Arsenal Best
New Member
Admittingly about two years late, I still thought it would be better to post these late than never, especially since there were still coming questions in another thread where I posted a few pictures of our cosplay we did for the 50th anniversary of Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Since this is my favourite Scifi movie as long as I can remember, reproducing some of its iconic items in a cosplay, is kind of realizing one of my earliest childhood dreams.
Though cosplaying and building props for more than 20 years now, I never had really the opportunity to do so, since our other occupations like Steampunk, Star Wars and Steam Trek usually took all the time and despite its historic value, 2001 is more of a niche cosplay.
In 2018 the year of its 50th anniversary, I was already thinking of doing it, with the german scifi convention FedCon as presentation ground (if you need people, who recognize even the obscurests of cosplay, you'll find them there), but still was uncertain. However, by chance, we received an invitation for a special scifi fans in costume tour of the 50th anniversary exhibition for 2001: A Space Odyssey residing in the German Film Museum of Frankfurt at the time and that tipped the scale finally towards a "we definitly have to do that!".
Due to the limited timeframe we had and the knowledge it would be probably a cosplay for only two occassions, we wanted to do it in a "quick and dirty" style, which also accounts for the somewhat limited making of pictures.
Of course at some point, the usual ambition and AMS (advanced modeller sickness) took over and it got a bit less quick and dirty after all.
So the research began and I only then realized, how scarce, details and information on the props really were, due to Kubricks "destruction order".
Still after deciding to do a PanAm Stewardess dress and Frank Poole's Discovery Flightsuit, we found several helpful sources, foremost to be named Dennis Gilliam's 2001 Spacesuit - Contents who also was so kind to share some insights into making the bumphat and CreedsGalBirdy making of their Flight suits Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey coveralls and of course many times watching the blu-ray in frame-by-frame mode.
After careful study, we identified the following items to be done:
PanAm Stewardess:
- Bumphat with PanAm logo gold pin
- Dress consisting of jacket and trousers
- PanAm grip shoes
Frank Poole:
- Discovery flight suit
If time permitted additional accessoires were:
- PanAm Stewardess service tray
- Discovery crew wirst watch
Starting from top with the Bumphat:
This was probably the most difficult piece to make.
Dennis Gilliams documentation of how he made his replica was very helpful. I used a similar approach on creating a pattern from screenshots scaled to 1:1 head size of two sides.
His approach of sculpting the hat, to cast a mold for making a custom made foam core of the hat was impressive. But our limited time and resources demanded a less complex way and therefore I simply used the direct way of cutting two core halves from an old mattress foamcore and basically plucking it into shape, which proved faster than cutting. Afterwards patterns for the leather were cut from clear plastic.
The edge was done by putting a hose inside. However this solution was a bit too sturdy, distorting the overall shape a bit as can be seen in the finished pics.
The golden PanAm pin is originally a stewardess cap pin from the 60's and can still be found (original below).
But since it sells on ebay for 70+$ I made a 3D printed one, using a model of a 2-colored PanAm beerlid, which I modified and then bend over a bowl with a heatgun.
Overall, the bumphat came out satisfactory considering the quick built despite its imperfections.
The next part is the Stewardess dress.
Judging from the original pictures, it might have been made from a cotton/linen blend with a certain sturdiness, to hold its shape and had a somewhat rough surface in off-white color.
We were lucky to find a similar looking (and standing) fabric. We used patterns from Burda sewing magazines, that came close to the jacket and trouser as a basis and modified to suit our needs.
Sadly Ms. Aetherton didn't take any pictures during the making, so I can only show you the end result:
The PanAm Badge was made by tracing wings and stars from vintage PanAm badges old school by hand, then scanning and combining them with a graphic of the PanAm logo via Photoshop. Printed on a transfer sheet for textils and then cut and sewn onto the jacket.
The grip shoes
with these we had a bit of luck, finding leather "socks" that are used to enter a mosque. Usually black did we find some in white which had a quite fitting shape and sewing.
The PanAm logo was again derived from the wing trace I did earlier and applied by textil transfer foil onto them.
Thus completing the PanAm Stewardess.
As for Frank Pooles Discovery crew flight suit, the aforementioned thread by CreedsGalBirdy was very helpful and we used the same Kwik Sew Men's Coverall pattern 3389 as a basis and then adapted it to feature all the specific details of the Discovery flight suits.
With the fabric we got again pretty lucky finding a cotton fabric, that had a similar texture as well as the hard to find differing colorshade depending on the light from blue-grey to grey-violett, which proved a really good match comparing it later at the exhibition with the original Bowman suit that survived and which of course was also a valuable source for the details.
Again, we are lacking making of pics of the coverall, so here it is already done:
For the Discovery badge I found this nice one from Space Patches 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though the original wasn't embroidered and didn't have that thick gold edging, this badge is still far better than the widely available and cheaper patch with those thick sunbeams, that just look wrong (1. original Discovery patch on Bowman suit, 2. original Clavius base patch, 3. Space Patches Discovery patch 4. common Discovery patch).
The eagle badge wasn't too accurate either, but ok. I only added the head feather by hand to get a better look-alike shape from afar.
The astronauts wings were good in shape, but the blue base color was far too light, so I simply painted it darker.
Thus the flight suit was done as well.
Actually we had about a day left or so until the exhibition, so I ventured to achieve the bonus goals listed above, which will follow in the next post.
