On Halloween 2009 we had our Dead on Arrival Alleycat here in Kent, setup by our friend Brian Marsh. It was a great day and an awesome race. Anyways, the point is that the prize bag, won by Chris Sans, was this guy:
A Blaqpack and one of the nicest bags we have done. It took a bunch of people to pull off and I'll describe a little about the process of getting it done.
I had a vague idea of the artwork I wanted and floated it to our friend Chris Pitts. He came back with this and lets just say it is amazing. Paul (co-owner) did the background which really set it off. We got hooked up with the guys at Inflatable Images who can print in full color on vinyl. They make Macys parade floats and gorillas for the roof of car dealerships; a really great operation. The prints came out great and the sewed right in.
I really wanted to do something special to set it off even more and I came up with the idea of doing a spine and ribcage in the back panel through the foam. We were all a little uneasy because we hadn't done this before.
I swear a lot, but I think those present could attest that when I was laying down those stitches I was a lot worse than a drunken sailor. It was one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had to do because of how you have to fold up the foam to clear the machine. We will eventually get a pimped out long arm machine that will make this childs play. Besides that, I finalized the changes to the backpack design that are still the same now. In the end, I didn't really want to let it go.
The point of the story is that this was an awesome bag. Chris rides with it all the time and we are watching it to see how the image quality holds up to long term abuse. I saw it recently and it looks good 4-5 months later. I'll soon have a similar bag of my own to show off - except way more pimp because I'm making it for me. Check back and I will drop a post about it once its done.