Thank you for the wonderful comments! I'm hoping to make a matching kama with the same aesthetic as the vest. I think it'll look snazzy!
Back into the swing of things, I made a cape! There's probably a more professional way to make one, but I just winged it. Here's how I did it.
The base of it is one layer of gray flannel, about 60 x 28 inches, plus another layer of tan flannel to make the detail panel. The detail panel is based on narglatch spikes, but it ended up looking more like flames, which isn't the worst thing in the world.
I stitched the gray and tan panels together around the outside edge, flipped it inside out, and topstitched around the outer cape edge to keep the shape crisp.
Since the detail panel only goes halfway up the cape, to finish the remainder of the outer cape edges, I had to roll the gray edges together and topstitch over that.
When it came to connecting the top of the tan detail panel to the gray base, I used a zigzag stitch. I played around with the settings on scrap fabric until I found a stitch length that looked nice. For a rougher look, sew on the inside of the detail fabric. For a cleaner look, make sure the edge of the detail fabric is between the zigzag stitch. You can see both in this pic of my test scrap:
Be mindful of your pins while you're doing this, they may make it hard to keep the detail fabric flat.
Also heads up, it takes a TON of thread to do the zigzag stitch. Make sure you have plenty, or you'll almost run out and panic that you'll never find a color match because you found this thread in the junk drawer and they probably stopped making it in the 80s. Ask me how I know...
Next was to add a mythosaur decal. I based it off of this CotW version:
After sketching out a version of the logo I liked, I cut it out of the tan fabric and sewed it directly onto the cape.
I did backstitching to keep my thread from unravelling, and the backstitching is visible. If you really want a clean look, you may have to look into alternate methods to prevent it, but I was fine with it on mine:
Next up is how to attach the cape around your neck. I based mine off of Din Djarin's cape, and I recommend looking into tutorials for it. The U-hole for the neck was 14 inches long in my case. I pleated the ends and added a pleather detail with a Din-V1-shaped iron heart to conceal the velcro closure. If you want to glue sintra to pleather, be sure there is no paint on the underside of the sintra, as that didn't stick down with the superglue very well!
As far as weathering goes, a torch at our armor party was the most exciting! I put on the cape and spun around to see where the flames from my gauntlets would be most likely to singe. I also added some narglatch claw marks that another clan member was kind enough to patch up. Most importantly, I watered down some acrylics and sprayed them over the entire cape -- that's what made the biggest difference! I recommend a large spray bottle for this, as I had to refill the small one several times.
Final step: be majestic!
I believe it needs more weathering, I'll have to get some screenshots of Din's cape.
Up next, I have some upgrades to do to those pouches I made. I'll be sure to share a build writeup on them.
