AlmostSpiderMan's TASM build, help appreciated!

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Hey guys, I am very, very late for this, but I'm giving it a shot after all. I bought Taylor McManus' print, and it looks beautiful, kudos, and thank you Taylor. Got it printed by Fabric on demand. Got my suit back from the local seamstress yesterday, and I must say, I'm a little disappointed. She did a somewhat sloppy job all over, but I couldn't wait any longer. Unfortunately, I didn't puff paint it before I got it sewn up. The worst problem for now is that the black lines that tell you were to sew and not to sew wasn't folled ast good as it could have been. The hands are looking a little weird, and the seamstress managed to put the thumbs half an inch outside of the black lines to follow for thumbs. My zipper is located on the back, which I somewhat regret, but I think it won't be a big problem. My neck might be just a bit too long for the mask to cover my neck if I move in certain ways.

Can't really afford to a proper face shell at the moment, so I got one from Hasbro, and Elope sunglasses for lenses. Having a LOT of trouble attaching the lenses, but I'm thinking about buying rediculously small magnets. Super glue (Loctite) failed miserably.



The suit is a bit baggy around my butt, but then again I have quite a small butt. It fits quite nicely on the upper body, and I think I got pretty close to Andrew Garfield «torso» in this pic, other than that I'm 6'3" and he's.. 5'10"?


As you can see, she totally bummed out on the right thumb. The left is not so bad though. This pick reminded me quite a lot of one of Andrew’s shots. Still need to exercise and get

the legs to fit properly though, and I might add a sewing dart in the crotch my self to get a tighter fit. Again, she didn't follow the lines. I've got no pictures of the mask yet unfortunately, seeing that I didn't yet attach the lenses.

But on a distance, the suit looks good.

The feet also look a little weird, but I guess I’m going to get the Asics after a while as well.


Back zipper, regret it, but I think it’ll work anyways. If you look at the web lines, in any of the pictures you can see that it’s not lined up as good as it should be, but I guess it’s a difficult suit to sew, and hard to sew lycra at all.



Questions.

• What do you think about adding a sewing dart in the crotch, getting a tighter fit around the thighs and crotch?
• How critical is it that the fabric is stretched when applying puff paint? Planning on going for slick deep red, black for web lines and maybe navy blue for the black honey comb pattern.
• Black or blue honey comb pattern?
• And what would be the best way to go from here? I really regret not puff painting before having it sewn.
• Would just stretching it out and placing pins on it to keep it there still work properly? Afraid to ruin the seams.
• Tips for physique is very welcome! I posted in the fitness thread, but now you have some reference pics to see what I need to work on.

Thanks guys!

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Bump? Need some advice before I order puff paint

 

[ichidave]

i got the same print... i can tell already your mask is not sewn right...i myself am gonna try and sew it myself i seen a ton of reference pictures... and that is not how that mask is suppose to look sewn....that mask is one hell of a puzzle i didnot solve yet... seems no one ever did a tutorial on how to sew these things step by step everyone keeps them a secret ....as for puff painting you can still stretch it and puff little by little just not sure if the pins will leave holes in your fabric or not ... but i have seen people do it...with success....as for the black on blue honey comb or whatever you said.... one of the best guys on here does navy blue with a couple dime size drops of black mixed together.....

 

[Lunaman]

Questions.

• What do you think about adding a sewing dart in the crotch, getting a tighter fit around the thighs and crotch?
• How critical is it that the fabric is stretched when applying puff paint? Planning on going for slick deep red, black for web lines and maybe navy blue for the black honey comb pattern.
• Black or blue honey comb pattern?
• And what would be the best way to go from here? I really regret not puff painting before having it sewn.
• Would just stretching it out and placing pins on it to keep it there still work properly? Afraid to ruin the seams.
• Tips for physique is very welcome! I posted in the fitness thread, but now you have some reference pics to see what I need to work on.

Thanks guys!

Right. First of all, you look great in the suit, I wouldn't stress about changing your physique to any degree. Use any simple weight or resistance training program and stick to it diligently for your overall health and improving your fitness goals, but you don't really "need to work on" anything for the purposes of this suit.
You can add a dart to the crotch if you want, I wouldn't, the fit at the thighs has more to do with the seam that goes from the outside of your hip and downwards. You could take that in a bit.
It's pretty critical that the fabric be under tension when you apply the puff paint, not only to reduce stress on the paint when you wear the suit, but also to ensure that it doesn't constrict you uncomfortably once you put the suit on again. Some people get away with puffying the suit with no tension BEFORE they sew, but you're in a different spot. What you can do is have a friend help you build a duct tape dummy of your body. Put the suit on the dummy, and puffy away at it. It'll be trickier than having done it before the suit was sewn, but it will be doable. The honeycomb pattern should be a dark blue (most people achieve this by mixing blue and black puffy paint before applying. If you just use the out of the bottle blue, it will look too bright and cartoony).
Lastly, your life will be easier and the mask will lay flatter if you finish the seam on the eyes to properly terminate closer to the center nose. You should be aiming for something like this (pardon the crooked alignment of the mask on the user's face, the dude's blind at the moment)


You're doing really well! Don't get discouraged.

