Movie Version Supergirl- Working

[SailorEarth]

22 and 26 look like either would work but you definitely would want it to look real so 26 is probably the best one. I think this is going to be a great costume. Super Girl was way underrated when it came out. I actually saw it at the drive in (just dated myself big time) lol.

That's exactly what I was thinking. #26 it is Yeah it's too bad it didn't do better at the box office. I read somewhere that she was obligated to do 3 films in all if the first one hadn't flopped. I'm not sure if it's true but it would have been great to have a couple more Supergirl films.

Thanks for the encouragement, it helps keep me on task!

ugameenough awsom work dude! love the bootie things you did. truly my hat goes off to you...

The bootyhose aren't mine, they're part of what is supposed to be an authentic costume that showed up for auction. Since she looks like she's wearing real boots in most of the shots I've seen I'll be constructing the real deal out of pleather :thumbsup

E Q Looks great! I know I saw this movie once, but can not remember anything at all about the bracelet. Weird, huh?

Thanks! The bracelet didn't really play a big role in the movie and as far as I know it never existed in the comics so I can understand why you'd forget :lol

 

[Sundowner]

Wow I havent seen this flick since I was a kid. It looks like you're off to a good start and I bet it helps actually looking like SuperGirl! Good luck!

 

[SailorEarth]

Wow I havent seen this flick since I was a kid. It looks like you're off to a good start and I bet it helps actually looking like SuperGirl! Good luck!

Thanks!


I got the outer fabric cut for my skirt last night. I referenced this tutorial for the formula to determine the waist size. The only thing I changed was to not add the recommended extra 2". Good thing I didn't because it turned out roughly 3" larger than my waist. That won't matter as I can gather it but it's something to keep in mind for anyone using the tutorial. It may have been because my material is a knit and it stretched a bit.

Here's my fabric folded in quarters and marked for cutting. I made my marks by measuring from the corner out to where I wanted the waist and hem line and made small dots for my cutting line. I made it quite a bit longer than the finished skirt will be so I'd have room to make corrections and whatnot if need be. Once I get the belt made and decide how I'm going to attach the skirt to it I'll trim it to the correct length.

All cut out.

I also started work on the belt last night. I patterned it out and did a mockup in 3mm craft foam. My V obviously needs to be deeper. It looked much deeper laying out on my cutting mat than it did once I tried it on. The shape might need some tweaking as well but I'm going to correct the V depth first to see if that takes care of it.

I'm toying with the idea of using actual belts for it. I have a small cache of belts I occasionally pick up at second hand stores for cannibalizing but none are wide enough for this bad boy. I may make a trip to find some suitable specimens. My original plan was to use the craft foam as the belt innards, spray glue the yellow fabric in place and wrap the excess around to the back side where it would be glued down. I wish I knew what the original was made from. I had thought it was glued over a semi-rigid form (hence the craft foam) but I noticed in one shot that her belt is wrinkled. It shouldn't wrinkle if it's glued to something. Maybe it's some type of heavy interfacing. I might try the dollar store as well to see if there are some place mats or something similar that I could cut it out of. I'll experiment with different things to see what works best.

 

[Igniitus]

Great progress so far!

 

[gvmaraio]

Hi there, the original belt was an interfacing covered with the same material as the skirt lining the goldfish yellow color spandex.

It was then basted onto the skirt and closed with hooks and eyes.

 

[SailorEarth]

Igniitus- Thanks!

Hi there, the original belt was an interfacing covered with the same material as the skirt lining the goldfish yellow color spandex.

It was then basted onto the skirt and closed with hooks and eyes.

Thanks for the info! Do you know how the yellow fabric was attached to the interfacing? I see a little bit of white by her thumb on the left, I'm guessing that's the interfacing. Were they sewn with the right sides together then turned?


I tweaked my belt mockup some. I took out a 1" wedge from the middle this time and it's looking decidedly better. I think I still need to reduce the width a little to either side of the middle- taking a long thin wedge off the top should take care of it.

