Like many of you here, I'm dying for Captain America's stealth suit from "The Winter Soldier." My slightly unique challenge for this project though is that I'm a girl. Which I really didn't think would be a problem at all until I started breaking the suit down. Specific design elements that work on a 6' tall guy built of arm muscles don't translate well into a design for a 5'7" girl - ie the paneling and padding around the abs are a great way for adding a 6 pack to a guy but a horrible way to add 10 lbs to a girl, I flat out don't have the shoulder space for screen accurate proportions and spacing of the silver stripes and patches because Chris Evans is about 3 times bigger than me, and I have to cut several inches off the usual 26" shield diameter just so the shield doesn't cover my entire body and so it can sit comfortably behind my shoulders. So my challenge is how to get rid of those elements that look great on guys but will completely flatten out a girl without it losing all the visual interest and details that makes it so cool and having it turn into just a skin tight spandex suit.
So right off the bat that rules out 100% screen accuracy for me, which I'm fine with. The way I see it, the moment I decided to dress up like a female Cap I started gently shoving complete screen accuracy out the door, so I have no problem making modifications to match my body type so long as I maintain the key look and feel of the suit. This also rules out me buying most premade pieces. I know a lot of people purchase premade base suits and then tailor them but I think getting a man's suit tailored down to my size is more difficult than it's worth, too much of a crapshoot, and wouldn't fix problems like still having a suit that's heavily padded around the stomach or doesn't account for things like hips. I've even kind of ruled out being able to buy one of the gorgeous spun aluminum blank shield bases because I know they're too big for my body type and will look disproportionate. So the shield is 100% on me too. Basically what I'm looking at is rejigger some design elements of the suit to match with a woman's body instead while still having it read as the stealth suit and then making it all from scratch. Fun times!
And I've realized all this because this is actually my second stab at the costume:
I did this in about 3-4 weeks for Comikaze. I threw it together using base clothing that I knew fit me, a few elements like boots and gloves that I could buy and modify, and some thermal plastic, leather, velcro, and epoxy. It worked and actually looks ok, but I sped through making it, know I can do better, and cut corners I didn't want to have to cut so I'm itching to do it right. Basically I'm really looking to take everything I learned from attempting to do this outfit in a month, go back to square one, and up my game now that I know what problems I'm up against and I don't have an insane time limit. So I'm starting this thread to keep myself from procrastinating, get some tips, and to have a place to talk through every step of the process.
I also made 2 shields in about a week at the same time - one is a 25" steel one that I hand cut, stripped, and painted with the red color scheme but then realized was too big to look good when I held it, and the second is a 21" plastic one that I hand cut and painted in the blue color scheme three days before Comikaze (the handles are held on solely by an ungodly amounts of epoxy and prayer because that's how rushed I was). I think they both came out pretty descent for me not really knowing what I was doing and stressing so much. I'd love to do a new one though out of metal but in the smaller diameter. 20-21" seems to be the best size with my height so now that I know that my next step with the shield will be trying to figure the perfect dimensions of the circles and star at that diameter and carefully templating it out before cutting down a new piece of steel. The size of the dark blue circle and star in the center of both shields looks off to me, like they're too small, but I don't quite know why or where my measurements went off, so I need to go do my research of the proper dimensions of the original shield.
My starting point on the suit is trying to figure out how to do the paneled, padded look without sticking a bunch of foam and heavy seams around my stomach. Let's face it, female superheroes usually look skinny and sleek, and I'm vain too so I'm really not a fan of sticking foam pieces into pockets around my middle. I'm just not quite sure how to keep the visual interest and texture of the six pack paneling without adding inches. And how to place the stripes and patches on my shoulders goes along with that too. You can see in the comparison picture that I don't really have the shoulder space for all his patches so they look clunky and heavy on me. Like that flag patch feels massive on my arm and really bugs me. And having a bust kind of awkwardly limits space too. It's like a lot of the visual and detail of the costume comes from working with Cap's bulk or adding even more on, and I just don't have it there to begin with or can't add it in the same place a guy could. I have a feeling I'm going to have to have an entire day of taping paper templates to myself to come up with a completely different seaming pattern across the stomach. I'm also kicking around the idea of playing with some women's jacket patterns or even painting some trompe l'oeil style seams and panels to fake some of the depth. The stripes and the padding are oddly the hardest part of this costume for me to get a grasp on.
