Dialing In the Perfect Fleece Print with the Milwaukee Brewers

We spent the day at the Brewers stadium on their ROQ NEXT Automatic working on a Warbirds (the Brewers Minor League Team!) print on a fleece that had a lot going on. Big design, bold opaque colors, and plenty of coverage.

It was a great opportunity to fine tune the process and see just how efficient we could make it!

Watch the whole process:

Starting Point: Traditional Underbase

We began with a white underbase, but as we ran it, we realized we could probably simplify. The print felt heavier than we wanted, and we knew there had to be a cleaner way to build opacity without stacking so much ink, so we started testing!

Testing, Tweaking, Improving

First move: remove the underbase and see what happens.

We experimented with:

1. Two and three print strokes

2. Slightly reducing the navy ink

3. Running without a pre-stamp

Good… but not quite there. Then we turned on the pre-stamp. That was the shift.

Pre-stamping with the Stampinator allowed the ink to sit into the fleece fibers instead of sitting on top. Immediately the print looked softer and more controlled.

The Real Unlock: Print Order

With multi-color prints, we often think light to dark or smallest to largest.

On this job, it was really about managing ink load. By slightly reducing the navy and running it first, we created a solid foundation that sat into the garment. From there, we layered the other colors more efficiently without overloading the print. Everything started to look crisper and more balanced.

The Final Formula

After working through several variations, here’s what delivered the best result:

1. Pre-stamp

2. Two strokes navy

3. Two strokes gray

4. Flash

5. Two strokes tan

No traditional white underbase needed!

The result:

1. Crisp detail

2. Strong opacity

3. Softer hand

4. Less overall ink

5. Smoother production flow

The Takeaway

This was a perfect example of why testing matters. You don’t always need to add more ink to get more opacity. Sometimes it’s about adjusting stroke count, ink viscosity, and print order. By the end of the day, we had a cleaner, softer, more efficient fleece print and a process everyone felt great about!