Movie Version Supergirl- Working

SailorEarth

I've wanted this costume ever since I was a kid. I'll be going to DragonCon next year so I figure now is the perfect time to make it. Right now I'm mostly documenting my research and observations.

I've been searching for pictures of the screen used costume and have come across a rather suspicious looking "authentic" costume. The boots with it are pantyhose-like in appearance. These strange bootyhose appear to be made out of spandex whereas the boots in the movie have a leather look. I guess it's possible that they were used for a particular shot in the movie or they were prototypes. Either way I don't think I'll be taking the bootyhose route.

In the official photos the yellow portions of the S symbol appear to be top stitched onto the red while the symbol as a whole is inset into the suit. In the screen shot I took when she's thrown to the ground in the Phantom Zone her cape is flipped up and you can clearly see where the skirt joins in the back. So I assume the skirt is separate from the bodysuit but the belt is most likely attached to the skirt. You can also see from that shot and a couple others that the skirt is lined in yellow.

I got quite a few screen shots of her boots. The ones from the scene where she first gets to Earth have a gathered look down the front until she points her toes. I'm thinking these may have been specifically made for the shot where she's flexing her feet up and down because they're much smoother in appearance later in the movie and lack the bulky seam down the front. This might also be due to having different boots for different shots. If I were to veer away from accuracy at all it'd probably be to give the boots heels. Being only 5'3" I need all the extra height I can get. I'll give it some thought.

The bracelet will be interesting. I think I can manage the look of it but I'm not sure how to make it light up without having wires running from it. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I ordered quite a few swatches from 4 different fabric dealers last night so I hope to make some headway with getting my supplies together soon. I also found an amazing Superman tutorial on League of Heroes that'll take a lot of guesswork out of my Supergirl costume.

I'll update when I get my swatches since I need to take pics of them anyway to see how they photograph.

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j0wE

YES! I love all things Superman, with Supergirl being in the top 3 I might add...

Looking forward to this, I already subscribed to the thread.

Bizarro Lois

For the light in the bracelet, could you pop a little LED in the underside?

SailorEarth

I do have some little LED lights that were intended to light up balloons but they're too large to work into the bracelet. I bought these several years ago though so I'll have to remember to check out the newer ones, maybe they're smaller.

ETA: Ah-ha! They do make them smaller. I found some called Candy Lites. The site doesn't mention the diameter but I don't imagine they're very large.

Thanks!

ETA#2 Now I'm wondering if I could take the innards of one of those recordable greeting cards and record the ringing sound the bracelet makes when it lights up. That'd probably end up being too bulky but it would be oh so sweet to pull it off.

aradia

I love this version of supergirl!!! will have to keep an eye on this thread

gvmaraio

Hey there!

here is a picture of my supergirl display costume!

maybe it will help, the tunic, cape, and skirt are patterned from screen pieces!



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SailorEarth

@ j0wE & aradia- I'll try not to let you down, lol

@ gvmaraio- Aww, yeah! I was hoping someone would have access to something like this. Sending you a pm

gvmaraio

Here are some shots of my bracelet replica that might help. It uses 3 leds to produce a flashing effect!



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SailorEarth

Some of my swatches came in the mail today. The first picture shows the swatches from Spandex World. The red stretch vinyl looks like a good choice for the boots and I'm really liking the royal blue high performance spandex. It has just a little bit of sparkle to it. The second shot shows the Spandex House standard royal blue spandex beside the SW swatches. It's a little too sparkly for what I'm after. I've still got swatches coming from Sy Fabrics and Stretch House so I'm not going to make any decisions just yet but Spandex World is looking good so far.

@gvmaraio- Thanks for the pics!

I'm still working on finding a small LED that flashes at the right speed. It's harder than I thought

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Bizarro Lois

Maybe you could hide the recording device in you palm or sleeve.

SailorEarth

@Bizarro- If I do give it sound I may end up doing just that. Though the more I think about it the more irritating a ringing bracelet seems, lol. I've found a couple books on Amazon about working with electronics so I may nab one of those and see if I can figure out how to rig up the bracelet to both flash and ring at the right rate.

Also have another swatch update. I got a huge amount of swatches from Stretch House the other day, 90% of them weren't what I really needed but they're fun to look through. They gave me ideas for other projects which I suspect is the whole plan behind sending more than was requested. Well played, Stretch House.

