Cosplay broke the Deskjet 600C. Really.

danielwang · Post by **danielwang** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:20 pm

Dammit, and I thought I woudl be cosplaying at NDk this year. But ouh oh, cosplay broke my HP Deskjet 600C.

Long story.

I wanted to cosplay a non-specific, generic anime character. The theme I selected was a more natural character, not anything to do with sci-fi or tech. I also wanted to create what some may describe as a "supernatural" or havenly being...

I've also been doing a dissertation on how an anime character's appearance indicated his/her role, so I already had the notes in hand when "designing" the appearance.
I wanted mainly white clothing, as well as earth tones and some amount of vivid colour... no dominant areas would be explicitly dark colours, especially dark red.
Traditional clothing is usually found... I had to do some research on how the Japanese kimono influenced the Jurai dress in the Tenchi series.
Of course, the geometry: a "cape" appearance with extended shoulder panels is usually affiliated with the "villain" side, if such dichotomies exist (they don't).
I stole some of the design ideas off anime, of course, namely the Tenchi series, X (Hinoto, the Dragosn fot he Heavens), etc: coloured straps with certain symbols printed on the side were not common on this side, but were implemented for extra effect.
For a finishing touch: I got 50 cent temporary tattoos at the grocery retailer and used Exacto blades to carve the solid colour region into hapes. Using Illuminations pens, you can add fluorescence marker to the top... then you can have a realistic looking symbol on your forhead or such. It's brilliant!

Slight problem with the cloth design. I couldn't even get started on this grand project, and why?

Instead of actually learning to stitch designs, with stereotypical feminine connotations, I opted for the "cheater's method" and just cut, folded over and used up and down stiching on the inside. This greatly increased the cloth thickness.

Now this is the bad part:

I first stuck a piece of underwear into the Deskjet printer to calibrate and test the output. Calibrating off of a piece of tagboard printed with the design (a crest), I printed calibration symbols and the design in attached underwear cloth.

Now I stick the cloth in. To thick for the printhead, it jams. I press down on the centre of the tagboard, but the cloth spans too much. It bleeds on the center and edges.

Now it won't even work properly anymore. And I did try cleaning.

Photographs availible shortly, as soon as I come up with excuses for trashing the Deskjet.

And I'm out of temporary tattoos. I guess I'll have to drop by Publix/Barns/Krogers/CityMarket to get more from the kid's vendig mahcines... and then slowly carve a symbol from the orange, blue and green regions of those idiotic designs they have...

SS5_Majin_Bebi · Post by **SS5_Majin_Bebi** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:11 pm

I hat to break it to you like this, but you're a COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCKING IDIOT for sticking clothing material in a printer made for paper and ONLY paper. Chances are you've absolutely fucked up your ink nozzles beyong belief, and the only viable option is to buy a new printer. Fabric has gotta be at least 5 times thicker than paper, and underwear fabric even more so.

Its nothing personal (seriously, i don't find you annoying like everyone else seems to, you're cool) but it was fuckin stupid of you to do that.

El Banana · Post by **El Banana** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:27 pm

Heh, this is especially funny after your post about how you could use printers to print designs onto your clothing.

Allow me to point and laugh now, if you will.

danielwang · Post by **danielwang** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:57 pm

SS5_Majin_Bebi wrote:I hat to break it to you like this, but you're a COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCKING IDIOT for sticking clothing material in a printer made for paper and ONLY paper. Chances are you've absolutely fucked up your ink nozzles beyong belief, and the only viable option is to buy a new printer. Fabric has gotta be at least 5 times thicker than paper, and underwear fabric even more so.

Its nothing personal (seriously, i don't find you annoying like everyone else seems to, you're cool) but it was fuckin stupid of you to do that.

I can't argue with reasoning like that, though if you want to find dumber cosplayers, you can always go to www dot cosplay dot com
WARNING: COSPLAY DOT COM HAS CROSSDRESSERS.

Anyways, my printers fortunately the cartridge type... the priter itself is just a beveled servo, witha cheap nozzle inside every cartridge. I just yanked the cloth out and put in a new inkpack... how convenient those stinking HP bastards... $20 a pack.

I did get it to work, so don't say it was total failure...

Test Pattern Cloth

Zoom in on test pattern