

The process you probably want for printing is a tshirt type of printing (they use it at, say CafePress.) that basically melts a thin sheet of the image directly into the fabric. It looks good, does not crack, and is washable. However, be aware it's not the most durable way to go.

[Taboo]

Quoth RecoveringKinkoid

You will need Illustrator for vector art. InDesign is a layout program.

Ahaha. Didn't realize I'd done that. Typed the wrong one. I have training in all of the Adobe software.

I'm not going to convert the pic itself into a vector, I'm going to hand draw and ink it as solid blocks for all of the shapes in the design, then trace it out in vector and alter where needed. That's really the only image of that dress, and even if I could find a higher quality jpg, I'd need to redraw it all from the front so it's straight on and not distorted.

I was actually looking on Spoonflower earlier; it's a custom fabric printing place that'll print about 56in wide bolts of your own patterns. I'm tempted to order some swatches from them and just see how good the quality is.