All the swatches I liked were from their milliskin spandex line. In the first shot I have the milliskin beside the high performance spandex from Spandex World. I'm liking the texture of the milliskin better than the high performance spandex even though it's a little thinner. It's fairly matte with just a little bit of shine when it's stretched. The swatch in the first shot is a little muted, but the swatch in the next shot is much more vibrant. Personally I like the slightly muted blue but judging by the reference shots the vibrant blue is the way to go. I also took a photo of the yellow milliskin. It may be a tad too vibrant, unfortunately. There's also a more muted yellow that I failed to get a pic of but it's the standard sparkly spandex. It could possibly work for the belt if I use the back side of the fabric. I haven't seen any good reds yet. I suppose the skirt need not be a stretch material so I may be able to find something suitable for that and the cape when I go to the fabric stores this weekend. I'm also thinking of not doing the S symbol in a stretch material so I may pick up what I need for that this weekend as well.

That's all for now, just waiting on my swatches from Fabrics World before I make my final decisions. I'm not sure if they're just very backed up right now or if I should try ordering them again. Their site says they usually ship swatches the next day. If I don't have anything from them once Christmas is over I'll go ahead and order them again.

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struve1976

Good luck to you. I think with all your planning that it will turn out amazing.

SailorEarth

Thanks, struve!

Update:

My husband is in on leave until the 3rd so I haven't gotten much done these past few days other than getting some fabric. I got crepe for the cape as suggested in the LOH Superman Tut, yellow spandex for the belt, yellow sateen cotton for the symbols, matte jersey for the skirt and possibly the symbol as well and finally blue spandex for the suit. I don't know if I'll like the spandex for the suit or not but I figure it was worth a shot if it'll eliminate some shipping fees. I'll go ahead and make a suit in it and if I don't like it I may just sell it and get the milliskin from Stretch House. I hope to get started on that in early Jan. Oh, I also got a big roll of 2mm foam for the belt.

As I was trying to convince myself to get out of bed this morning a solution hit me about the bracelet. I have some sheet styrene that I'd gotten to do some detail work on Excalibur and I think it'd make a perfect base to build the details on with epoxy putty. I had been playing with the idea of wire but that never sat quite right with me. I love when answers come to me completely unbidden I probably won't be starting on that until I have my LED components for sizing but it's nice having it figured out.

I went ahead and reordered the swatches from Fabrics World along with all my zippers from Zipper Stop a few days ago so they should be showing up soon. That's it for now, hopefully I'll have some progress pics in my next update.

Darth Pinhead

I'm thinking you could hide one of these systems under the skirt?
ThinkGeek :: Personal Soundtrack Shirt

SailorEarth

Thanks for the link, Darth! The technical elements are driving me nuts on the bracelet. I found some recordable flashing keychains that might do the trick as well but they have to be ordered in bulk. I have no need of 10,000 keychains

I found a video on YouTube that shows the bracelet lighting up and ringing here. It's around 0:48 that it starts to ring.

I've nearly got the leotard done. The attached picture shows it as I was getting ready to sew the leg openings. I got that done along with the neck. I feel like the neck comes down a little low but I may be able to correct it with the cape. If not I'll be making the leotard over again because it'll throw the shield placement off

In case anyone wants to know for future reference I used Butterick pattern 5781 as my base. It's out of print but you can sometimes find them on the secondhand market. I don't know of any that are currently in print that would come this close but any basic leotard pattern should do the trick.

The torso seems like it runs a little short on the Butterick pattern so you might want to check the length on it before you go cutting out the standard size. As I mentioned the neck is also fairly large. I cut it about an inch and a half smaller than the pattern and I still feel like it wasn't enough. I should have added two to two and a half inches. I also substituted a hidden zipper for the standard zipper that the pattern calls for and I left the elastic out of the neck in lieu of top stitching with a double needle.

I also found another handy resource for Superman costume specifics at Caped Wonder. A lot of it is applicable to Supergirl.

Fabrics World has yet to send me those samples. I don't know what the deal is with them but they're the only place so far that has the gold pleather that I need for the trim on the boots. I could always paint it I guess but that'd make sewing it more difficult and it would eventually crack. I'm going to try one more time to get samples from these guys.

