The maker of the original suit, Robert Short just sent me this and I wanted to share:
A Seamless Flash
I was no stranger to the character of the Flash when my agent called me about a meeting he had set up with the Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, producers for a pilot for a Flash series. I had a full collection of comic's from the 60’s and had sporadically kept up with newer issues.
My initial reaction was; What can I bring to the party because they are just going to want a guy in spandex tights. That was my mind set until I sat down with the producers and they hit me with the fact that they wanted the character to look just like the comics. They knew it would take more than just a guy in tights. They showed me a redesign sketch drawn by Dave Stevens. who had created the Rocketteer. The cowl had been changed and the yellow removed from the design. When they asked if it could be done I said yes, of course. Then they added: Just like the comics......No seams. Though I said of course I found myself in the hall afterwards thinking “How the hell am I going to do that”!
It was this one request that shaped the entire development of the suit.
The one thing I did know was that we were going to have to break new ground. Unlike Tim Burton’s version of Batman we had no cape, no armor plating to fall back on and he would have to be able to turn his head. (if only we had Lucius Fox)
I did some preliminary design concepts which did not help the seam problem. My staff and I though around ideas but nothing stuck. Then my primary sculptor suggested flock. I got this vision of a superhero dressed as a snowy Christmas tree for a moment and then it sunk in. The stuff they coat automobile glove compartments with.
My staff, headed by Douglas Turner, dove into the research and came up with a local source for electro-static flocking, application guns and the adhesives.
At the same time we did a body cast of John Wesley Shipp, who would star as the Flash, and created a fiberglass replica of the actor to sculpt and tailor the suits over.
We tried coating all kinds of things with the flock but the main problem was that the factory approved adhesive was rigid. WE fell back on our make-up effects background and formulated a new adhesive for the flock based on a make-up adhesive.
Our original game plan was to build a foam rubber muscle under suit with a flock covered spandex suit over it. All that changed when we discovered that pieces of foam latex coated with only the flock were almost indestructible.
One of the things we did to stay true to the comic book was add bulk to the back of the cowl sculpture in order to achieve that pleasant rounded shape superheroes have to the back of their heads.
We then decided to leave the outer spandex skin off and treat the costume as a full body make-up appliance. This left us with a spandex undersuit which we would then cover with approximately 30 overlapping pieces of latex foam muscles, enabling us to fit the actor perfectly.
We used the fiberglass body form at first but it didn’t capture the exact form of the actor when moving so Mr. Shipp was gracious enough to come in and allow us to attach and overlap the pieces directly on him while wearing the spandex suit.
The flock we used was electro static which meant that the suit had to be electrically charged some how. We found that by filling the suit with aluminum foil we could conduct electricity though the surface of the suit in order for the fibers to stand up correctly.
We realized that in keeping with the theme of no seams we chose the waist blend as the easiest thing to conceal. We made the top half a pull over jacket with the hood attached. Latex gloves, sculpted with a slight natural curve to the fingers and lightning bolt trim, which were slipped on over the sleeves. The pants, which included the boots as part of the same sculpture, were pulled on and zipped around the waist of the jacket to complete the outfit. By having the boots as part of pants sculpture we could get away from the look of boots pulled over the pants. There were no bottoms to the boots, which allowed Shipp to wear comfortable sneakers. The bottom edges of the costumes “boots” were held in place by velcro to the side of the sneakers. The finishing touch was the hand cut high density foam belt that covered where the top and bottom sections zipped together. The golden colors used were a basic Krylon spray paint.
The cowl was glued to the actors face in order to transfer as much movement as we could. The ear wings were sculpted separately and glued onto the cowl. For close up beauty shots the #1 costume had rigid fast cast resin wings and for action sequences some of the lesser suits had urethane flexible foam wings.
The insignia was a separate sculpture and cast in flexible urethane closed cell foam which was then glued to the chest.
To help sell the musculature of the suit we gave it airbrushed shadowing to enhance it’s outline. Fortunately Mr. Shipp was well toned and worked out so the contours of the suit echoed the look of the actor.
We had a total of 8 suits (8.5 if you count the one shirt without the cowl) and the ability to completely strip them down to the bare foam latex and re coat them as they begin to show wear and tear. The early suit was cast in white foam but the later ones were cast with red pigment added to the foam at the mixing stage.
Originally we used a stock crimson colored flock but soon switched to a custom blended burgundy color, as requested by the producers.
Most of the time we also included a cool suit under the costume for the actors comfort. There was always an on set attendant who would disconnect the tubing before each shot.
One entire suit was destroyed for a scene where the Flash falls face first into a massive coating of the Trickster’s “bubble gum” made from mytholcel.
The blue suit created for the clone episode was one of the original 8 costumes recovered in blue flock and striped down afterwards and turned red again.