My Semi-Budget Batman

[Indy Magnoli]

In the tradition of my Star Wars and Lord of the Rings budget costume builds, this year's theme is Batman (the 2011 Quiz Night theme was actually the letter "G", so our team went as "Gotham").

This year, I was happy that most of my team put together there own costumes, so this won't be "6 Batman Costumes in 6 weeks"... but mainly just my own costume, Batman.

The main part is, obviously, the cowl. I first managed to get a great Begins cowl through a trade but, sadly, it was too way too big:

So, I traded this for an XtremeFX cowl (and had enough left over to also get a generic hero chest from them).

I had some damaged suspenders which, ironically, are identical to the Joker Suspenders but in black. So, using these and some chicago screws, I had a way of temporarily wearing this chest piece without having to glue it to my undersuit.

For the undersuit (warning, Batman purist: don't watch), I decided would recycle parts from my Darth Vader costume so, shirt, patns and shin armor would be provide courtesy of the Dark Lord.

More to come...

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Next up... the gauntlets.

I bought some kid's soccer shin guards from a second hand store for a couple bucks:

Using a jigsaw and a sheet of ABS, I cut out some fins:

Using a dremel, I started shaping them a bit more, cleaning up the edges and finally adding a slight edge on one side.

Using a drill bit, I routed out slots on the shin guards:

The fins fit in fairly snuggly, so I was hoping they would stay in place:

I used some bondo to strengthen the fit and to fill in the gaps in the slots. I trimmed the bumpy edge of the foam lining with some scissors and, after some primer and black spray paint, voila:

I still had some elastic left over from the suspenders so, with a few more chicago screws, I had a decent pair of gauntlets. My original idea was to wear leather gloves, but I just got some tactical glove samples and I thought they would give the costume a more Begins/Arkham Asylum look.

Stay tuned...

-Magnoli

 

[joee]

Super Nice. ill be politely stealing a couple ideas cause this is awesome haha.

 

[omel]

cool, will be watching this coz' i'm currently doing a dark knight duct tape redux, ,

 

[BatTexan]

Nice job on the gauntlets! They have a nice Arkham-ish look to them. Look forward to seeing more.:thumbsup

 

[Indy Magnoli]

For the chest, I was planning on painting an Arkham Asylum style bat across the chest, but kept putting it off as my kids really wanted me to do a more comic book style yellow/black version. I lucked out and got a sonar belt buckle casting from Bob Causey:

Since I already had the cheap costume Begins belt, I didn't really need a buckle, so I though this would work well for the chest emblem with a little modification. The biggest problem was how thick it was:

So, with a combination of a circular saw (held upside down being used like a table saw... I know crazy) and table grinder, I got it down to this:

After some dremel work and sandpaper, I had a decent chest emblem:

After a few coats of acrylic paint and a polyacrylic spray coating I was done:

-Magnoli

 

[Celtic007]

Looking good!
I always like seeing creative builds like this.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

For the cape, I recycled the cape used for our 2009 Darth Vader (from this thread: http://www.therpf.com/f24/6-star-wars-costumes-3-weeks-w-no-budget-68032/). It was originally pieced together from $6 worth of scrap cloth:

Originally I was going to leave this as it is (trying to save time) but, after watching Rango and seeing the bat scenes, I knew I had to add the bat shape to the bottom of the cape. Since the cape was made in panels, it was really simple to cut and hem the bottom into this:

After trying it on, I decided I wanted to be able to hold the cape out for that "bat wing" effect so, I took some old wire hangers and started straightening them.

I realized that one wasn't strong enough, but two taped together seemed to give a good balance of strength versus weight.

-Magnoli

 

[Indy Magnoli]

I wasn't sure how to attach the emblem to the chest (I didn't want to glue or drill any holes into the chest as I wanted to keep it for other possible cosutmes) so I temporarily duct taped it to the bottom of the cowl for a test fitting on my mannequin. When I took the emblem off, I realized how well the duct tape held it to the cowl, so I had found my solution.

But in putting everything so far on the mannequin I realized his crotch area just wasn't looking right.

So, I knew I had no choice but to make some shorts. What superhero is complete without his undies on anyway. Luckily, I had some black leather that seemed to match the finish of the chest pretty well.

I stitched this leather into a "front half" pattern. Because of the molded chest, I thought I better give some shape to these shorts, so I decided to make a cod piece lining. Top of a 2 litre Coke bottle:

Cut open, add some cardboard and foam for comfort:

...some hot glue...

Duct tape the liner to the leather:

My original idea was to make a sort of G-string design since the back would be obscured by the cape. But, when I put this on the mannequin and saw his backside... well, I thought there was no way I was going to be THAT uncomfortable in this costume. So... I got some black shorts with an elastic waist and cut them down...

I stitched the leather front to the cotton back and had myself a pair of superhero shorts:

-Magnoli

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Lastly, I had some motorcycle boots that looked the part but were not tall enough to work by themselves. So, I took some creative liberty and just stole Vader's shin armor, figuring they did have a very similar shape to the Arkham Asylum Batman. Everything finally put together and a little black eye make-up later, I was done. Here I am with my wife's budget Poison Ivy:

The Joker asked me if I'd like to see a magic trick with a pencil... this was my reply:

This is the only picture we got showing the cape opened up:

It was a fun build and a great evening (six hours as the Bat does lead to a headache, at least in my case).

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Indy Magnoli]

One other thing I forgot that some of you will appreciate... the guy who was dressed as our Joker. His real name: Jason Todd!

 

[captainquinn]

One other thing I forgot that some of you will appreciate... the guy who was dressed as our Joker. His real name: Jason Todd!

Cool. That's awesome.

 

[Doh2]

Great costume! I think the movie Batman needs some damned pants.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Cool. That's awesome.

Yeah... it was almost a shame not to make him Robin or Red Hood costume. But I think it would have been wasted on almost everyone at this party. Oh well.