Age of Ultron Captain America Build (Build complete! pics on page 5)

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Looks so awesome! When do we get to see it on?

Hahaha, I'll try and snap a few pictures of it on later this week, right now I'm just wiped from marathoning the darned thing!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

No rest for me, dove right into making the pants the same day I finished the top pieces. These are moving a LOT quicker than the under/overshirt though so that's a relief. So far, only real difficulties I've had were sewing that tiny triangle near the top (only noticed that in a reference picture recently, no idea why it's there but hey that's the design) and topstitching around the foam pieces since the outline is a lot harder to see through cordura than it is the ponte. Might actually be able to knock these out by the end of the week and move onto all the accessories!

 

[spartacus1]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

What thickness of foam did you use? Are you just sewing around the pieces? I know you started with a duct tape dummy. Did you cut that apart and transfer the pattern to muslin or another material before starting with the cordura, etc? I recently finished my best and started my undershirt. I'm almost thinking of starting over as I'm not 100% happy with my work, so in looking for ways to make it easier next go.

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

What thickness of foam did you use? Are you just sewing around the pieces? I know you started with a duct tape dummy. Did you cut that apart and transfer the pattern to muslin or another material before starting with the cordura, etc? I recently finished my best and started my undershirt. I'm almost thinking of starting over as I'm not 100% happy with my work, so in looking for ways to make it easier next go.

The foam thickness is 2mm and yep! I have a narrow zipper foot that I can bring right up to the edge of the foam and stich around it. And I worked the duct tape a couple different ways. For the overshirt, I cut the duct tape dummy into four pieces, transferred those to muslin, made a mockup, and drew on the mockup to cut apart and make my paper pattern pieces. For the undershirt/sleeves, I just drew directly on the dummy, then cut and transferred those to paper straightaway. Also I added about an inch or 1.5" ease to the overshirt to compensate for the fact that it was going to be lined with headliner foam and sitting on top of the undershirt. But once I had those paper patterns I went straight to the cordura. If you go back to the first page of the thread you can see how I did all my patterns!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Didn't expect to make a post dedicated almost entirely to the pockets, but with the amount of work it's taken to make them I feel they've earned it! This was my first crack at making cargo pockets so I decide to record it step-by-step for a mini-guide to post on instagram. I decided to add a back panel instead of just stitching the sides down to the pants directly cause I thought it'd add a little extra stability. They won't be sewn down until I attach the back side of the legs, but I placed it on the thigh panel just to see how it'd line up with everything else.

To be honest, the pocket flap was the REAL work horse for this since doing the pleather inserts with those tiny corners took a lot of careful pinning and sew! Stitching is a little messy in some spots, but I'm overall happy with how the first one came out. Gotta make the other one tonight and make sure everything lines up on the pants properly. I'm also thinking of opening up the bottom edge of the flap so I can install some magnetic snaps that I have laying around as opposed to using velcro, but we'll see if I feel like going through the effort for that



Bonus: My boots for the suit came in! I managed to snag a pair of Magnum Mach 1 8.0s, the boots Chris Evans wears under his bootcovers in the movie, from a seller in Germany. Was real lucky to find a pair in my size since this particular make has been discontinued. And hey, now I've got some sweet new boots for the winter as well!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Sadly didn't get too much done over the weekend (or at least not that much by my usual workrate). Pockets are all done, just need to be attached, and I made the spandex kneecap section and the panel that goes from the knee to the hem. Biggest time sink was trying to get my 3D-printed kneepads ready for attachment and that ended up just being one disaster after another. I mostly learned that I am not good at applying a light, even layer of bondo on curved surfaces. I also couldn't find a spraypaint that matched the color of the cordura close enough for my liking. Ultimately, I looked at how long it would realistically take for me to sand almost all the bondo off, redo the bondo and sanding until I got it right, paint it AND figure out a good way to attach it to the pants and decided it just wasn't worth all the hassle and stress. Instead, I managed to pattern a domed kneepad similar to the way I did the elbow pads! These ones have a bit more sturdiness to them as instead of just sewing a headliner foam liner and sticking it in, I used Super 77 to glue the individual headliner pieces to the inside of the kneepad along the seams. I've got to make the other one tonight, but shouldn't take long considering I patterned, sewed, reinforced and attached the one kneepad in about an hour. Hoping to still meet my goal of finishing the pants entirely by Wednesday night.

 

[SMP Designs]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Good for you for making the knee pads! That looks so much better and will wear better as well because they'll be flexible.

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Thanks! And yeah I think so too As cool as having actual hard plastic kneepads would have been, I think both my knees and my sanity will thank me for using fabric in the long-term haha

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Well I think that might been the longest I've gone without an update! Or close to it. I wanted to knock out the back sections of the legs, sewing them together, installing the zipper and finishing off the waistband before posting and that ended up taking longer than I thought. But, here they are, fully completed and happily well-fitting. My lighting wasn't too good when I took the pictures cause of how dark it was outside/poor general lighting from my houselights. Gotta find time to take a picture of me in the whole outfit so far this weekend when it's light out

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

As promised, pics of me in the suit so far Gotta work on my posture a bit though since I'm slouching just a little haha. Now, onto the accessories!

