Captain America: The First Avenger [Leather Build]

BananaBlitz

BananaBlitz

Active Member
Been saving up for Halloween this year so I could do something awesome. Bear with me, because it's my first time working with leather. I subscribe to the 'Go big or go home' train of thought, so rest assured, this'll either burn out or burn bright in a particularly entertaining fashion.

Here's what I've managed to work on so far in the past day or so. If anyone has any advice on casting the wooden belt that I fashioned, I am all ears.

By the way, been lurking here for a bit trying to get ideas for this monster, and credit is due to someone for the pouch pattern. And I am totally blanking on who. I'll look it up after dinner.

Enjoy!~

My Canvas:
View attachment 119029

The Belt Buckle (Avoiding the leather):
View attachment 119030

The Pouches In Progress:
View attachment 119031

Pouches/Belt In Progress:
View attachment 119032

Jacket Pattern/Middle Liner Layer:
View attachment 119033

Jacket Liner Chest:
View attachment 119034

Jacket Liner Arms:
View attachment 119035

P.S. Please, dear god, critique if you see something horribly wrong. I am making small changes for function over form though =p

EDIT: Still haven't found that pattern, but finished staining! Here are the dyed, and sealed, pouches.

View attachment 119057
 
Last edited:
Aaaand, the belt is sealed. Gonna sew up some joints for sturdiness. Anyone know of a good place to get the belt buckle? I'm hoping for movie accuracy, and carving it is...difficult.

View attachment 119337

Anyhow, here's tonight's progress!
 
Look for member hikz in the junkyard. He sells a great belt buckle and set of back buckles. Take a look at my build thread linked in my signature and ask any questions :) :thumbsup
 
@Kevin: Thanks for the pointer to Hikz! Awesome belt buckle and back star. Sadly, I think I've played my budget out a bit too thin for that to work out with the rest of the suit until maybe the next paycheck. Hopefully I'm wrong though. Side note, just went through your whole rig build, and damn, that is well done.

Did some digging, found the origins of all the patterns:

Belt pouches: Sandman0077

Chest Pouches: Minakolabelle

Modified the sizing a bit, made them hang out a bit less to the point where they accommodate one 1911 magazine apiece. I know myself, and I fully expect I would tear the hell out of them running around some corner.
 
roblenzz in the junkyard posted yesterday that he has a run of several TFA style buckles he made for $26.

Hope this helps.
 
Took a leaf from the book of one of the guys I saw doing a TFA build here a while back and found myself an old/relatively cheap military surplus parachute harness. Definitely not completely screen accurate, but I'm pleased with how it's beginning to look. Experimenting with the dyeing process, turns out that it resists pure bleach pretty hardcore. However, the bleach seems to make it more permeable to the pure red india ink that ought to dye it just fine. I'll get back to you all on that when it's dry sometime tomorrow.

View attachment 119971

From left to right, there's the right front strap (to be dyed red), the back straps laid out in the appropriate Y pattern (to be dyed blue(?)), and the left front strap. Particularly fond of the left front strap, because I feel like the label adds a certain degree of authenticity, if screen inaccuracy. Might re-position it though. Thoughts?
 
You are a gentleman and a scholar alike. I wasn't finding that on google image search, so I was going to have to watch the movie and get a screenshot.

Hell, I'll just watch the movie anyhow for fun
 
Hehe - thanks for the compliment.

On your front straps the you plan to dye red - you can buy military grade webbing in red exactly like green ones you have from strapworks.com pretty inexpensively. It might save you a lot of work (and frustration) unless you're dead set on making what you have work.
 
Well, hell xD I wish I'd read that earlier. Ah well, live and learn. I may still do that for the gray. Red is mostly done. I'll edit with a picture in an hour or so.
 
View attachment 120253

Yuuup, here's one of the finished front straps, just waiting to be clamped at the end and stitched. Turned out a good color of crimson after being bleached to a gold. Next down is the base of the back strap, just waiting to be covered with a gray reinforcement strap over the top. As for placement of the label, where do you guys think? I was thinking either where it's pictured or under the overhanging strap.

View attachment 120255

Also, side note, I have these awesome release buckles that I'm aching to figure out how to use properly. Thoughts on them being used as the attachment to the pauldrons?

Last but not least, anyone with experience dyeing things who can explain to me how to get a good seal? Leather and nylon.

Cheers!
-Blitz
 
View attachment 121020

This took much longer than I'd anticipated. I've easily put in fifteen hours on just the detailing for the abwork. Fun stuff! :D

Next up is taking a layer of leather and using that abwork as a mold of sorts to more accurately achieve the lines seen in the movie, as well as have a good base of padding in the event of a bike accident.

Any advice on making the leather a smidge more flexible?
 
Alright, had a moment of panic where everything seemed like it was going to hell and was not worth updating. And now I've recovered from that substantially since the last post. Here is the pictures from the last week or so. It's been a blast.

Back template
View attachment 122957

Back leather (Where I began panicking)
View attachment 122958

Full front leather (Utter Panic)
View attachment 122959

And then I started to scrap the full leather idea due to dyeing and stiffness issues, opting for a more modern motorcycle jacket with layers of padding. (And better screen accuracy).

Front of jacket
View attachment 122960

And sleeves!
View attachment 122961

Leather stitched in:
View attachment 122962

Laid out for your consideration:
View attachment 122963

Aaand, just realized that I forgot to take pictures of the back. Plenty of spare fabrics on the side for tailoring to my size later, I think I have a solid 12 inches of play on the front alone. Way more than necessary. Only wrinkle is that when I went to set the dye for the straps in white vinegar, the dye all came out. One of the straps even turned back to green almost perfectly. Helloooo, Strapworks. Hopefully they ship soon enough! Just placing my order now:D
 
Guess the next step would be the shoulder epaulet area. Built in the same manner as your ab section. Even though it is after Halloween, keep up the good work!
 
Howdy all! time for another quick update. Here's me wearing what I have so far at work for Halloween:

View attachment 125080

One of these days I aim to actually use a real camera. But only when it's actually finished.

Wearing this to Halloween has led me to a new hobby -

View attachment 125081



...Photobombing as the Cap.


As for the remainder, I still have to do the shoulder pauldrons, shield, and helmet. Also, I appeared to have screwed up the belt in my first leatherwork, and it shrank from a 34" to a 28". Oops. Redo! This time more screen accurate, methinks.
 
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