Medieval/Renaissance Banners

tdtastic

Active Member
We have ONCE UPON A MATTRESS on this summer and the designer has come up with a HUGE castle set with a thousand and one little bits and things. One of which are painted 'banners' that would hang in the 'great hall.' Our painter doesn't have time to do these. Is there some magical source for crap like that I could buy ready-made? MadrigalDinner.com? or RenFaircrap.com? Any advice appreciated to save some shop time! Director/designer not picky about what colors or design. Just need four different banners that hang vertically, about 5' tall and 1'-6" wide. The less cheesier the better. thanks!
 
I'm still dying over 'renfairecrap.com'.......

You might hit up a graphics printer. Find a place that does billboards. Find a piece of cheesy artwork and have it printed on some cheap banner material, there are millions to choose from. You could easily spend tons on money ordering something like this from Rosebrand or some other scenic place but honestly, for most shows, a place that prints signs and banners is perfect, even at low res.
 
I have no idea what kind of group you belong to, is it a school or community theatre group? If it's a school can you farm these out to some helpful parents? If a community theatre, is there a FOTT(Friends Of The Theatre) group that can be enlisted? Is there a local renfaire group?
 
I recently worked on a show where a painted mural on a large wall had actually been printed on canvas, on the plotter in the Production Management office. I was actually pretty impressed, I didn't know that a plotter was capable of printing on fabric.

Since then, I've looked at some fabric printing options, and it seems there are a lot of inkjet DIY options. Some fabric stores even sell 8.5x11" fabric sheets intended for printers. Maybe there's a super simple in house option for you.

You could also look at iron on- t-shirt transfers.

If you do go the professional printing route, consider finding out what their format size options are and either making your banners meet one size, including printing sideways, or look at sending two or more of them together as one job, like one image to the printer, but it's two of your banners. You may be able to reduce cost further by finishing the edges of the banners yourself.
 
We have ONCE UPON A MATTRESS on this summer and the designer has come up with a HUGE castle set with a thousand and one little bits and things. One of which are painted 'banners' that would hang in the 'great hall.' Our painter doesn't have time to do these. Is there some magical source for crap like that I could buy ready-made? MadrigalDinner.com? or RenFaircrap.com? Any advice appreciated to save some shop time! Director/designer not picky about what colors or design. Just need four different banners that hang vertically, about 5' tall and 1'-6" wide. The less cheesier the better. thanks!

A more conventional source for these types of banners would be blankets which have these designs printed on them. Basically nerd fantasy blanket sellers. Thrift stores which handle blankets may have blankets with these designs on them as well. Cut the blanket to fit the need, and hem the blanket for a reasonably accurate Medieval tapestry.

I recently worked on a show where a painted mural on a large wall had actually been printed on canvas, on the plotter in the Production Management office. I was actually pretty impressed, I didn't know that a plotter was capable of printing on fabric.

Since then, I've looked at some fabric printing options, and it seems there are a lot of inkjet DIY options. Some fabric stores even sell 8.5x11" fabric sheets intended for printers. Maybe there's a super simple in house option for you.

You could also look at iron on- t-shirt transfers.
Smaller printing options work for small size finished fabric props. Dividing a big design into smaller pieces and then sewing them together does not look realistic, and I've only seen it done when the show was some sort of show within a show where the competence of the character putting on the show was supposed to look like it was in doubt. Medieval tapestries were huge, way bigger than even tabloid size paper.
 

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