DC Talon Court of Owls Making Of

[TheRealTalon]

(This is my "making of" post, if you want to see my finished pictures, check out my "finished" post: Finished Court of Owls Talon Cosplay )

So I've looked around the internet and haven't found many Talon suits or cosplays, even though I think the court is definitely one of Batman's deadliest enemies. This is my very first cosplay or suit of any kind so I Have decided to be the first good Talon and I've been putting a lot of work into this suit so I hope you guys enjoy!

I had a backup failure so I've lost almost every picture I had during the making of my muscle suit(I only have a few of the back) and all of the pictures from the first half of my gauntlet but I will post what I have below.

Here's the few pics of the back that I have:

Here's the finished muscle suit, it's made of layered 4mm EVA foam and about 4 litres of contact cement, attached to a spandex bodysuit that I got off amazon:


Here's the muscle suit with the wetsuit on top:


The knee high socks are just neoprene ankle socks I bought off amazon and then added extensions to.


Here is the second half of the gauntlet( the owl on the vambrace.) You might see some of the hand, which I did in brass sheet. The finger lames are all identical, and the finger tips were bent to shape and soldered along the inside to give me nice claws, or talons if you will. they are all riveted to a strip of leather and then epoxied to the glove. the hand pieces were all riveted loosely to each other so they can move with my hand. Feel free to ask about any of the stuff I did, I'd be happy to talk about it. As for the owl, it's made from a few layers of steel plate that I've shaped by hand to fit perfectly over each other, then welded together and to the gauntlet. There was a bit of shaping to do after this with a grinder, removing the scale, smoothing out the edges (particularly around the eyes) and doing the angles on the beak, then I painted it to match the brass on the hand. It's hinged on one side and laced up on the other side. I also added a strap and buckle, mostly for looks. At one point, messed up the beak, but was able to fix it with some bondo as I was pressed for time and couldn't get to the metal shop for more steel.


I'll post the rest in separate replies because I've reached the max photo number

 

[artsortment]

This is amazing! I'm so blown away you're doing it in metal! Wow!

 

[TheRealTalon]

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[TheRealTalon]

This is amazing! I'm so blown away you're doing it in metal! Wow!

Thanks! It's been a learning experience because this is my first metalwork. I'm trying to mimic the gauntlet from batman vs. robin. I think after this i'll try and get more into the 3d printing and casting side of things as I am interested in becoming a costume designer and I know they don't do much in metal.

 

[TheRealTalon]

There are two belts on this suit, one around my waist (urethane) and one around my leg (printed ABS). There is a leather strap that joins the two and that is where ive attached the dagger on my leg. I originally wanted to make the belt in steel as well, but to make sure each link is completely identical, I would have had to pay to get them plasma cut, which was more money than I had, so It's a casted urethane batman begins belt. I hadn't learned 3d designing yet, so a friend 3d printed an owl to fit on the centrepiece of the belt and painted it gold and silver. I then added a special military buckle, called a cobra buckle, to join it in the back, and another to attach it to the belt that goes around my leg. The pouches are just made of some scrap leather that I folded and cemented together. I dyed them a nice dark brown and added a magnet and a steel rivet to give the illusion of having a snap, because I'm too lazy to want to snap the pouch closed every time. They were cemented to the belt, but it wasn't holding very well so I drilled holes and added chicago screws for a mechanical connection. I also wired in a micro water pump and battery pack in case I needed to pump water around the suit for a cooling system.



The dagger was one I found on an eBay auction, and I bought if because of the winged cross guard, but it was an eagle, not an owl, so I covered the eagle face with my leather wrap, and also covered the crappy scabbard with leather and dyed it to make it match the rest of the suit.



Because the breastplate I wanted was not the shape of a human chest, I had to build a form over top of myself with duct tape, old shirts and a coat hanger to give the desired shape, then we cut it off and used as a dummy for making patterns.



After cutting out the two halves of the breastplate from some 10oz leather and sewing it in various places to get the right compound curves, it was wet formed to me while wearing the duct tape form.


I then attempted hardening it, which I have never done, but the youtube video I watched didn't exactly work out. The breastplate shrunk to half it's size and shrivelled way up, but it was hard as a rock, so i guess it kinda worked.

so we had to make a new one and I decided against hardening it this time, and it looked pretty good with the dye on. We also added straps under the arms to secure it in place.

 

[TheRealTalon]

I wanted to have the fins on the vambrace, like batman has, so I cut them from some steel plate and bent some tabs around on the bottom, so I could slide them through slots in the leather vambrace. I also found out about a brassing technique on Man at Arms, with a torch and a brass brush on a rotary tool, so I tried that on these.



