Dungeonstone
Member
Every Halloween my wife and I throw a themed party with costumes etc. This past year it was "Cops & Criminals", the year before it was "Pirates", 2011 it was "undead"...etc.
However Halloween around our house next year will be an extra special event in that Oct. 31st 2014 will be our 10th wedding anniversary as well. The theme for the party will be "Comic Book Characters" and because of the nature of the occasion I thought that for this year it would be nice for us to take a step beyond the "Party City" level of costuming and to go ahead and assemble outfits of better quality which would be a bit more memorable.
I let me wife choose the characters we would go as and she picked Wonder Woman & Superman.
Wonder Woman
We spent a few hours looking at various cosplay Wonder Woman costumes and decided to create a base outfit which could be adapted to either a modern look or to have a more "classic" appearance by subbing out a a few pieces. So far we have found many items on line which look like they will work to assemble most of the main parts of the costume (red pleather corset, dark blue metallic leggings, and "Wonder Woman" boots from Funtasia) leaving it to me to construct the details and accessories.
So over the next few months I will be working on custom tiara(s), belts, "WW/Eagle" chest symbol and perhaps a small buckler style shield. Due to my business, I have a bit of sculpting experience and the materials already on-hand to fabricate these parts in my workshop so I am reasonably confident about being able to get these pieces done over the next few months. However I will definitely be looking at pictures of every cosplay costume and printed/drawn image of Wonder Woman that I can find to draw inspiration from as well as accepting any comments or advice which may be offered by all of you as I want this costume to be something that my wife will be very happy with.
Superman
Unlike my wife's costume which I generally have a plan for, the Superman costume for myself is where I am still a bit in the dark.
First off is the decision as to which version of Superman to look at assembling. Right now I think the choices are narrowed down to either the theatrical Man of Steel version or a Kingdom Come style outfit. I like the look of both and that is making the decision more difficult. Also, I have very little sewing experience which means that I will probably have to either purchase a pre-made suit from somewhere or take the materials to someone locally to be sewn up and tailored to fit.
Add into this the fact that while I am not too badly out of shape I will definitely need to put some work into losing about 15# and adding more muscle definition to my frame before any suit of spandex is going to look good which means that as it stands, except from my height and shoe size I do not even have an accurate set of measurements to work from.
So for the moment, (aside from starting a new exercise program) most of my work on this suit will be all research. So far I have spent a few hours reading through the various "Superman" threads on this forum and have learned quite a bit however I do have a ~lot~ more to learn and many questions..
1. I have seen that there are a number of places to purchase costumes on the web in the $180-$300 price range like "Costumebase" and "Cosplaysky" from Asia and from reading here and in a few other places it seems that the products these companies produce are generally a notch above the costumes and accessories found at Party City and Spirit stores but still suffer from some significant shortcomings. Is that an accurate assessment? Has anyone here had any experience purchasing a "Man of Steel" suit from one of these places?
2. From reading through the threads here I have seen that there are options for having a custom costume pattern printed out from places like "Fabric on Demand" and then tailoring those pieces into the costume. This seems like the better option over purchasing a pre-sewn suit from one of the companies I listed in the question above however I am nearly clueless as to where to begin to shop for the print design to use or what fabric(s) and inks that I should be asking them to print the suit with. Is there an estimate as to how much going this route would run (for just the print design and fabric)? What is the general turn around time from placing an order for fabric and having the order arrive at your door?
3. Since I am certain that there are probably many other questions and potential problems that I haven't thought of I would like to ask...
"What advice would you give to someone like myself who is just starting out on projects like these"?
However Halloween around our house next year will be an extra special event in that Oct. 31st 2014 will be our 10th wedding anniversary as well. The theme for the party will be "Comic Book Characters" and because of the nature of the occasion I thought that for this year it would be nice for us to take a step beyond the "Party City" level of costuming and to go ahead and assemble outfits of better quality which would be a bit more memorable.
I let me wife choose the characters we would go as and she picked Wonder Woman & Superman.
Wonder Woman
We spent a few hours looking at various cosplay Wonder Woman costumes and decided to create a base outfit which could be adapted to either a modern look or to have a more "classic" appearance by subbing out a a few pieces. So far we have found many items on line which look like they will work to assemble most of the main parts of the costume (red pleather corset, dark blue metallic leggings, and "Wonder Woman" boots from Funtasia) leaving it to me to construct the details and accessories.
So over the next few months I will be working on custom tiara(s), belts, "WW/Eagle" chest symbol and perhaps a small buckler style shield. Due to my business, I have a bit of sculpting experience and the materials already on-hand to fabricate these parts in my workshop so I am reasonably confident about being able to get these pieces done over the next few months. However I will definitely be looking at pictures of every cosplay costume and printed/drawn image of Wonder Woman that I can find to draw inspiration from as well as accepting any comments or advice which may be offered by all of you as I want this costume to be something that my wife will be very happy with.
Superman
Unlike my wife's costume which I generally have a plan for, the Superman costume for myself is where I am still a bit in the dark.
First off is the decision as to which version of Superman to look at assembling. Right now I think the choices are narrowed down to either the theatrical Man of Steel version or a Kingdom Come style outfit. I like the look of both and that is making the decision more difficult. Also, I have very little sewing experience which means that I will probably have to either purchase a pre-made suit from somewhere or take the materials to someone locally to be sewn up and tailored to fit.
Add into this the fact that while I am not too badly out of shape I will definitely need to put some work into losing about 15# and adding more muscle definition to my frame before any suit of spandex is going to look good which means that as it stands, except from my height and shoe size I do not even have an accurate set of measurements to work from.
So for the moment, (aside from starting a new exercise program) most of my work on this suit will be all research. So far I have spent a few hours reading through the various "Superman" threads on this forum and have learned quite a bit however I do have a ~lot~ more to learn and many questions..
1. I have seen that there are a number of places to purchase costumes on the web in the $180-$300 price range like "Costumebase" and "Cosplaysky" from Asia and from reading here and in a few other places it seems that the products these companies produce are generally a notch above the costumes and accessories found at Party City and Spirit stores but still suffer from some significant shortcomings. Is that an accurate assessment? Has anyone here had any experience purchasing a "Man of Steel" suit from one of these places?
2. From reading through the threads here I have seen that there are options for having a custom costume pattern printed out from places like "Fabric on Demand" and then tailoring those pieces into the costume. This seems like the better option over purchasing a pre-sewn suit from one of the companies I listed in the question above however I am nearly clueless as to where to begin to shop for the print design to use or what fabric(s) and inks that I should be asking them to print the suit with. Is there an estimate as to how much going this route would run (for just the print design and fabric)? What is the general turn around time from placing an order for fabric and having the order arrive at your door?
3. Since I am certain that there are probably many other questions and potential problems that I haven't thought of I would like to ask...
"What advice would you give to someone like myself who is just starting out on projects like these"?