Kris Anka's Batgirl redesign and a Nightwing to match - in progress

[dog of ulthar]

So before the new Batgirl design came out, there was a contest to redesign the Batgirl outfit, and my girlfriend fell in love with Kris Anka's submission. Naturally, I said I will make you that and then I will be Nightwing. She's been wanting to do a Barbara Gordon cosplay for a while, but couldn't bring herself to wear spandex, so this version was perfect. I drew up a Nightwing with Anka's design in mind. I'm not sure how much it really matches, but I like it, and I'm using some of the same fabrics to add continuity (I hope).


SO THEN THERE WAS SOME SEWING


All the patterns were either drafted or altered by me. The main fabric is cotton twill; I added stretch vinyl side panels to add some give, and because I planned to use the same fabric for Nightwing. The grey is polyester gabardine I use in everything because I can get it ridiculously cheap. The gold is spandex (which turned out to be much golder than it looked on the store's website, but I like it anyway), stretched over craft foam pieces for the armor bits, and layered with black spandex to give the gloves more weight.

I'm really proud of those gloves. I watched an entire season of Orphan Black while making them.

The cape is interesting--it took me a while to figure out what's going on in the picture, but it's buttoned on either side of the chest and split in the back. Hopefully, the buttons will be enough to hold it up. If not...there will probably be safety pins.

I can't show you any of it actually on her yet, as I won't get to give it to her until we're back at school in September, but that's what I have so far.

And then Nightwing:


...I'm showing the patterns I made for this one because they're extremely unnecessarily complicated (ended up not following the patterns exactly, though, so don't strain yourselves trying to figure out what's going on). Made of moleskin spandex, stretch vinyl, regular spandex, and athletic mesh. The gloves have some more craft foam in them for a bit of armor. I'm pleased with everything so far, even though I think this costume is officially the most confusing thing I've ever sewn...still, I'm proud to say that I can now make a catsuit in two days (even on this stupidly complicated), minus patterning and mockup.

I'm still debating putting elbow pads on these gloves; not sure what they should look like.

Next is boots for both of them, and a mask and cowl. I started trying to make Nightwing's boots with more vinyl-stuck-to-craft-foam glued to spandex bootcovers...but I quickly realized that the glue would never hold well enough to look decent. So I'm planning to sew the bootcovers, layering in craft foam like with the gloves, but I'm going to need some more vinyl before I try that.

I will probably buy myself a mask, but my girlfriend can't afford to buy a nice sculpted cowl, so I'm going to have to make it...somehow. I've been looking at GTSQ's Cass Cain cowl and Flash Dixon's Batman cowl for inspiration; I think I could do something with more vinyl and heavy spandex similar to what they did with leather.

If anybody's seen any other good cloth or leather cowls, I'd be glad to hear about them. Or advice in general. I like advice.

 

[springsteel]

You've done a beautiful job! Can't wait to see your cowl progress; I can't afford a nice sculpted one either.

 

[Armatus Cosplay]

These are looking fantastic so far, keep it up! I especially like the batgirl gauntlets, can't wait to see how you do up Nightwing.

 

[dog of ulthar]

It took me a while, because I ended up needing to order more fabric, but we have boots! They aren't perfect (a little wrinkly around the ankles in a way that annoys me), but for being made out of spandex, craft foam, and thrift store shoes, they're not bad.



Nightwing's are a layer of matte vinyl and one of moleskin spandex for weight, with craft foam between them places for armor, like the gloves. Batgirl's have two layers of moleskin, because they don't have any armor. The kneepads are thick craft foam, heated into a curve, skinned with more spandex, and just kinda stuck on.

Because it amuses me to immortalize the original shoes, this is what I glued bootcovers to:



Nightwing's are pretty innocuous...but Batgirl's are some weird plastic Dr. Scholl's loafers...and I really hope I can find more of them, because they're actually perfect for this sort of thing.

With this, Nightwing is DONE except for the mask, which I need to decide where I'll be buying (though for Halloween I'll probably end up just cutting one out of craft foam in the meantime). Batgirl still needs a cowl, which I'm working on, and I may have to remake the jacket, because I did something dumb.

 

[Jamie Ridder]

these look pro, great job!

 

[darthcampo]

For your batgirl cowl I'd hit up Evil Genius Productions on facebook. They've got some great stuff.

 

[darthcampo]

And also Malmey Studios (also facebook) makes some kick-ass nightwing masks. Just purchased one myself.

 

[dog of ulthar]

For your batgirl cowl I'd hit up Evil Genius Productions on facebook. They've got some great stuff.

