[Symonomys]

Major respect to the GBFans elbow pads. They are great as is. But being somewhat of an obsessive tinkerer, I felt the need to try and make them better. I couldn't find much on here, nor YouTube, with the exception of some tips for adding the black square patches on the back, which I did and will also share here. But I wanted to make them a bit darker, less fuzzy, and bring out the stitch lines. Just a bit more cinematic, if you will.


For starters I traced the stitched lines on the pads with a black permanent marker. I also colored the trim around the pads with the same marker...


Yes, I'm aware that this looks like Ariel's bra

Then, to make less fuzzy and darken them up a bit, I teased the whole padded surface with the flame of a BIC lighter. Gave it a nice, rough, less fluffy look and really brings out the shape of these things. I feel this is a must...




Be liberal with the flame. Singe the hell out of them.

For the black squares on the back, I used a 2 liter bottle, masking tape, and a special big black Sharpie marker which is made for marking wet and oily pipes. Basically paint in a marker. I must credit Make It Or Break It @ YouTube for inspiration here, though I think he used a different marker...



Here's the markers I used.. Sharpie Pro for the squares, Foray Flipchart Permanent for the pad stitch lines and also to darken the trim around the pads themselves.



The Sharpie has MAJOR fumage. It will give you a headache. Take more caution than I did.

Hope this helps someone. Like I said, these pads are great as-is, but I just wanted to make them *pop* a little bit more.

Happy Halloween
SymonomyS

[kman]

That looks fantastic! Especially the black squares. I like this idea more than than sewing fabric onto elastic, which always seems likely to be weird. I'm sure the singeing holds up perfectly ("real" weathering usually does), but do you know if any of the rest will survive the laundry? Not that they're likely to be laundered very often, admittedly, but if they ever got especially filthy and needed to be tossed in, it would be unfortunate if those squares turned purple or something. Could always reapply, but still. Any issues with bleeding onto the underlying flightsuit?

Now that I've said all that, I'm contemplating fabric paints...

[Symonomys]

That looks fantastic! Especially the black squares. I like this idea more than than sewing fabric onto elastic, which always seems likely to be weird. I'm sure the singeing holds up perfectly ("real" weathering usually does), but do you know if any of the rest will survive the laundry? Not that they're likely to be laundered very often, admittedly, but if they ever got especially filthy and needed to be tossed in, it would be unfortunate if those squares turned purple or something. Could always reapply, but still. Any issues with bleeding onto the underlying flightsuit?

Now that I've said all that, I'm contemplating fabric paints...

No issues at all with bleeding onto the flight suit. Spraying with Scotch Guard would more likely ensure this, which I didn’t do.

Have not laundered. I Imagine the black marker would hold up decently. Might have to go over it again after a wash. Scotch guard may also help with that too.

Anyway, they held up really nice. Wore the whole suit 4 or 5 nights Halloween week. Looking forward to maybe doing WonderCon or maybe a screening. Definitely not waiting a whole year to suit up again.