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JexisLulzington β Powerbelt Tutorial for The Aquabats! Super Show!
Published: 2012-06-12 07:08:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 13057; Favourites: 91; Downloads: 490
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Description
YOOOOOO GUESS WHO'S DOING POWERBELT COMMISSIONS (and robot hands!)???? THAT's RIGHT, /ME/. I'M MAKING SUPER SHOW BELTS, ANTI-BATS BELTS, AND THE OLD PRE-CHARGE BLACK AND WHITE BELTS. GET INFO HERE: jexislexington.tumblr.com/commβ¦Alright, finally got this updated and accurate! Here's a link to the resources (this link is also on the tutorial): goo.gl/t4ee0
If anyone has any further questions, I'd love to answer them! Leave a comment, send me a note, or contact me on my tumblr JexisLexington.tumblr.com .
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Comments: 51
Sadly I am too busy to do this. But feel free to toss my guide and patterns at anyone else you want to.
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I think I'm going to try this (in a much smaller scale) with some spare fabrics I have laying around, just to test out this method for my Powerbelt. Cause I was planning to just use neoprene for mine (I actually have a "sweat the weight off" belt made of the stuff that I plan to use since there's enough in it) and some good spray paint, but the required materials are expensive and I make no money, so I'd have one shot.
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I'm helping my husband make one of these for himself, thanks for posting a tutorial! Β It's suuuper helpful!
We found that our sewing machine was sticking to the fabric a bit causing the stitching to be messy and the fabric to wrinkle. Β Rubbing a little soap on the fabric before sewing cleared the problem right up! Β Just posting this in case you hear of anyone else having this problem!
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Wow, that's super useful! Thanks for adding that! It'd be a cheaper (albeit a little messier I guess) alternative to getting a teflon or walking foot, I suppose. Cool!
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Yeah, we had no idea if we could get another kind of foot but I decided to try the soap first! Β Our sewing machine is hard to get parts for
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How did you do the white outline for lil bat for both tracing and placing it on the belt? Did you just kinda guess on how big the outline is supposed to be or did you just trace it with a bigger lil bat picture or have messurements on how big the outline is.
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Uh, I'm having a little trouble understanding what exactly you mean. To get the outline I first traced on Lil' Bat to the white vinyl, and after painting it I cut it out. Now, if you're wondering how I figured out how much to cut away, I looked at screenshots and tried to use that to gauge how big to make the outline.
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Actually that pretty much answered my question.
My next question is how big is the bat? I'm trying to scale the picture of the bat but I don't know if I'm making it to big or small in relation to the belt.
What did you do to scale your bat to the right size or did you also just kinda guess on that too?
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Well, once I had the dimensions of the main circle in the center set, I scaled a screenshot to have the circle be the same size as on the pattern, and that's how I figured out the Lil' Bat placement. If you can print out the updated pattern, then Lil' Bat should be scaled properly, but if you're unable to do so, here's a cropped version that can print on normal paper: [link]
As long as you have a program like Photoshop that can print to scale, that should work.
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Making some powerbelts RIGHT NOW AS I SPEAK. Me and my crew are gonna be The Aquabats! at DragonCon and this is the last thing we all need! wooo! Thanks so much Jexis! You're awesome as always.
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Awesome! You better send me a note when you're done; I want to see you guys all together! And thanks for the compliment!
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Hi! First of all, great tutorial! I'm so gonna use this. 
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Hello, and thanks! For the time it took me to make one, if I worked all day I could make one in about two days, but if I took my time it took about a week for me. Of course the length of the belt is also a factor, but it's not too big of one.
Now, when you say the belt with circles, that's the Charge! era belt, right? I think that almost all belts before the Super Show! ones actually were vinyl with the patterns printed on instead of layered vinyl, so if you were to make a Charge! belt you'd just cut out a piece of silver vinyl and either paint it, print on it, or somehow use iron on patterns? I don't know how the vinyl would handle that but it's worth a try. Anyway, I hope this helps!
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Thank you! That helps a lot!
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I know it's pretty much right here in front of me to create myself but is there a way to commission ya for one? These are so damn super rad.
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Thanks, but currently I just don't have the time or resources to take commissions, although I'd certainly like to. If you want more advice or help making it yourself, I could offer that though.
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Question! Specifically what kind of vinyl did you use? I went to the fabric store today and all they had was upholstery vinyl, which is too thick for my sewing machine to handle, and costume vinyl, which didn't feel very sturdy
so I was curious which type you used for your belt, since you appear to have a sewing machine similar to mine.
