SO I've had requests for a tutorial for how I made my DCA Ita bag! I'm gonna be throwing a lot of stuff in here (links to the products I used, etc) so hold onto your standard issued FazBear booties, friends! Just trust the process.
This tutorial is JUST for the painting of the bag itself, not for the accessories and such I added but for starters, here's a picture of my bag as it is currently:
OKAY. First thing is first: the bag itself. I bought this one here from Amazon for $22 plus shipping.
You're going to want to go ahead and add masking tape or painters tape to that order, because you are DEFINITELY gonna use it. That's what we'll use to kind of block off the parts and pieces that we don't want paint on as well as to create Sun's stripes! :)
Next comes the paint. Let me preface this by saying: I'm not an expert on painting fabrics. I'm not even an artist, I'm a writer. With that being said, I had to look up a tutorial on how to paint leather. These are the leather paints that I picked. I bought the red and blue for about $7 each. It's not a bad idea to grab a yellow leather paint as well since you can use it to cover any mistake or mess ups that might occur later. Full disclosure though: I did not get any just because I was worried about color matching to the yellow of the bag.
Now. You're going to want to masking tape up everything you don't want paint on and I mean everything because you can't use alcohol to remove any mess ups on this fabric. It will damage it. What I did with the yellow star strap on the front: I wrapped it in masking tape and when I needed to paint under it, I held it up with a travel bottle of lotion. xD Yup, you heard it here first. Lotion saves the day. You'll also want to put masking tape where you want your Sunny stripes to go!
It was at this point that I first attempted to put down star stickers just like the tape to make the stripes only for that to fail miserably in practice so, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth and a call to my artist sister for advice, I painted over those fuck ups and went a different route. We'll circle back to this later.
Be careful while painting. I recommend a flat, wider brush (an inch or two wide) for the bigger sections and a small, more detail-oriented brush for around the zippers and stars and shit. You will inevitably get a little on the edges of the yellow zipper part. Don't let it get to you. Just mush on, friend! The fandom needs your art! You'll need to apply at least two layers of the paint to cover the yellow.
Those tiny stars are very, very pesky to paint around but if you're careful you can kind of brush beneath them a bit. Once you're all finished and your paint is dry, you can start the arduous task of removing your masking tape. This will make you swear, weep, and question all your life choices. Stick with it, friend. We're almost there.
Now, this is very important. Are you listening? Okay good. You need to have a FINISHER. This is the kind I bought, again on Amazon.
Why is this finisher so important? THIS SHIT is what keeps the material of your bag flexible despite the multiple layers of paint on it. It is what will help keep the paint from chipping or peeling (Apparently. Again, I'm not an artist and have no prior experience. I just watched a tutorial to teach me this shit so my bag didn't look like ass). After you are completely done painting, including any line fixes or mistake painting over you do (I know I had to fix my lines because my masking tape failed me in places), you're going to apply a THIN layer of this stuff over your paint with a paintbrush. Be careful not to add too much because if you do, it gets kind of gunky. A thin layer is all you need. Less is more.
After the finisher is dried, we can get to the fun part: DECORATING! And that means we can finally circle back around to those pesky Moon stars! Instead of painting the stars on, my wonderful artist sister suggested I get a pack of these instead.
Pins! I used these pins and just pinned them right to the bag where I wanted to stars to be. This WILL make holes in your bag so do not pin them in place until you are SURE that's where you want their forever home to be! After that's done, ta-daaaaa! Your bag is finished! You can choose which background you want for your item pocket and start adding all of your merch and memorabilia!
I highly recommend DIYing what you can and seeing if your favorite fan artists have merch! I ordered some amazing TSAMS stickers from @polaris-stuff at their shop here! It's so amazing and cute! :) I also ordered some buttons but a lot of the stuff I have so far is from the Glitches and Glitterglue Kickstarter packs. Even my background was part of the packing material used.
I still have a few things I'm waiting to arrive in the mail for my bag and a few artists that I want to reach out to for permission to have buttons made of their work but otherwise, that's my Ita in a nutshell! :)
OH! Almost MOST importantly! This was the TikTok that inspired me to make this! Please go and share and like and comment and all of that stuff because this GODDESS is the reason that I was inspired to make my bag to begin with because I absolutely adored hers so, so much!
Video tagged with ita bag, fnaf, fnaf sun – @welcome-home-official on Tumblr
@dcafanzine - Thank you guys again for everything you did and all the amazing hard work you put into such a wonderful project! I'm looking forward to buying some of the overstock when it's ready for sale! :)
