Corrupted Captain America WIP Build (Pic Heavy)

Surrational0

New Member
I'm starting a Corrupted Captain America suit build and I wanted to add my own thread to the community that has helped me so much with information and inspiration. The suit design will be in black and silver with a simplified stealth suit front with the Civil War style shoulders. The twist will be a red crystal sticking into the heart of the suit. It will spread tentacles of oily, pulsing corruption across the body including a glowing red star on the chest and extending up the helm to a LED red left eye. There are also a number of interesting and difficult constraints to the build.

I plan to track the details of the build in this thread including materials and WIP pictures. Given this is my first big sewing project I could use some encouragement and advice. For now though less text and more photos.

Reference Photos (Uncorrupted):
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Loose Reference Photos (Corruption):
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Spiderman_venom.png
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Interesting Project Constraints:
  • Black with highlights in silver and red LEDs only
  • Mid-sized European town (the largest fabric store: "Cordura? I've never heard of that")
  • The suit must be Completely Weatherproof for Summer/Winter/Rain/Snow/Heat/Cold. Of course, with suit-able undergarments.
  • I have eight weeks of (f)un-employed time to finish
  • I must be able to play a drum and dance in the suit without anything breaking or falling off!
Build Outline:
  • Super Suit
    • Duck-tape dummy torso (done)
    • Fabric Test (mostly done)
    • Shoulder Pads
    • Padded Suit Top
    • Stomach Stripes (time permitting)
  • Helmet
    • Modified and fitted 3D model (done)
    • Printing, assembly, sanding and spray painting
  • Corruption
    • 3D Printed Crystal
    • 3D Star with holes for LED light
    • LED eye (on order)
    • Oily corruption "tentacles"
    • Arduino (Programing)
    • Belt Pouches for Power and Arduino
  • Shield and Harness
    • Shield (from prior project)
    • Upgrade harness from prior project for robustness
 
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Bonus Post: The Shield

For fun, I wanted to show a "timeline" on the shield that I made last year and that I will be using for this build. It take heavy inspiration from Tennantlim's Thread on the subject and I use a Free 3D Star Pattern that I may modify for the suit in this build.

The base of the shield is actually a Ikea serving platter that they unfortunately don't sell anymore. I found mine at a second hand store.
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I'm happy to answer any questions on the build.
 
Sewing Test #1:

OK This is the first material and sewing test. The top layer is Cordura, the middle layer is also Cordura but the back side connected to the first with a Flat Felled Seam The back of the Cordura looks good and pleather-ish. I'm considering using it for the design. The Cordura/Cordura seam is puckering a bit on the middle layer as you see in the photo. I'm not sure why that is happening or how to fix it.

The bottom layer is 4-way stretch Spandex. It seems to stretch fine with the seam I used (Flat Felled Seam) but I'm still a little worried about it ripping as stretch to non-stretch fabric seam can be difficult I've heard. The shiny side is shown but I think I like the matte side better.

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Current Open Questions: (maybe the community can help here?)
  1. What is a good seam finish for sewing Cordura to Spandex for strength and stability?
 
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Helmet Base:

The helmet needed to be prepped for 3D printing. First I needed to remove the "A" from the front of the helmet as I'm not allowed to have explicit branding on my costume. I was able to remove the "A" but I had a lot of trouble filling the hole back. With some help from Reddit though I was able to use Grid Fill in Blender and get a nice smooth curved forehead that respected the eyebrow curvature.

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My 3D printer is small and old so I will need slice the helmet into pieces to print and then recombine them. As the helmet is quite detailed slicing it correctly could be difficult, but I need to order more PVA anyways so I have some time to consider the best partition.
 
Sizing Day:

First, a couple setbacks. The Cordura I purchased was lined which you can see in the above sewing test as I have the back facing out. I for some reason assumed that was just how Cordura was made, but I ordered the wrong Cordura. I'll still use this lined Cordura in a few places, but the shirt won't breathe if I use it all over. Not a particularly expensive mistake but an annoying one. A new order of unlined Cordura is coming but it may take a bit.

The other setback is the lighting solution I was considering won't work. Essentially, I thought that an Arduino could change the voltage which would dim and brighten the lights, however, that only works with addressable (programmable) LEDs. Luckily I hadn't bought anything yet. I'm currently asking Reddit if there is a simpler and cheaper solution, but I don't think so. I have my order queued up but I'll wait a couple days more to see if Reddit can work some magic.

