MrsBane
New Member
After purchasing tickets and hotel rooms for the 2013 MCM Comic Con in London, I chose to venture into the realm of costume making, seeing as the rest of my party had decided to don outfits. My sewing skills leave something to be desired so this was always going to be a gargantuan effort, whatever I decided to make. However. I've always liked Natasha Romanoff's character and I figured her movie Avenger's outfit would be relatively simple to put together, as well as being a pretty popular choice by other people.
I started by watching tutorials online and gathering all the details of her costume, and in this process I came upon this site. After hours and pages of thread reading, I felt confident to try and get this project up and running - starting with the belt buckle. I think I should reprimand you guys for making this silicone mold making look so darn simple, but I assure you, for such a small item it caused me a huge amount of hassle. My clay making abilities are small to none and I had several attempts at making the Black Widow insignia, only to give up and settle with my poor, child like, version. I was later going to find out that this was in fact the entertaining part and worse was yet to come. I followed the advice of my fellow RPF members and made my cardboard box, sealed with hot glue, sellotape and clay, attached my clay at the bottom and poured in the silicone mix and yet it STILL managed to leak everywhere. I left it for 24 hours in any case, despite the overflow, and waited to see what would happen. In the disassembling stage, my clay chose to collapse into the mold (I don't know if this happens to everyone) and I had to spend a good hour picking out all the broken bits of clay without damaging the mold itself. After a good clean with cotton buds, I was actually reasonably pleased with the outcome, considering the completed version I'd envisaged. As long as I don't look at all the perfect, polished attempts of others, my mould seems like a huge achievement to me.
View attachment 136231
Felling a little more optimistic, I mixed my water clear resin (after poisoning myself on the overwhelming fumes) and poured it into the mould. After a much quicker curing time, I removed the finished piece and to my immense relief, it kind of looked like what it was supposed to! My efforts hadn't been in vain! I'm going to give it a few days to dry properly and then I'll give it a good wet and dry sand to get rid of the copious rough edges gained on the process. I must say, despite the stress and disappointment, I'm actually really getting into making the outfit up myself. Knowing that I made the buckle myself gives me this geeky sense of pride and gets me excited about continuing with the rest. And like I said, tips would be immensely appreciated from you guys, particularly any Black Widowers. I need all the help I can get!
View attachment 136279 View attachment 136280 View attachment 136281
I started by watching tutorials online and gathering all the details of her costume, and in this process I came upon this site. After hours and pages of thread reading, I felt confident to try and get this project up and running - starting with the belt buckle. I think I should reprimand you guys for making this silicone mold making look so darn simple, but I assure you, for such a small item it caused me a huge amount of hassle. My clay making abilities are small to none and I had several attempts at making the Black Widow insignia, only to give up and settle with my poor, child like, version. I was later going to find out that this was in fact the entertaining part and worse was yet to come. I followed the advice of my fellow RPF members and made my cardboard box, sealed with hot glue, sellotape and clay, attached my clay at the bottom and poured in the silicone mix and yet it STILL managed to leak everywhere. I left it for 24 hours in any case, despite the overflow, and waited to see what would happen. In the disassembling stage, my clay chose to collapse into the mold (I don't know if this happens to everyone) and I had to spend a good hour picking out all the broken bits of clay without damaging the mold itself. After a good clean with cotton buds, I was actually reasonably pleased with the outcome, considering the completed version I'd envisaged. As long as I don't look at all the perfect, polished attempts of others, my mould seems like a huge achievement to me.
View attachment 136231
Felling a little more optimistic, I mixed my water clear resin (after poisoning myself on the overwhelming fumes) and poured it into the mould. After a much quicker curing time, I removed the finished piece and to my immense relief, it kind of looked like what it was supposed to! My efforts hadn't been in vain! I'm going to give it a few days to dry properly and then I'll give it a good wet and dry sand to get rid of the copious rough edges gained on the process. I must say, despite the stress and disappointment, I'm actually really getting into making the outfit up myself. Knowing that I made the buckle myself gives me this geeky sense of pride and gets me excited about continuing with the rest. And like I said, tips would be immensely appreciated from you guys, particularly any Black Widowers. I need all the help I can get!
View attachment 136279 View attachment 136280 View attachment 136281