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I used marine vinyl, I think. This is where I got the silver vinyl, if it helps: [link]
The rest of the vinyl I bought at local stores, and it was pretty similar in thickness to the silver marine vinyl, but it was textured more like leather, so I assume it was for upholstery. If we have similar sewing machines I'm surprised yours can't handle thicker vinyl. Even my cheap sewing machine could pierce it just fine, so perhaps you're just missing the proper attachments? At the very least you'd need a leather needle and a teflon foot, however I've been using a walking foot because it helps keep everything nice and even.
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I figured that might be the case. I'll pick up a thicker needle and see how that works.
Thanks!
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Just finished my first attempt. As you said, kind of rough ahaha. But I'll be making one, if not two more.
Because I am SO bad with measuring, math, and the like- for your future tutorial, I recommend labeling more (/pretty much all) of the dimensions. I.E. Height of the belt from it's tallest point, distance between the first, curved "utility pocket" and the circle in the middle, actual size of Lil Bat, etc.
I say this because I was unfortunate enough to have to redraw the pattern (inability to print it), and then had to free hand Lil Bat. (The high res file is just that, and huge!)
All of that aside, once again, thank you SO much for making this tutorial! I never would have attempted this without it!
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Thank you for your feedback! I will definitely make all of these changes once I update the tutorial. Also I need to make clear how to get the scaled lil bat off of the pattern so others don't have to freehand him like you did...
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Girl, do not even worry about it! It's all trial and error for us, even though you spelled things out so nicely. Thanks again!
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You're welcome, and thanks for adding it to your favorites!
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This is awesome! Thank you for doing this, homie!
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Not a problem, my little brodeo! Thanks for adding it to your favorites!
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That's a really good belt right there. Do you have a tutorial on the classic Aquabats powerbelt? Thanks for the awesome template!
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You mean the white one with the printed black squares like they used to sell, or the one from Charge?
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The white one with printed black squares.
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Check this forum thread out, they have good references for that belt.
[link]
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Alright thanks for your help. Are there any websites/sources that show how to make your own rashguard? I want to make a Floating Eye of Death rashguard but don't even know where to start.
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You should check out Cadet Awesome Lad's youtube page, that might help you: [link]
From a quick glance at the album cover, it seems like it's a base yellow shirt with black stripes on the side. If you know how to sew you can buy some yellow and black lycra and make it, or you can google "yellow rashguard" and find a place to buy a plain one, and then add stripes to it yourself (I've read that you can also email manufacturers and ask for a logo-less one, so you have a truly blank shirt to work with). Even if you can't sew, you can buy some liquid stitch and iron-on hem material and use that along with a couple of hand stitches to get it all on. Same goes for the logo. Unfortunately, I can't find right now a reference for the size of the stripes or other details, but you can use science! proportions to measure and scale up whatever you need off of a photo.
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That's really helpful thank you. I know how to make the symbol it's just regular shirt vinyl. Which is pretty very straight forward to do. Thank you.
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Not a problem! If you have any other questions at all or need advice/suggestions, don't be afraid to send me a note!
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Thanks for being so helpful. c:
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Wait, and pardon my ignorance if it says it somewhere, do you cut the silver out to the inner line?
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Of the pattern? Yes, it's the inner line. This is my fault, not yours; I should clarify that in the guide... I'll add an explanation in the description. If you're still confused, check back on it in a few minutes.
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Thanks so much!
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So rad... Must... Make one... Perhaps a bit ambitious for my first sewing project, but ya gotta start somewhere!
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Actually, it's a pretty decent first project! It's just layering, so that's not too hard. I'm sure if you make it, it'll turn out great!
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Oh, and thank you for the favorites!
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might have to remove all my other favorite pics.... this is so awesome, its all i need to look at. Time to see if i can still sew...
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bahaha you go proto~ Look at you stylin up the house! Awesome sewing skillz. YOU HAVE DAH POWAH!
Very cool tutorial!
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Thanks, and hey, there's time for hobbies now that the world isn't in constant peril.
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VAHAHAHAHAHA so true!!! *takes penicl and draws =u=
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man this looks hard... gonna have to get my mom to help, she's a pro at this stuff if I remember correctly...mind if I post this on my blog for my aquabats friends?
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Oh man, did I make it look hard? I'm sorry. It must be the wall of text, haha... but really, it's not that difficult. It's mostly just layering and fastening flat shapes to each other, which is easy enough. I hope I didn't discourage you or anything.
And yes! Blog away. If it helps fellow Cadets, I'm in.
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Great tutorial! I'm definitely gonna use this when I eventually remake my belt.
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Thank you! I hope it helps.
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