While I wait for the Cordura though I can finalize the sizing. Using Frankly Built's Excellent Video I sized the helmet and tested by slicing and printing a thin ring just above the ears and a bit of the nose. I used meshmixer for the slicing and dicing. It still took 3 hours to print on my old printer, but it fit around my head snugly and even over my largish nose. I'm glad the sizing worked out but as you can see the full helmet is way too big for my printer so I will have to do more slicing on the final product.
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I also traced out BrutusWayne's Arm Components (left picture below) literally by scaling the image up on my flat screen monitor and tracing the outlines onto tag paper. It was very useful that he took a picture on his sewing mat. This seems a bit silly but it is easier then blocking the same thing myself and Brutus and I are close to the same size! The below might be too complex for my sewing skills, but it looks cool so I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks Brutus!

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I'm a little shocked both things fit the first time, but I could use some luck given the setbacks over the past few days.
 
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Ok the sewing has started though it is slow. The goal is similar to BrutusWayne's but simplified sewing and short sleeves so I can wear this in summer as well. The below pictures are the bicep when it is half way done and fully sewn. I was using a spray baster for attaching the cosplay foam but the glue didn't work very well. So I eventually went with Epoxy just to get it to stay while I'm sewing it in.

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Also, because I use cosplay foam instead of headliner foam like Brutus it is a bit stiffer making some of the details too difficult so I scaled back the details around the bicep flap. I think I could have done more but I made the mistake of sewing up the loop closed. Hats off to the MVP of the day this little test strip. I had trouble with the sewing foot not being flat on the angled parts because of the raised cosplay foam so I would just stick the test strip under the back of the sewing foot and it would work.

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Much of my work though has been figuring out the lights for the corruption tentacles. A good friend who is an electrical engineer helped me put together a plan and made a diagram for me afterwards. I'll run two sets of three red LED filaments using pulse width modulation controlled by an Adafruit Gemma M0 to program a "pulse" the LED filaments. The idea is simple but the programming might be a bit complicated. I'm worried about how much testing time I will need and how to weather proof this all.

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So, BrutusWayne took pictures of his arm blocking which I've used to make the shoulders and biceps, but he didn't leave pictures of the chest pieces. So this update includes blocking of the chest for which I used an old T-Shirt and newly ordered china markers which I was very happy with. I did end up going with a simplified Civil War pattern as I felt that might fit the best and it fit well with BW's shoulder pads too. I also added spadex along the sides so that it will breath better when I'm dancing.
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I'm worried about adding a collar to the shirt but I ran across this lovely video and I'm hoping that will help get me there.

I have a new simpler plan for the lights as well. I ordered the Arduino, lights, wire, resistors and everything has arrived now. I tested the lights on a button battery and they are fairly bright though I was hoping for a bit more. We'll see what they look like when they get the full five volts and more current. Still, I'm going to wait on the lighting until next month and work on finishing the shirt and helmet.

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Big time sink on the 3D printing side. The used 3D printer I bought had a hole in the tube and was building up some blockages! Luckily the guy I bought it from worked me though how to fix it over text. That put me behind quite a bit. I've split the helmet model into three parts using MeshMixer and I'm half way though printing the second part. You can see loose filaments as the printer isn't the best, but those will be sanded away when I go to paint the helmet.
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Ok the "uncorrupted" armor is about 90% done. As you can see I just have one more bicep to sew in, some of the trim around the neck, and a couple more foam pieces to add. I tested it out in nearly freezing weather with thermal underwear and it is surprisingly not too hot. The Cordura and Spandex lets the air through fine. I was actually a bit cold which is great because I think it will be fine for the summer.

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There are a few issues. I used EVA foam instead of headliner foam which is a bit too rigid. This caused a lot of trouble, especially making using the sewing machine difficult. I found the best working pattern was to first sew all the pieces surrounding the first piece an then gluing and top stiching the foam in the first piece before moving onto the next piece. Time consuming, but it is tough to sew pieces together once the Eva foam is in place and if you do too many pieces without adding the EVA foam then it can be difficult to top stitch using the sewing machine.

Also, because the EVA foam is stiff the shoulder pads stick out a bit awkwardly and the material around the shoulder pads bunches up a bit. Luckily I have the harness for the shield which hides some of the problems there.

The costume is definately too big as you can see from the back and the side. I'm a little pudgy but not that fat :). I definately forgot to add in the zipper width, but even knowing that I'm not sure how it ended up so big. I might have time to take the seams in a bit. I might cheat a bit and have a taylor fix it :). We'll see.

I'm proud of my collar hack. There are many videos about how to sew collars (my favorite), they are all nice but quite complicated. Because I'm stiffening the collar with foam though anyways. I just took one piece of Cordura attached it the wrong way (!) to the shirt and then topsitched in the foam and folded it over. I'm sure there are sewing purists out there that would be in pain right now, but it looks ok.
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The only issue with the collar is I didn't sew the zipper up far enough in the back so I might have to add a hook or something as it sticks wide open in the back when I wear it as you see in the back photo above.

Still, not too bad for a first sewing project.
 
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