 

[gvmaraio]

ON the original , the yellow fabric is wrapped around and then tacked to the interfacing on the back, the the whole belt back is lined with a satin-like material.

 

[SailorEarth]

Ah, so that's what I see by her thumb. I had no idea it was lined. Thank you again for all your help.

 

[SailorEarth]

Here's some belt progress. I don't have the home dec grade interfacing I'd need for the belt so I decided to try it out with what I had on hand. I cut the shape out of a place mat in two halves and glued those two halves together with Gorilla Glue. I tried to pull them apart putting more stress on it than normal wear would ever produce and it didn't budge so that went okay. I painted it with Krylon Fusion in white to cover up the pattern on the place mat. I had to do around 6 coats to get good coverage but I think the age of the paint might have been a factor (maybe 5 years old).

Once I got it painted I cut out some felt-like interfacing and glued it to the back of the belt with 3M spray adhesive. I wrapped my yellow spandex around to the back and whip stitched it to the interfacing and now I have this:

I did all this last night. When I looked at my belt today in the daylight I realized I could see through the yellow fabric to where some newspaper ink had transferred to the front of the belt when I was spraying the glue on it. It's not terribly noticeable and didn't show up in the photograph but it's bugging me. That's what I get for always doing this stuff at 2 in the morning with my crappy lighting.

I'll probably end up pulling the yellow fabric off and fixing the surface of the place mat :facepalm At least I haven't lined it yet.

 

[SailorEarth]

Just a quick post to say I haven't given up on Supergirl! Here are a few shots of what I've got so far...

Please excuse the quality of the pics, this fabric doesn't photograph well indoors. I'll have to sneak outside to take the next ones when the neighbors aren't around

I need to tweak the bottom corner of the shield on the suit, it's not quite right. I think the arm openings are too low also, the fabric isn't snug under my arms like they are on the Slater suit. Don't know how I'd fix that without redoing the whole suit a third time. The sleeves are also curiously wrinkly. I don't know what's causing that. I've tested making them tighter by pinning them up but they still wrinkle.

I'll post some wip pics later!

 

[Hfuy]

Not sure what the state of play is with the boots, but have you considered the possibility that they're spandex socks pulled on over some sort of low cut shoe? You can see the outline of the shoe in one of those images. I've seen it done before - demands careful selection of the shoe, or it looks bulky.

 

[SailorEarth]

Hfuy- Thanks for the suggestion. It's entirely possible that some of her boots were spandex socks. The panty hose and boot combo that are with the costume I found certainly look like spandex. It's likely she had different types of boots for various shots. In most of the standing screen grabs I took they appear to have a pleather-like sheen. Those are probably either worn over or made onto a base shoe as well. Maybe she had spandex boots for the flying scenes?

If anyone happens to have Emma Porteus' contact information I'd be happy to ask her about a few things.

 

[Hfuy]

Well, you can get four-way stretch vinyl, it's used to trim car interiors, which might give you a look rather like that. These guys once sent me a whole load of samples including stuff that might work for your outfit.

 

[SailorEarth]

Stretch House is great for that kind of thing. I've got a stack of samples I ordered not long ago myself. In case you're interested in the construction, I plan on going off of this post by greenarrowfl on LOH.

 

[Tom Sheldon]

I don't know if someone said this already, but the bracelet could be done from a computer model and then 3D-printed at shapeways, just as an idea. That would result in very detailed structures.... well it could be also very fragile then.... slap me fro this stupid comment!

 

[SailorEarth]

I'm familiar with Shapeways from following Blind Squirrel's blog but it never occurred to me to have them make the bracelet. Hmm, I'll have to check into that. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Egon Spengler]

This is infinity better than the cheesy mid-drift showing costume!

 

[SailorEarth]

My thoughts exactly.

 

[legend23km]

Exuse me, SailorEarth, but do you know how to act? Because I'm writing a fan-film script involving supergirl in the form of Helen Slater, and I think you and your husband (if he has the Christopher Reeve superman suit) might be a great acquisition. PLEASE WRITE ME BACK!