studdles

I print mine from photoshop, it lets you put crop marks around the outside of your image, in addition to letting you adjust the position of the image on the page. I printed the sail out on A4 paper first, and measured the distance from the left and right sides of the page to the crop marks. I then inverted the image in photoshop along its long axis so when I flipped the paper it would be oriented correctly, and adjusted the position in photoshop's print settings for the difference in margin sizes between the left and the right. If your measurements are correct it should print fine, I test it on paper first anyway. When you print on cloth, however, be aware that the cloth must be cut to the exact size of your A4 paper.

I've been trying my hand at some custom sails: here's some Prussian themed ones Has anyone else tried/had any luck with this method of sail making yet?

Love this guy, and already seen him in a few great MOCs.

Thanks Kermit. The gesso actually makes the cotton stiff, it turns out very similar to the material lego uses. I suspect they make their sails in a very similar way: a cotton fabric primed with something to add stiffness, prevent fraying and improve printability.

Here's another one I've made recently, one of my Carribean Clipper's mainsails has torn around one of it's holes. It's otherwise looking pretty ragged and dirty so I figured I could try making a new one. The bottom sail is the newly made one Old one top, new one bottom, the blue is slightly lighter on the new one so I may reprint it a bit darker. Here's a close up to show the texture and detail you can get

The gesso is kind of absorbed into the fabric, and its acrylic based so once its dry it wouldn't wash out even if you wanted to. The gesso essentially coats the cotton fibres and the ink coats the gesso. because the ink doesn't soak in, it doesn't cause any bleeding. Having said that, the way I've been making these sails, they are very flexible; mine turn out slightly less stiff than lego's, but the look of the sails are almost exactly the same.

[bloggedcp][/bloggedcp] Hi all, this is my first post here so I hope some of you will find this useful. I have been interested in lego pirates in particular since I got my first set almost 20 years ago. The problem is that as the sets age, the sails become tattered and worn, and can be quite difficult to find. I've been searching for a while now for a reliable technique for reproducing lego sails in as authentic a way as possible, but with little success (maybe I've just been looking wrong?) Anyhow, I've been working on my own technique, and decided I would share it for those who, like me, have been searching for a way to make authentic looking lego sails that are nearly indistinguishable from the originals. The sails I've been working on are those of the Skull's Eye Schooner, the number one ship on my, and half the planet's, wanted list. The problem everyone has when it comes to reproducing sails is trying to work out the material that lego uses. It has a relatively unique stiffness for a cloth that is relatively thin; this is not because a special material has been used, but because a standard linen cloth has been prepared with a sizing/priming agent. What I have done is primed regular calico cloth with a watered down acrylic gesso. When dried, it is a very good likeness of lego's cloth, and is stiff enough to be fed into an inkjet printer. Here's the gesso I used: gesso is used by artists to prime canvases for painting and can be purchased from any art/craft supply store, this jar cost me $10 and will probably make a few dozen sails. They can come coloured, I've chosen white as the base colour of the skull's eye schooner is white, but acrylic paint can be added to make different base colours, such as the tan coloured imperial flagship's sails. Again, just plain calico, very cheap I've cut it slightly larger than A4 here You want to water the gesso down roughly 1 part gesso to 3 parts water, this will help the gesso to soak into the calico. Give it two coats on each side then hang it up to dry. Once dry, I trimmed it down to A4 size. Next up, I got the 1:1 scans from the sails library here: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=10076 , traced them in photoshop and recoloured them to improve the saturation once printed. As the scans were 1:1, no resizing was needed before printing. I just fed the canvas into the printer carefully and printed at high quality settings. Once the sail is printed it's just a matter of cutting them out: And here's the final result: And here's an armada flagship sail I made I hope someone finds this useful. I will upload my tracings later for anyone who's interested