Superman & Friends...

Indy Magnoli · Sep 14, 2014

Another Quiz Night has come and gone... this year's theme was "Cartoons", so we decided to go with "DC Comics" for our theme. In previous years we have done Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Old West.

We recycled our Batman from the 2011 Quiz Night and added an Alfred (our own @Blaxmyth) to go with him:

.

Blaxmyth is sporting a Magnoli Clothiers Van Cleef Vest (the same worn by our "Preacher" in the Old West team) as well as our Skyfall Bowtie.

...more to come.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Indy Magnoli · Sep 14, 2014

Next up... The Shadow (not originally a DC character, but did appear in DC comics)...

Luckily our Shadow already had a great double-breasted black coat, so I just added a couple of dollar store pistols strapped to the shoulders and a red scarf we found at a second hand store. We found a couple of cheap pieces of black fabric at another second hand store and sewed together a quick cape which we safety-pinned to the overcoat.

For the hat, we took the Stetson from last year's Old West outfit which started like this:

...got reshaped into this...

....and reshaped again into this...

.....then cleaned up, reshaped AGAIN and replaced with a new clean black ribbon to make this:

The end result...

...and The Shadow with his literary "offspring":

Indy Magnoli · Sep 15, 2014

Ok... on to Superman. I picked up an older Action Costumes suit in a trade a while back... but as soon as I got it, I knew there would be modifications I'd like to make.

The felt chest emblem was too small, so I peeled it off and replaced it with a larger "patch" version:

Next was the cape... it had no pleats very plain at the top:

First thing to do was unpick the strap/tie:

I added two sets of pleats, reattached the strap/tie, then rolled it over for a more finished look:

The cape still wasn't "full" enough at the back, so then I added some felt material and hand stitched it to the inside of the pleats:

Finally, I added an interior panel to keep the pleats from spreading open further than I wanted:

...more to come.

Indy Magnoli · Sep 15, 2014

For the boots, I decided to go with the readily available cheap "Shazam Boots" and managed to get a pair in a trade.

101-SHAZAM-RD-Girls-Red-Shazam-Boots-main_zps6d1ba027.jpg

The first thing I did was remove the top sections, which was pretty easy to do:

You can see the paper template I made in the above photo to get a more accurate Superman shape to these tops. I traced this pattern onto some thick red leather and cut them out with regular scissors:

After adding some decorative vertical stitching to mimic the Reeve-era boots, and coloring the leather edges with a red Sharpie, I sewed them straight onto the base boots:

Indy Magnoli · Sep 15, 2014

Now... I knew from the beginning I'd need a muscle suit to wear under this spandex, so I went searching and found FlexDesign. I managed to get one of their standard black suits in a trade:

The build was a bit too exaggerated for my liking (I wanted something more realistic and less "comic book" looking). So I ended up trading this one for one of their standard "lean" muscle suits... this time in flesh tone:

This one I found odd for several reasons:

The chest looked too flat and too low on the torso.
The forearms and calves still looked exaggerated to me.
The fit was a little off, and of course the neck would need to be wider to not show under the wide Superman costume neck.

I talked to the good folks at FlexDesign about my tweaks and they manage to build a custom suit with all my requests. The only thing I had to do with the new suit was make the neck even wider:

A simple stitch along the new cut was all it needed since neither the fabric nor foam seem to be fraying at all.

Finally... I just needed a wig, since my hairline isn't what it used to be. I ended up finding a wig claiming to be 100% human hair, but the price was more in line with a synthetic wig. In any case it was almost perfect out of the box, just needed a little trim at the back and a little hairspray to hold the Super-Curl in place.

The end result:

Superman with a 1940s style Lois and Ma Kent:

And the entire team:

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Indy Magnoli · Sep 15, 2014

The night itself was great with tons of great costumes. One of the teams was "Marvel Us"... and I definitely game them an A+ for effort:

First price for Best Dressed Team went to "Despicable Us":

They were hilarious! Batman and I performed a little skit based on the HISHE Superhero Cafe:

@Nick K built a great BatPhone for the skit, maybe he'll chime in with photos. We took a video, but the sound was horrible, so we might redub the video and upload it in the future. (You can also see a really spot-on Tin Tin in the above photo)

The evening ended with Batman having to drive someone's scooter home in the rain:

We were following him in a van and got to see two teenagers on bicycles do a major double take as the Dark Knight passed by them. Further up the road we saw a police car, so we pulled over (since you have to ride with a helmet in New Zealand). Batman got in the van and the Man of Steel finished the ride home:

It made for a very fun ending to a great evening. Oh, and our team placed second in the quiz.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Indy Magnoli · Sep 19, 2014

Some one shot this video (unbeknownst to us) while we were de-costuming the other night. I couldn't help but add some dramatic music:

mydlyfe · Sep 22, 2014

Very cool! Where did you get that larger Superman patch / emblem? Also, do you have any idea what kind of material that cape is?

Indy Magnoli · Sep 22, 2014

The guy I got the suit from threw in the patch (as he was planning to change it at some point, but never got around to it)... I believe you can pick them up on eBay. The cape is gabardine.... I'm guessing cotton.

Nick K · Oct 4, 2014

Great fun thread Indy. Here are the pics of the Bat Phone that was mentioned.

During construction I noticed that I had added two too many wings to it, so I removed those, and added two smaller ones. The bust was from a small toy figure, and the phone itself was from the local Telecom shop where people hand in old ones for new ones. The back plate was missing, so I filled it in with my friend, Mr Builders Fill, and then sanded to shape and finished off with priming and painting in a metallic Carbon colour.

Indy Magnoli · Oct 5, 2014

Thanks again for that Batphone, Nick. It's a great prop!

Htofstead · Oct 5, 2014

The muscle suit looks really believeable under the superman suit. Well done.

Indy Magnoli · Feb 27, 2015

Finally got around to posting our skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhgcjs8-p0

Blaxmyth · Feb 27, 2015

:thumbsup

Indy Magnoli · Apr 3, 2016

Indy Magnoli said:
Finally got around to posting our skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhgcjs8-p0

Working on a new video... here's a teaser shot:

Indy Magnoli · Apr 28, 2016

Here's the final video:

Indy Magnoli · Sep 8, 2016

Playing around with this Prisma app... VERY cool little program:

Superman & Friends...

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