 

[Maryfoxfirebird]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Nice work...it looks super clean

 

[Straycatt]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Can't wait to see it with the leather (shoulder straps and belt.)

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (newbie's first Cap suit)

Nice work...it looks super clean

Can't wait to see it with the leather (shoulder straps and belt.)

Thanks guys! Yep, gettin to work on all the accessories today! Starting with the gloves first since I ordered a new set of buckles for the shoulder straps and belt and they aren't in yet ^^'

 

[SMP Designs]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

So awesome! Congrats on the outfit so far - you've done an amazing job. Cheers!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

So awesome! Congrats on the outfit so far - you've done an amazing job. Cheers!

Thanks a lot dude! Couldn't have done it without your guiding advice at the start!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

Aaand I'm back with some glove stuff! Can't tell you all how happy I am to be working on a small piece that's easy to turn under the needle without knocking everything off my work table haha.

I started with some modifications to the fingerless gloves I'm wearing underneath the gauntlet. I knew that Cap has some rubber knuckle pieces on that glove and wanted to replicate that somehow. In the movie, it looks like one flexible piece that goes on top of the back of the hand with a slight rounded extension over the knuckles. It's a simple enough design that I thought I could make a mold and cast it in rubber, but the smallest kit of casting rubber would have been about $100 after shipping and taxes and I couldn't really justify that seeing as I'm not sure if I'd be doing rubber-casting in the future. So, I improvised a bit. Made the knuckles individual sections that fit closely together and made them using 1/4" thick craft foam. I cut the basic shape, and then used my dremel to make a slight bevel to them, cleaned them up with handsanding. Then I scored the inner line on the pieces and widened it with my heat gun, I also used the heat gun to melt the fuzzies on the bevels a bit. To tackle the issue of painting them while retaining flexibility, I coated them in plastidip and painted it with angelus leather paint. It took about 3 coats of paint to completely cover the surface, but seeing as angelus is used primarily for painting both leather and synthetic shoes, it was able to stick to the rubber plastidip and bends it without cracking. You can see how the pieces curve around my knuckles when I make a fist, but before attachment I was able to bend them completely in half with no damage to the paint. As for attaching to the glove, that was just some quick application of barge cement and putting a few heavy books on top as a clamp!



Next up was the actual gauntlets. The pattern in the picture is actually the 2nd to last draft of the pattern, but I was working so quickly I forgot to take a picture of the final pattern before cutting it up into sections. It took about 5 drafts total to get everything to come together the way I wanted in terms of length, fit around the fingerless glove and sleeve of the suit, and how all the different sections lined up on the glove. Last night I finally started sewing them by making the thumb hole, attaching piping around the inner section and attaching the red panel underneath. I left a 1" section around the perimeter of the insert unstitched so that I could insert the red webbing strap that extends from the insert to the back-seam of the glove. Picking up the red dye tonight and hopefully that'll all go smoothly so that I can start the foam embossing work tomorrow!

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

I've been trying to avoid single image updates since I'd rather have a bunch of progress pictures to show you guys all at once, but I'm so happy about the embossing on the gauntlets that I had to post right away! I did it the same way as I did the embossing on the rest of the outfit, but I'm just amazed at how well it worked! The brown cordura is 1000 denier as opposed to 500 as they didnt have the right shade in 500, and I expected it to be more difficult to stitch around the foam. But, it looks like the combo of craft foam, a headliner foam base, and another piece of cordura as the backing was sturdy enough to pull the top fabric down around the foam. The ribbing sections were definitely the hardest to do though since I had to cut strips of foam less the 1/4" wide for them to fit in between the stitching. Also I had dyed the red webbing to a darker shade to match the ponte which looked great when it dryed and was stitched into the gauntlet, but I guess the dye didn't actually stay that well and evaporated off since now it's back to its original color. Ah well, it's still close enough that I'm not complaining haha.

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

Feels like forever since I've been able to update even though it's only been about 3 or 4 days! Real life things have been getting in the way (although definitely in a good way) which temporarily reduced the amount of time I had for sewing. But! I was able to get a good stretch of time in last night, and finish up sewing one of the gloves! It still needs the magnet on the back of the hand and the little tab on the strap around the top, but it's satisfying to see it sitting on my arm Posting this picture of it now since I might have to take another short break before I finish the other one, but once both are done I'll have a lot more pics showing them from different angles, with those extra bits, and the steps I took between having it just as an embossed panel to a finished glove!

 

[cavedwellar]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

That gauntlet looks amazing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[brutuswayne]

Re: Age of Ultron Captain America Build (first cap attempt at cap build)

Thanks! And I actually ended up getting my evening freed up last night so I was able to speed through and finish the other one! Magnet and strap tab pieces still have to be added, but I'm waiting for all the hardware I ordered to come in so I can paint everything a uniform grey/silver before attachment. Also including a picture of the main body of the gauntlet before attaching the fist/backhand section, which is actually just topstitched onto the main body on the top, with the straps left loose from it. Once the gauntlet is zipped shut, slipping my glove/sleeve through the gauntlet is fairly easy, it fits snugly without being overly tight. The zipper is more there to make it easier to take off since it opens from the hand-side so that I dont have to tug the gauntlet back over the fingerless gloves. And having the strap of the fist section be free-floating lets me hide the zipper in there, and just reach underneath to pull it open when I need to!