My Captain America Costume build experience

T

tbart

New Member
Since this forum was so helpful to me in getting my Captain America costume build put together I wanted to recap the process and build pics!

This is my first post on RPF that wasn't part of trying to get help from the great folks out here during the process!

My project started when I got a shield off E-Bay this last summer that I had just intended to put in my office like a piece of art. Looking in the mirror with this bad boy on my arm I knew it needed to be showed off outside of my office!
 
The next step was to decide what direction I wanted to go with the costume. Although there were a couple of folks that had started to get some nice avengers style costumes together I found on RPF, most the stuff on ebay didn't look very good, cosplay companies weren't very trustworthy (lack of real examples) and I wasn't a huge fan of the TFA costume (for which there are so many great examples/support for).

Then I found this on ebay and it set the tone for the direction I would go.

I have no idea what the history is of the making of this latex armor with raised star but it is freakin beautiful. Would love to know who has the mold for this thing if I ever needed to replace it!
 
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I did arrange for a TFA helmet from raultumba through the RPF. I was worried about the size (since I needed something a little larger then his normal mold) but it ended up being extremely high quality work. I do wish the leather was a little thicker and a real chin "cup" would be nice. Overall though it is beautiful and would get lots and lots of compliments. Here are some early pics raultumba sent me before they had shipped out.
 
So, while waiting for the helmet, I found the remaining key items I would need. I got an under armour compression shirt (with a plan to use fabric paint - more to come on that). I got baseball pants (plans to dye). I also began looking around for someone on The RPF that could help me modify some motocross gloves/boots. You can see "unmodified" gloves/boots/shirt/pants in this pic.
 
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I have never undertaken anything like this and I really wanted to differentiate my costume with the boots/gloves (especially gloves). I looked hard at a ton of options and ultimately worked with Apelord on the RPF to help not only bring some creativity but also skill to helping me create something truly unique! I owe him a huge thank you and would recommend his work to anyone! Here are some pics of the glove/boot work he did for me. The helmet arrived about the same time the his updated gloves/boots did so I was ready for an updated pic. Still need to get to the one thing I was going to have to deal with myself...the shirt/pants...

I would also ultimately change the belt out.
 
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Alright, so I said that "I" had to deal with my shirt, but in reality the recognition goes to my wife. Using a compression shirt we decided it should be painted while I was wearing it to ensure the best lines. We used red Jacquard fabric paint and to just put the red stripes on (and let them dry on me) took the better part of a sunday and included a lot of measuring. They actually look a lot better in person then the pic (as you will see), keep in mind that a significant amout of the stripe will either be under the armor or below belt line. We did do a sample and ultimately a cheaper champion shirt in testing but the under armour shirt really took the paint great and had very little bleeding (we used painters tape for lines).
 
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Well, apparently dying polyester is not easy at all. So I dyed the pants "blue" on the stove and also "dipped" the (mock) collar of my shirt into the dye. You can see it in action and then once dry in the pics below. Then bad things happened. First, the pants looked great color wise when they came out of the dye but then when washed the got MUCH lighter (see pics). Second, and worse, when I dipped the shirt collar into the water the shirt began AGRESSIVELY soaking the blue water up into it and ultimately brought a stain down into the white stripes that was quite bad. You are unable to see it in the pics below because I purposefully pulled the stretch shirt up into the armor to hide it. If you saw the back though it was even further down. I was sure the shirt was ruined (along with the day of painting that had gone into it.)

As you can see - I got my new belt too....
 
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the clock was ticking and my shirt seemed ruined... In a desparate attempt to save it (vs. having to start all over, something also being planned for) I got some white fabric paint (and some dark blue) and my wife took another sunday out of her life to paint the white stripes on the shirt hoping it would hide the stains.

Sometimes disasters are a blessing in disguise, the white was AMAZING! It not only covered up the stains but it was so crisp and it made the red stripes just POP. We also painted the collar a dark blue as well. I wasn't going to mess with dye on the shirt again!

You can see in the shirt pic the "stains" that bled down toward the striped (and would thankfully be hidden under the armor).

The other thing I don't have a picture of was modification of the latex armor in the back. There was a slit up the back to get it on and off, but I didn't want it "splitting" as I walk around or moved and exposing the paint ugliness under the armor. I took a piece of spandex blue fabric (so it would stretch as I moved my arms around) and glued it into one side of the inner latex and put velcro on the other side so that it would effectively "seal" the latext armor closed in the back but would "stretch" and give as I moved around. It does mean that I need help getting the armor on/off but it worked GREAT!

Also, my wife made one more trip to the craft store for more polydye and I died the pants one more time to darken them up. I used BLUE with a little black mixed in this time.
 
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Well, finished it up and took it out this last weekend for the first time with the family. just unbelievable! Most folks thought I was working the events I was at! You can definitely plan to see me in this at the Seattle Emerald City ComicCon in 2013!

Thanks again to those on the RPF that inspired and helped me!!

Below is a pic with the fam as well!

And of course, I had to lose the beard to fully get in character and I would also be lying if I said the effort didn't motivate me into quite a bit of "ab work" the last couple months :)
 
This is awesome, man. What exactly was the process that went into modifying the boots though? Those look absolutely stellar. Also, where did you get that belt? Anywho, welcome to the Captain America club! Nicely done
 
If you blow the pictures of the boots up you can see there are 2 shades of Red. The darker red are the asthetic pieces that Apelord added (just in a couple spots), particularly in the front to cover up the motocross boot branding (which is visibible in my "pre-mod" pic of myself wearing the boots/gloves before any modifications). On the Boot pic you can also see that an upper part was added which was riveted into the boot and then had pouches added to it. Apelord did great work!
 
That latex armor is great. I actually prefer the "eagle feather" look. Your costume evokes the original 1940's Cap but adds some of the modern styling. Perfect blend of both. Kudos!
 
That's actually really impressive! I've seen that chest piece before, but I hadn't seen it with a fully assembled costume. You pulled this off very well! Nice work.
 
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