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Wow, thanks Luna! I'm not discouraged yet, I never had a Spider-Man suit as a child, always wanted one though... So I'm dying to get this finished I'm not really worried about the mask though, I'll need to cut holes in it anyways, and I figured they'd be about where the seams get pointy.

Thank you for giving me the duct tape dummy tip, I might use it, but that means a lot of duct tape, and my budget is already tight enough I've been living on less than a dollar for 3 weeks now, I have food though! Haha. Doing awesome. I'd like to get rid something though, my upper body is narrower than my hips by quite a lot, which makes it all look a bit weird. Ideally, I want this type of physique, but I guess that's extremely hard to achieve. I work out every other day though, but mostly to stay healthy. Running first, then strength exercises with dumbbells and a ton of pushups. Getting a bar soon though so I can work on my chest a bit, and do squats and lunges as well, which will do the trick on my legs.

So, this is where I'm at, doesn't look too bad if the angle's right, but from up front or behind I look a bit goofy.

 

[cha0tic]

I actually really like that, I sent you a pm.

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Update!

My phone got demoted, unfortunately, so I had to go back my old phone with worse camera. No worries though. So, I glued 2mm x 1mm sized magnets to the face shell, took an awful amount of time, then used a needle to poke out holes for them in the fabric mask, so they'd stick out and get better contact. Then glued the mask to the faceshell just around the magnets, seems to hold up just fine. Used a scissor to remove the jaw from the shell. My shape is coming along better than it has been... Well ever. The mask turned out just okay, nothing more. Couldn't manage to get the lenses completely even, but it looks okay. I do realize the mask is the make or break, and I'm sorry about that, but I just had to go through with my current idea. I have been attaching magnets all week, haha.

I have one slight problem. In all of these pictures, my neck is sort of... Compressed. Throughout my childhood years I have been compared to several animals due to my neck, which is of course a traumatic experience that pointed me in a direction of the spider, an animal seemingly without a neck. Anyways, the fabric doesn't stretch enough, and that kind of sucks, because my neck is always visible from one angle, either front or back.

It got even more toasty inside the mask, but I'm going to let my identity be a secret anyways, for the fun of it. I'm eager to see how my school reacts when they see a 17 year old dude run around in a Spider-Man costume, no matter how sweaty I get. Of course I won't take off my mask. Hardly any of my friends know that I'm making this costume, haha.


Still not sure when I'm getting Asics/Puff paint though. It actually looks really good now, not sure if I'll even bother with the puff paint. I might though. We'll see! Not until September at least. The mask also wrinkles a bit here and there.

 

[Spideyfox]

Can you post pics of your gloves front and back Im interested in seeing the details

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Usually, it's a tighter fit, this applies to all the following picutres. It looks a little sloppy because I'm only wearing the gloves, the rest of the suit is just hanging down in front of me. . Like I mentioned before, the hands might be the worst parts of the suit, really sloppy sewing. This 55 year old woman just wouldn't understand that the black lines were to be followed when sewing, no matter how many times I tried telling her. But I do understand that this is an intricate part of the suit as well, and that they might be difficult to sew. At least it looks good from a distance!

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

Bump. Any thoughts/ideas/critique on the mask?

 

[AlmostSpiderMan]

TASM 2 Movie premier! 50% Discount on the ticket. My mask still looks sort of bad though, and it's not long enough. I have some extra material from the extra mask that's waaaaay shorter I was thinking of sewing to the bottom of the other mask, so that I could just fold it down and tuck it underneath/ontop of the suit. Unfortunately though, I wore Converse shoes. With the suit. It was what I had ._. But it looked kind of nerdy and cool. Which pretty much sums up the concept. I kept the mask on until the lights came off, and put it back on before they were turned back on. I'm sort of determined not to let anyone but my closest family and my closest friends know it's me before maybe Halloween, because that's the sort of stuff I think is funny. I'll do a little more work on the mask this weekend, I'll glue the lenses permanently to the mask, because they always fall off and I don't see why they should come off anyways. And I will try and get to do the puff painting sometime too, but right now I have other things to tend to, like exams and I can't really afford it either right now. But I hope updates will come!