Last minute NYCC mini-build: SSR/Officer's Uniform Steve Rogers

You'd think with me bein just another night or two from finishing my AoU Cap I'd take some time to relax before the con wouldn't you? Absolutely not! That'd be ridiculous!

For my Sunday and possibly Friday costume for NYCC, I want to wear Steve's Officer's uniform from The First Avenger. I really wanted to get a uniform from one of the many WWII replica sites that supply reenactors, but I really don't have the cash to drop on one of those right now (all the options I found in my size would've been easily $500+ for a full uniform). So I bought the CosplaySky uniform about 3 weeks ago with the intention of replacing the lower quality or inaccurate parts of it. It came in last week and was very loose in the waist so it's at the tailors right now getting taken in to fit better.

The 'medals' and buttons on it were definitely an issue. The 'medals are just pieces of vinyl cut to shape and sewn down, so I removed those with a seam ripper before bringing it to the tailors so that I could replace them with the actual pins and medals. I actually ordered those first before the uniform using an online guide of what Steve has pinned on, and a site called medalsofamerica.com. it cost about $50 to get all the different medals, and another $15 to get the SSR pins off an ebay seller.



You can see all the pin marks in the cardboard from me trying to align everything for a nice picture haha. The buttons were also the wrong size and had anchors on them which made it look like buttons from a navy uniform. I found a seller on etsy that had a set of buttons meant for a WWII Officer's uniform, 4 large buttons for the front and 6 small ones for the pocket flaps and epaulettes. Those should be coming in today so I'll take pictures of that once I get them.

I also had to order a new shirt and tie for it. The shirt and tie that came with it was passable, but I found an olive green buttonshirt with a wide collar on amazon that matches in color much better, and I bought the tie from a WWII replica costumer in the UK for about $15. Those should be coming in early next week.

The last thing I wanted to do though, was to have a blank shield like the one Steve picks up when discussing his shield options. My plan for that is to use one of the Disguise shields, cut the star out of the center, place a big piece of worbla on the back to match the curvature, and fill the empty space with bondo which I'll sand smooth to make the center circle flat. I'll also make a set of brackets/straps to replace the elastic using craft foam, more worbla, and a couple of leather belts I don't mind cutting up. I'll probably lightly sand the rest of the outer surface too so that the texture is consistent with the center circle, and then just plastidip the whole shebang and paint it silver. I cut the star out last night by repeatedly scoring the lines of the star with a box cutter and popping it out and put the worbla backing in as well.



So barring any catastrophes happening with the mail or the tailor, this should be pretty quick to put together for what I think will be a passable costume, especially for use on Sunday of NYCC/other conventions when everyones a bit more geared towards comfort. More to come from this pretty soon as I whip it all together in the next few days!

It would be cool to do a progression of costumes each day of the con starting with the chinos and SSR t-shirt, then the "rescue" uniform, then the dress uniform, then the TFA getup. Someone should get on that

Kevin Gossett said:

It would be cool to do a progression of costumes each day of the con starting with the chinos and SSR t-shirt, then the "rescue" uniform, then the dress uniform, then the TFA getup. Someone should get on that

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Ah man, if only I still had my rescue stuff, I'd be able to do that until the TFA Suit (hmm..maybe a future project haha)

The new buttons for the suit came in Saturday and they're MUCH better. The large ones are still a bit smaller than the oversized navy ones, and the small ones are just the right size for all the flaps. Gonna pick the jacket up from the tailor's tonight (he needed some extra time) and sew them all on.



I also made a set of brackets for the back of the shield to use with both the silver SSR shield, and my regular shield for my AoU cap suit, using craft foam, worbla, some rectangular o-rings and some quick straps I made with more craft foam and pleather. Shirt and tie should be delivered tonight so I'll hopefully be able to post up a picture of me in the suit tomorrow!



After that I'll just to slap some bondo over the cavity of the star, smooth it all out for plastidip and hit it with some paint!

Excellent find getting the old buttons and not the modern stamped out jobs!

Also, love the display card for your brass and ribbons.

Fly4v said:

Excellent find getting the old buttons and not the modern stamped out jobs!

Also, love the display card for your brass and ribbons.

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Thank you! I actually really lucked out by checking etsy first since those were the first ones I found. And yeah the card came with the purple heart/national defense ribbon bar so I figured may as well put the rest on there for safekeeping until I can attach it to the jacket!

The new shirt and tie actually came in last night so I was able to throw the whole outfit on to see how it looks before I started replacing all the buttons and pinning all the medals, ribbons, and brass. Apologies in advance for any grainyness in the images, lighting isn't the best in my room.



