Best fabric for Spider-Man suit?

BenFilms

New Member
Hello, I am planning to make a Spider-Man suit, but wasn't sure what fabric to use. I'm giving myself a budget of up to around $50 in total to spend on fabric. So, I was just wondering, what is the best fabric within that price range, and how much I should buy for both red and blue for one suit? (for reference, I'm 6 feet tall)
 
SPANDEX!

Most Spider-Man costumes you see now are sublimation dye printed patterns on white or coloured spandex, there are tons of artists who sell suit designs:
Myself, Gunhead, renwick.design, crazyfrankly, or User Kenlandrum has generously made several of his patterns available for free here on the RPF.
You can then take these design files to services like ZentaiZentai, Zentaizone and Herostime to have them printed and sewn to your measurements.
Many of the more popular suit designs have been mass produced and you can pick up a good subdye printed spidey suit on ebay in generic sizes for very cheap.

If You're looking at the textured silk screen fabric route, parallellifestudios make incredible fabrics but they will run you considerably more than $50 for a full suits worth.

Joann fabrics carry some textured stretch fabrics from the yayahan collection but ive not seen any in red and blue, so depending what version of spidey youre doing that might be no good.

If youre set on a scratch-built spidey suit any 4 way stretch spandex will set you right but id first look at some other builds by people on youtube and follow their example, you'll also want to look for a suit sewing pattern that matches what youre after stylistically.

Sewing these sort of suits is very challenging though, there are plenty of posts and videos online of people documenting these kinds of builds, make sure you do your research first.
But make sure you get a faceshell and a dancers belt too!

Hope this helped.
 
As far as spending $50 on fabrics, you'd be hard pressed to find a good suit made in that price range. Quality textiles can get expensive, but there's a world of difference between cheap materials that won't last you very long, and high end materials that can give you the kind of results that look like they came right off the movie screen.

I sell a range of textured stretch fabrics on my website:

Textured Stretch Knits (Assorted Colors) | Thread Lair

There are lots of options out there for superhero costumes but I know from experience that if you're willing to spend a little more upfront for better fabrics, you'll save money in the long run because you'll be replacing the cheap spandex materials often if you wear your costumes a lot.

Either way I hope you find what you're looking for. All the best with your build!
 
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For a decent price, I think clear dot red spandex from spandex world is the best option. It's about $15 a yard, and then Liverpool bullet knit spandex for the blue is around $8 a yard.
 
Thanks for the responses, I ended up going with a textured nylon spandex I found at my local fabric shop (I think it was 90% nylon 10% spandex, something like that)
 

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