Batbassi's 2012 Halloween Costume Entry

B

batbassi

Active Member
So I decided I would be Batman for halloween this year. I prefer the Batman Begins suit but didn't know how I could possibly pull off making my own. I chose the Dark Knight suit because I felt that I could make the various armor pieces in foam, using what I have learned here on the site from all the other foam build posts.

I bought various types of foam to see what would work best when sprayed with plasti dip. I bought garage floor stress mats and foamies from a hobby store. Then I just started cutting, heating and plasti dipping and ended up with a suit that I am about 85% happy with.

The only pieces purchased were the cowl, boots and gloves. I also bought the rubies belt and repainted it.
 
I started by making a duct tape mannequin with a little help from my wife and kids. I found some good videos on you tube on how to do this. I then used a black undersuit I had purchased years ago to wear under Stormtrooper armor to cover the duct tape just so I could get a general idea how everything would look on black.
 
I then started gathering photos from the internet and magazines. I found a floor foam at Home Depot that had a good texture in which I could emulate the carbon fiber part of the suit. I was initially going to use the back side of this foam for the black parts but it was too thick. I found foamies in two thicknesses that worked well and held the plasti dip.
 
For some reason, I cannot attach photos here that I had already used for my build thread under "Semi Screen Accurate Foam TDK Suit". And I am not sure how to link to that thread here.
 
I used the wood burning tool to cut a nice beveled edge and then finished the cut with an exacto knife. I ended up redoing the stomach pieces in the foamies. This is the floor mat I bought in a roll from Big Lots but it didn't look good once plasti dipped. I also made the neck. I essentially used tacky glue and superglue to hold the pieces in place on the mesh.

I purchased mesh fabric here from DI Studios and bought a jumpsuit pattern online. The jump suit pattern was just a starting point. I ended up doing some major tailoring to make it fit tight enough. Maybe too tight, I can't sit in the suit.
 
I held off doing the chest piece toward the end as I figured it would be the most visible and I wanted the benefit of the experience of working on the other pieces first.

A lot of trial and error here. But since the foam is so cheap and everything on the suit is made of same pieces, I would just throw away what didn't look good.

The neck was made with the 6mm foam which ended up being too thick. I felt like I was wearing a next brace. The chest piece here was too small. I ended up putting on a t shirt and sketched out the general measurements in the mirror.
 
I found a nice micro suede material at JoAnns and a cape pattern in the archives. I made the micro suede cape but I didn't like that you could see the excess material at the seams of the panels on the inside so I lined it with a light weight material. The cape came out really well and is not too heavy.
 
I coated the carbon fiber parts with a Matt finish Mod Podge to try to get that plastic coated look. I "skinned" the chest with the thinner foamies.
 
Sweet! When I saw your first full pic on the mannequin, I was scratching my chin a bit wondering how it would work. The armor pieces looked odd against the jumpsuit. But then I saw the test fitting pic, and wow, what a difference having a live person inside makes! Kudos, mate! Looking forward to more pics!
 
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