I hope you enjoyed our presentation so far.
Feel free to ask any question. I will be happy to help.
Since this is my favourite Scifi movie as long as I can remember, reproducing some of its iconic items in a cosplay, is kind of realizing one of my earliest childhood dreams.
Though cosplaying and building props for more than 20 years now, I never had really the opportunity to do so, since our other occupations like Steampunk, Star Wars and Steam Trek usually took all the time and despite its historic value, 2001 is more of a niche cosplay.
In 2018 the year of its 50th anniversary, I was already thinking of doing it, with the german scifi convention FedCon as presentation ground (if you need people, who recognize even the obscurests of cosplay, you'll find them there), but still was uncertain. However, by chance, we received an invitation for a special scifi fans in costume tour of the 50th anniversary exhibition for 2001: A Space Odyssey residing in the German Film Museum of Frankfurt at the time and that tipped the scale finally towards a "we definitly have to do that!".
Due to the limited timeframe we had and the knowledge it would be probably a cosplay for only two occassions, we wanted to do it in a "quick and dirty" style, which also accounts for the somewhat limited making of pictures.
Of course at some point, the usual ambition and AMS (advanced modeller sickness) took over and it got a bit less quick and dirty after all.
So the research began and I only then realized, how scarce, details and information on the props really were, due to Kubricks "destruction order".
Still after deciding to do a PanAm Stewardess dress and Frank Poole's Discovery Flightsuit, we found several helpful sources, foremost to be named Dennis Gilliam's 2001 Spacesuit - Contents who also was so kind to share some insights into making the bumphat and CreedsGalBirdy making of their Flight suits Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey coveralls and of course many times watching the blu-ray in frame-by-frame mode.
After careful study, we identified the following items to be done:
PanAm Stewardess:
- Bumphat with PanAm logo gold pin
- Dress consisting of jacket and trousers
- PanAm grip shoes
Frank Poole:
- Discovery flight suit
If time permitted additional accessoires were:
- PanAm Stewardess service tray
- Discovery crew wirst watch
Starting from top with the Bumphat:
This was probably the most difficult piece to make.
Dennis Gilliams documentation of how he made his replica was very helpful. I used a similar approach on creating a pattern from screenshots scaled to 1:1 head size of two sides.
His approach of sculpting the hat, to cast a mold for making a custom made foam core of the hat was impressive. But our limited time and resources demanded a less complex way and therefore I simply used the direct way of cutting two core halves from an old mattress foamcore and basically plucking it into shape, which proved faster than cutting. Afterwards patterns for the leather were cut from clear plastic.
The edge was done by putting a hose inside. However this solution was a bit too sturdy, distorting the overall shape a bit as can be seen in the finished pics.
The golden PanAm pin is originally a stewardess cap pin from the 60's and can still be found (original below).
But since it sells on ebay for 70+$ I made a 3D printed one, using a model of a 2-colored PanAm beerlid, which I modified and then bend over a bowl with a heatgun.
Overall, the bumphat came out satisfactory considering the quick built despite its imperfections.
The next part is the Stewardess dress.
Judging from the original pictures, it might have been made from a cotton/linen blend with a certain sturdiness, to hold its shape and had a somewhat rough surface in off-white color.
We were lucky to find a similar looking (and standing) fabric. We used patterns from Burda sewing magazines, that came close to the jacket and trouser as a basis and modified to suit our needs.
Sadly Ms. Aetherton didn't take any pictures during the making, so I can only show you the end result:
The PanAm Badge was made by tracing wings and stars from vintage PanAm badges old school by hand, then scanning and combining them with a graphic of the PanAm logo via Photoshop. Printed on a transfer sheet for textils and then cut and sewn onto the jacket.
The grip shoes
with these we had a bit of luck, finding leather "socks" that are used to enter a mosque. Usually black did we find some in white which had a quite fitting shape and sewing.
The PanAm logo was again derived from the wing trace I did earlier and applied by textil transfer foil onto them.
Thus completing the PanAm Stewardess.
As for Frank Pooles Discovery crew flight suit, the aforementioned thread by CreedsGalBirdy was very helpful and we used the same Kwik Sew Men's Coverall pattern 3389 as a basis and then adapted it to feature all the specific details of the Discovery flight suits.
With the fabric we got again pretty lucky finding a cotton fabric, that had a similar texture as well as the hard to find differing colorshade depending on the light from blue-grey to grey-violett, which proved a really good match comparing it later at the exhibition with the original Bowman suit that survived and which of course was also a valuable source for the details.
Again, we are lacking making of pics of the coverall, so here it is already done:
For the Discovery badge I found this nice one from Space Patches 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though the original wasn't embroidered and didn't have that thick gold edging, this badge is still far better than the widely available and cheaper patch with those thick sunbeams, that just look wrong (1. original Discovery patch on Bowman suit, 2. original Clavius base patch, 3. Space Patches Discovery patch 4. common Discovery patch).
The eagle badge wasn't too accurate either, but ok. I only added the head feather by hand to get a better look-alike shape from afar.
The astronauts wings were good in shape, but the blue base color was far too light, so I simply painted it darker.
Thus the flight suit was done as well.
Actually we had about a day left or so until the exhibition, so I ventured to achieve the bonus goals listed above, which will follow in the next post.
I hope you enjoyed our presentation so far.
Feel free to ask any question. I will be happy to help.
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