Daaaang those are some nice cowls. But unless they're unusually cheap as well as unusually awesome, I think I we're still going to have to go with whatever I manage to make out of cloth...

Malmey's Nightwing might be an option, though. Thanks!

(And I swear this project hasn't been abandoned; I've just been at school. I'll get to work on it again soon, though.)

 

[darthcampo]

Daaaang those are some nice cowls. But unless they're unusually cheap as well as unusually awesome, I think I we're still going to have to go with whatever I manage to make out of cloth...

Malmey's Nightwing might be an option, though. Thanks!

(And I swear this project hasn't been abandoned; I've just been at school. I'll get to work on it again soon, though.)

I actually got the Malmey Nightwing mask. It's pretty swell.

 

[dog of ulthar]

Kinda boring progress, but progress nonetheless! I remade the jacket so that maybe it'll actually fit. Look, it looks almost exactly like the old jacket. Very exciting.


Malmey said to thank darthcampo for the referral - I'll be ordering a mask...as soon as I figure out how PayPal's supposed to work.

The other news is that I seem to have lost the pattern I made for the cowl...so I'll just have to find somebody else's head to wrap in masking tape and make another one. Oh, well.

Because this wasn't very interesting, I'll throw in an update for a totally unrelated costume; I finished the cuirass for my Agent of Asgard Loki this week. I'm proud of it, and it took forever, so, here:


The news that might be interesting, if I had any photo evidence of it, is that Batgirl bought herself a wig, and it looks nice. And now it's in Minnesota, I'm in California, and she's in Connecticut, so there is unlikely to be any evidence any time soon. BUT this means that all there's left to do is make the cowl and order a mask, unless I decide I need escrima that are more than pvc pipe wrapped in electrical tape, which is what I did for Halloween. I also made a mask out of craft foam heat-shaped over a hard plastic mask and stuck it to my face with double-sided tape for Halloween, and it worked surprisingly well. Sadly, still no pictures, even though I played a whole band concert wearing it. (With the other oboist as a witch, the director as Satan, the second flute as a bottle of Sriracha, and the bass clarinet as the abstract concept of Canada. This is what happens when the band concert, by complete coincidence, lands on Halloween.)

 

[acesh007]

Great work with the suits and boots. Can't wait to see how the Batgirl comes out.

 

[dog of ulthar]

Finally home from school, and finally making progress again. The cowl is DONE. It was a tedious piece of trial-and-error, and it's not perfect, but it was dead cheap, and I'm happy with it. Modeled by me, and by my wig head. I left my Loki wig on the head, so it looks like Cass stole Barbara's cowl (the ears are verging on Cass-length anyway). It'll be kind of difficult for my Batgirl to put on over her wig, but it shouldn't be impossible.



What I did was wrap my head in plastic wrap and masking tape, drew on that, and cut it out to make a pattern. That pattern was cut out with one layer of moleskin spandex and one of stretch vinyl, like the gloves and boots, and sewn together. I managed to reduce the whole thing to two big seams and one small dart in the back. I topstitched the seams to help them lay flat, and because I think topstitching looks nice on vinyl.



The fabric cowl was then hot glued to a mask I bought at Joann's and cut into the right shape. For the ears, I cut leaf shapes out of some plastic sheet and heat-formed them into a curve - heating them on a stove and forming them over a rolling pin, because I still haven't bought a heat gun. I covered those with sleeves made of more vinyl and spandex.


I also sewed strips of that same plastic into the top of the cowl, from the mask base to the back, to force the seams to sit in a smooth curve, rather than buckling weirdly, as they wanted to. It's a bit like boning - if this had been a planned thing, instead of a makeshift fix, I'd have sewed proper boning channels, but instead I just kind of tacked it in with sturdy thread. It worked because I could sew through just the spandex layer and leave the vinyl undamaged. It also helps smooth the transition from mask to cloth, though it doesn't do it perfectly. And then I glued a bit of fabric over the ends of the plastic to stop them from scratching her face up. It looks pretty rough inside, but it works:



Oh, and I thought I'd immortalize what it looked like when I had one ear sewn and the other just pinned, because it's like the scalp of some kind of dark elf-goblin crossbreed:

 

[Reznor9]

Everything is beautifully done. I wish I had your skills. I cannot wait to see how the costume will look once everything is finished.

 

[dog of ulthar]

Everything is beautifully done. I wish I had your skills. I cannot wait to see how the costume will look once everything is finished.

Oh man, thanks.

We're hoping to have everything together for a con in...dang, it's about two weeks now. So there should actually be real pictures soon, as long as nothing implodes.