First off that tie needs some serious ironing, so that'll be taken care of tonight pretty quickly. The shirt is also a half-size too big, but with the jacket closed and tie pulled snug it's negligible. I'll probably order a better fitting one after the con though just for comfort's sake since the shirt was only about $20 on Amazon. The jacket also fits MUCH better than when I originally got it, although I may get it taken in just a bit more in the back just so that the belt doesn't have to cinch it as much (I was able to feel a bit of bunching in the back from pulling the jacket flat against the front). Overall though, I was pretty happy with how it looked on me, so I sat down to replace all the buttons and detailing last night as well.



Took these pictures this morning before I headed off to work, hence the glow. Had a bit of a struggle with the button since the loops on the back were metal as opposed to plastic and had gotten a little twisted/bent with age. Some careful plier-work though set them back into the right position. But, after I replacing the buttons and pinning everything on I think it looks MUCH more presentable than when I first got it. Gotta do some ironing on those flap corners to make them lie flatter, and probably on the lapels to freshen up the crease. The only thing left that still bugs me is that the epaulettes float a little bit when I wear the jacket. They actually snap into place instead of buttoning as the jacket didn't initially have any buttons on them. I'll probably remove the snaps and just use some thin strips of velcro to hold it down, just so it looks more flush. But, other than that the outfit's pretty much done! Once I fix up the epaulettes and the do some ironing I'll throw it all on again with some shoes. I actually have a pair of leather dress shoes that are close to accurate color (slightly more red-brown than russet), so I think those'll do nicely. Now it's just getting the shield ready!

Edit: photos resized since I didn't realize how massive they had been!

Real epaulettes float on the old Class A jacket also so don't feel bad.
It is a pain but sometimes you can use your rank and unit crest pinned into the shoulder of the jacket to keep things in place and can pin your CIB thru the pocket into the jacket.
There is also a double sided clear tape that you can use to keep your pockets and lapels down. Most people are covered with the stuff for their official photos.

But the jacket currently looks awesome not much room for improvement!

Fly4v said:

Real epaulettes float on the old Class A jacket also so don't feel bad.
It is a pain but sometimes you can use your rank and unit crest pinned into the shoulder of the jacket to keep things in place and can pin your CIB thru the pocket into the jacket.
There is also a double sided clear tape that you can use to keep your pockets and lapels down. Most people are covered with the stuff for their official photos.

But the jacket currently looks awesome not much room for improvement!

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Ah okay, fair enough! Thanks for letting me know. Pinning into the shoulder of the jacket's not a bad idea though! Also that's a fun fact to know about the clear tape haha. But yeah I'm very happy with how it looks now too!

Trying to make as quick progress as I can with the shield. Did the bondo and sanding last night to get the center as smooth as I could. Made the mistake of piling the bondo on too thickly and got a real arm and hand workout sanding it down. Upside is that once I sanded down the first coat, I really only had to fill in a few cracks and cavities to finish it up. Sand marks on the rest of the shield were from I accidentally dropped some bondo on other parts of the shield and had to clean it down. I'll be going over the whole thing with medium and light grit sanding sponges tonight to even it out and smooth the surface before plastidipping and painting it.

In the madness of getting ready for NYCC I ended up forgetting to add the last few pics for this thread! Plastidipping of the shield went well enough. I was doing a lot of spraying that night as I had to coat the front of the blank shield, as well as the back of my regular Cap shield and the velcro-brackets I was using for both. After it went on though I also realized that I had not sanded the edges of the bondo'd section completely flush to the surface of the shield. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to peel off the plastidip and do more sanding as I only had one more night left and needed that for painting, as well as some last minute touch-ups on my AoU suit. But, once the paint went on, the reflectiveness distracted from the imperfections on the shield a bit. I used dupli-color silver charcoal paint, but then also put a light coat of Krylon chrome spraypaint on top as I thought the surface wasn't shiny enough.



And finally, some shots of me wearing the whole thing together! I snapped a couple mirror shots before heading out for the con and also ran into a friend that took a picture and sent it to me. Was a very comfortable outfit to wear on Friday, aside from me forgetting the leather insoles of my shoes had hardened which destroyed my feet. The shield got banged around pretty heavily, but a fresh coat of plastidip and paint should have it looking like new if I need to pull it out again!



P.S. Forgive the poor form of my salute, it's been a while since my army bud taught me how to give a proper salute haha

I have a bias for all things 1940 and.... WOW you really pulled this last minute build together! I'd never take that uniform off.

And there is nothing wrong with your salute, even if there was.... have received alot worse.

Fly4v said:

I have a bias for all things 1940 and.... WOW you really pulled this last minute build together! I'd never take that uniform off.

And there is nothing wrong with your salute, even if there was.... have received alot worse.

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Well glad to hear that both my uniform and salute pass inspection! haha I've got a couple more cons in the next few months that I can wear it to, and I should have a Bucky in his Enlisted uniform at one of them too. Real excited to throw this on again ASAP.