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from hell

SailorEarth

I think this wig might do the trick. It'll obviously need styling and possibly a little trim but I think it'll be a good base. It's called Alice's Dream and is from Amphigory. I've gotten my wigs for past costumes from them almost exclusively and have yet to be disappointed.

Color #22 actually looks like a pretty close match. I wish it were available in a blend to make it look more natural but it could work.

Color #26 also looks pretty close and has the advantage of being a blend rather than a single color.

Either would probably be fine but I think I'm leaning toward #26 due to it being a blend.

In other news, I messaged the guy who did the amazing Superman tutorial over at the LOH about the shield. Reeves' shield had the larger yellow pieces being stitched into the red while the smaller pieces were top stitched. I assumed Slater's would be like that as well but in the studio photo I have of her it looks like all the yellow is top stitched onto the red but the shield as a whole is inset. I brought this up and he agreed that all the yellow on her shield was probably top stitched due to it being so much smaller.

gvmaraio- is your replica made like that as well?

Back to working on the skirt!

Wes R

22 and 26 look like either would work but you definitely would want it to look real so 26 is probably the best one. I think this is going to be a great costume. Super Girl was way underrated when it came out. I actually saw it at the drive in (just dated myself big time) lol.

ugameenough

awsom work dude! love the bootie things you did. truly my hat goes off to you...

E Q

Looks great! I know I saw this movie once, but can not remember anything at all about the bracelet. Weird, huh?

SailorEarth

That's exactly what I was thinking. #26 it is Yeah it's too bad it didn't do better at the box office. I read somewhere that she was obligated to do 3 films in all if the first one hadn't flopped. I'm not sure if it's true but it would have been great to have a couple more Supergirl films.

Thanks for the encouragement, it helps keep me on task!

The bootyhose aren't mine, they're part of what is supposed to be an authentic costume that showed up for auction. Since she looks like she's wearing real boots in most of the shots I've seen I'll be constructing the real deal out of pleather

Thanks! The bracelet didn't really play a big role in the movie and as far as I know it never existed in the comics so I can understand why you'd forget

Dorian Gray

Wow I havent seen this flick since I was a kid. It looks like you're off to a good start and I bet it helps actually looking like SuperGirl! Good luck!

SailorEarth

Thanks!


I got the outer fabric cut for my skirt last night. I referenced this tutorial for the formula to determine the waist size. The only thing I changed was to not add the recommended extra 2". Good thing I didn't because it turned out roughly 3" larger than my waist. That won't matter as I can gather it but it's something to keep in mind for anyone using the tutorial. It may have been because my material is a knit and it stretched a bit.

Here's my fabric folded in quarters and marked for cutting. I made my marks by measuring from the corner out to where I wanted the waist and hem line and made small dots for my cutting line. I made it quite a bit longer than the finished skirt will be so I'd have room to make corrections and whatnot if need be. Once I get the belt made and decide how I'm going to attach the skirt to it I'll trim it to the correct length.


All cut out.


I also started work on the belt last night. I patterned it out and did a mockup in 3mm craft foam. My V obviously needs to be deeper. It looked much deeper laying out on my cutting mat than it did once I tried it on. The shape might need some tweaking as well but I'm going to correct the V depth first to see if that takes care of it.



I'm toying with the idea of using actual belts for it. I have a small cache of belts I occasionally pick up at second hand stores for cannibalizing but none are wide enough for this bad boy. I may make a trip to find some suitable specimens. My original plan was to use the craft foam as the belt innards, spray glue the yellow fabric in place and wrap the excess around to the back side where it would be glued down. I wish I knew what the original was made from. I had thought it was glued over a semi-rigid form (hence the craft foam) but I noticed in one shot that her belt is wrinkled. It shouldn't wrinkle if it's glued to something. Maybe it's some type of heavy interfacing. I might try the dollar store as well to see if there are some place mats or something similar that I could cut it out of. I'll experiment with different things to see what works best.

Igniitus

Great progress so far!

gvmaraio

Hi there, the original belt was an interfacing covered with the same material as the skirt lining the goldfish yellow color spandex.

It was then basted onto the skirt and closed with hooks and eyes.