So right off the bat that rules out 100% screen accuracy for me, which I'm fine with. The way I see it, the moment I decided to dress up like a female Cap I started gently shoving complete screen accuracy out the door, so I have no problem making modifications to match my body type so long as I maintain the key look and feel of the suit. This also rules out me buying most premade pieces. I know a lot of people purchase premade base suits and then tailor them but I think getting a man's suit tailored down to my size is more difficult than it's worth, too much of a crapshoot, and wouldn't fix problems like still having a suit that's heavily padded around the stomach or doesn't account for things like hips. I've even kind of ruled out being able to buy one of the gorgeous spun aluminum blank shield bases because I know they're too big for my body type and will look disproportionate. So the shield is 100% on me too. Basically what I'm looking at is rejigger some design elements of the suit to match with a woman's body instead while still having it read as the stealth suit and then making it all from scratch. Fun times!
And I've realized all this because this is actually my second stab at the costume:
I did this in about 3-4 weeks for Comikaze. I threw it together using base clothing that I knew fit me, a few elements like boots and gloves that I could buy and modify, and some thermal plastic, leather, velcro, and epoxy. It worked and actually looks ok, but I sped through making it, know I can do better, and cut corners I didn't want to have to cut so I'm itching to do it right. Basically I'm really looking to take everything I learned from attempting to do this outfit in a month, go back to square one, and up my game now that I know what problems I'm up against and I don't have an insane time limit. So I'm starting this thread to keep myself from procrastinating, get some tips, and to have a place to talk through every step of the process.
I also made 2 shields in about a week at the same time - one is a 25" steel one that I hand cut, stripped, and painted with the red color scheme but then realized was too big to look good when I held it, and the second is a 21" plastic one that I hand cut and painted in the blue color scheme three days before Comikaze (the handles are held on solely by an ungodly amounts of epoxy and prayer because that's how rushed I was). I think they both came out pretty descent for me not really knowing what I was doing and stressing so much. I'd love to do a new one though out of metal but in the smaller diameter. 20-21" seems to be the best size with my height so now that I know that my next step with the shield will be trying to figure the perfect dimensions of the circles and star at that diameter and carefully templating it out before cutting down a new piece of steel. The size of the dark blue circle and star in the center of both shields looks off to me, like they're too small, but I don't quite know why or where my measurements went off, so I need to go do my research of the proper dimensions of the original shield.
My starting point on the suit is trying to figure out how to do the paneled, padded look without sticking a bunch of foam and heavy seams around my stomach. Let's face it, female superheroes usually look skinny and sleek, and I'm vain too so I'm really not a fan of sticking foam pieces into pockets around my middle. I'm just not quite sure how to keep the visual interest and texture of the six pack paneling without adding inches. And how to place the stripes and patches on my shoulders goes along with that too. You can see in the comparison picture that I don't really have the shoulder space for all his patches so they look clunky and heavy on me. Like that flag patch feels massive on my arm and really bugs me. And having a bust kind of awkwardly limits space too. It's like a lot of the visual and detail of the costume comes from working with Cap's bulk or adding even more on, and I just don't have it there to begin with or can't add it in the same place a guy could. I have a feeling I'm going to have to have an entire day of taping paper templates to myself to come up with a completely different seaming pattern across the stomach. I'm also kicking around the idea of playing with some women's jacket patterns or even painting some trompe l'oeil style seams and panels to fake some of the depth. The stripes and the padding are oddly the hardest part of this costume for me to get a grasp on.