I cut the leather sleeve from some 10oz veg tan and cut the slots in it

i dyed the leather and gorilla glued the fins to the leather, using the tabs that I bent on the bottom. I then added the straps. Two buckles ended up leaving a gap in the middle, so I added a third.


The kneepad shapes actually came from batman's new 52 kneepads, which I loved. I cut them from 10oz leather and wet formed them in a bowl to give them a nice rounded shape.


I trimmed them in brass and cemented the brass on. I dyed them after the trimming because I realized the dye gives the brass a nice aged look. Whilst dyeing them, I discovered another really good weathering technique. I was a little messy with my cementing on the brass trim, and some of the cement got onto the middle of the kneepad. I didn't notice, and when I dyed it, the dye doesn't totally sink in to the spots with cement on them, and it gives it a really nice worn look. I made a couple straps and ended up with some pretty good kneepads.


The sword I bought was a orcrist replica from eBay. There was very little work to do on it, just some bondo to fill in the elven runes on the guard, a nice paint job, and a leather wrap on the handle.


I still needed to make a scabbard, so I started with a couple pine boards, and chiseled out the shape of the blade into each one. After getting sufficient depth, I cut them out with a jigsaw and wood glued them together.

afterwards, I shaved it down with a table saw, and added a slit in the side. You need this slit because the blade is wider toward the tip and smaller towards the guard. As the blade is pulled out, the wider part slides out of the scabbard.


I decided I didn't want a wood mouth, so I bent some brass sheet to shape, cut out a slot, and epoxied it on. Then I cut out some leather to cement overtop of the wood. A few coats of dye left it looking quite nice. After that I attached a couple straps and buckles to the back of the breastplate to hold the scabbard on.

 

[TheRealTalon]

I decided the legs were a bit bare, so I made these leg knife sheaths for my calves. I made three sheaths because I'll be putting the third one on the back of the belt. The sheaths themselves are just two pieces of 6oz leather sewed together then cemented to a strip of leather with a couple straps to go around my calves. you can see the shoes I bought in one of these pictures. They are japanese style wrap shoes from vibram and they are really cool!



I sewed these leather strips to the wetsuit to hold the knives that go along my ribs. I punched holes and inlaid magnets in the first layer, then another strip was cemented and then sewed at angles to go overtop of the throwing knives. The knives themselves were just bought online and then I painted them.


I laid all the leather out to clear coat and seal all of it, and I thought it looked pretty cool so I took a photo:


Finally, the head. It's comprised of three parts. A leather hood that goes underneath to give my head the right shape and hides the lines and bumps made by my ears and hair, a soft drapey cloth hood overtop, and a steel owl headpiece. I made a few prototypes for the hood pattern with some random fabric I found, and after getting what I wanted, made one out of leather and my nice expensive fabric (Over 30$ per meter!!)


To get my measurements right for the headpiece, I made some goggles and cardboard cutouts with cardstock, a pencil and some toilet paper roll.


I bought some steel tubing and started by getting someone to remove some 1/8 inch discs from the tube on a lathe, which I'll be using later to serve as rims to hold the lenses in. Then I cut a couple lengths of tube with one angled side to fit to my face.


I had to make a small inset in the flat end to be able to lay in the lenses, which I just took out of some sunglasses and sanded to fit the tube.


Then I proceeded to cut out the baseplate that holds the goggles together, and to which to the brows and beak are attached. I welded it on and drilled a hole. Then I grinded out a beak from some thick steel flatbar and welded it on through the hole I had made in the back plate.


I cut some lengths of 3/16 rod and also the end off of a brass rod to decorate the beak assembly with and make it more interesting. The brass dot was epoxied on, and the steel rod was welded on. Then I brassed everything with the same technique I used for the fins on the vambrace, heating up the steel with a torch and melting the brass on with a brush and a rotary tool, in this case I used a dremel cause I couldn't find brass brushes for anything else.


These are the brow and cheek pieces that I cut out of steel plate, and bent with a wrench and a vice to get the proper shape around my head. They were welded on as well. I left them a little patchy when removing the scale and made sure to put in plenty of hammer marks and dings and scratches to make it look beat up.


Then I re-brassed everything, put the lenses in, and epoxied the rings I mentioned earlier over top.


I cut some eyeholes in my hood, folded the edges into the goggles, and glued them. Then I added some leather padding around the inside edges to cushion my face, and epoxied a super tight strap from some swimming goggles on as well.


Here is everything laid out:

I'll post the finished pics in other thread, but I hope you guys enjoyed this, I surely did. And again, this was my very first time doing any of this- not just making a costume- but it was my first time sewing, my first time woodworking, my first time doing leatherwork, my first time doing metalwork, etc... So I am very open to any comments, criticism or tips that anyone has. And please if you have any questions, ask me, I'd be happy to talk.