Greetings again, good folks from the RPF.
This time I´d like to tell you a small tale, before posting the pictures.
It begins in 2000. Back then I had the depression of a lifetime and gained about 60 pounds solid. True story! Not a nice subject to talk about, really, but I´ve had time to snap out of it. Unfortunately, the weight sort of clung to me, and being the lazy guy I am, most likely it´ll stay around for the ride. The thing is - in order to try and better myself, I took up swimming, and even then I just KNEW that one day I would make this costume.
(for you guys who don´t know it, I make costumes and have been making them for over 19, almost 20 years now).
So, I chose THE ONLY pair of goggles that would be appropriate, in my opinion, and this holds true until today.
After that, years went by and nothing happened that sprung me to action on this costume. Until.... last year, when a friend from the RPF, Mannie Bothans, was asking around about the Nite Owl suit. No one knew jack squat about the movie costume, and so we thought they´d go with the comic version.
Silly me. It was disheartening, and I even thought I wouldn´t do it at all, but you know what? Screw it! It´s a Graphic Novel, before being a movie, so screw it. I decided to go forth with it.
The actual suit was made in about 8 separate days, one being the Belt day, other being the Boots day, other two being the Mask days, one being the Cape day, other being the bodysuit and gloves day, which turned out to be two days, and the last was the shorts day. I am proud to say that I didn´t buy A SINGLE PART of that suit, except the base shoes (which I covered to match my design) and the goggles. All the rest was made by good old me.
Since I also work on other suits, I did this one only in what would be normally called spare time
It all was done, except the cape´s details, and so I thought I´d be A-OK for the premiere and I´d go alone.
hardy har-har....
A great friend of mine asked for a Rorschach, so I looked around, and since I had a Disney Indy hat laying around, I thought I could pull it off. For that I only made the mask, the gloves (in the nick of time) and the scarf, cut the Disney Indy brim to size, (which was done without a single tear, since I got an Adventurebilt Indy from Magnoli last year - YAY to Magnoli again!), gathered a pinstriped 2-piece suit, right shoes, thrift store trench coat and that´s it. No problem, instant Rorschach.
And then the bomb falls.
There are some newspapers here in Brasília, and one of them is distributed for free at all homes in two cities here. The Culture editor called me and asked me if we could talk about making a Silk Spectre suit for the Avant-Premiere , which would be in the 5th. of March. No big deal.
Except he called me on the 3rd. of March, at 8 P.M.
I left my girlfriend home, ran to the newspaper office to see what was the deal, and if he was plain insane. Turns out he isn´t, he has the rights to make many good Avant-Premieres here, including Star Trek, Wolverine, Harry Potter, Terminator and some others I don´t remember or care enough to remember now. So I thought - this is a 7-picture deal, I can´t let this one pass.
And so I didn´t. I closed the deal at exactly 10:22 of the 3rd. of March.
March, 4th.
I wake up early, at 9:30 AM, and buy the materials needed. Luckily I spent until 6 AM planning the course of action, breaking down into elements what I thought I´d be doing during the day. So, I went to the shops and found everything I needed, luckily, even the garter hooks, which were my main concern.
Thus armed, I went home, and at exactly noon, the journalist arrived. She is a cute girl, kinda bubbly, and genuinely interested in what are the Watchmen, for she knew nothing about them. As we talked, I made the corset, as closely as I could match the few pictures I had, and extrapolating as much data as I could (which is just not nice). Even then, everything started to come together.
After that, I went straight to the inner suit, which I divided in a pair of shorts, and a tight shirt, for ease of movement for her. It was NOT as smooth as I thought, and I had to make three different types of sleeves. The last worked, and so I made her gloves and her boots. She had to leave, and luckily the friend who was to be Rorschach showed up, so I gave him the material I bought and my directions to make the belt, which he made the base for me, I just made in that belt the front accent and the clasp´s assembly.
And so this suit was ready by March, 4th. At about 3 AM, making less than 24 hours from start to finish in a full Silk Spectre II Movie Version Suit. The ones with better eyes will notice all the flaws in the costume, but bear in mind the time of execution and that this is version 1.0
Without further ado, the pictures:
This time I´d like to tell you a small tale, before posting the pictures.
It begins in 2000. Back then I had the depression of a lifetime and gained about 60 pounds solid. True story! Not a nice subject to talk about, really, but I´ve had time to snap out of it. Unfortunately, the weight sort of clung to me, and being the lazy guy I am, most likely it´ll stay around for the ride. The thing is - in order to try and better myself, I took up swimming, and even then I just KNEW that one day I would make this costume.
(for you guys who don´t know it, I make costumes and have been making them for over 19, almost 20 years now).
So, I chose THE ONLY pair of goggles that would be appropriate, in my opinion, and this holds true until today.
After that, years went by and nothing happened that sprung me to action on this costume. Until.... last year, when a friend from the RPF, Mannie Bothans, was asking around about the Nite Owl suit. No one knew jack squat about the movie costume, and so we thought they´d go with the comic version.
Silly me. It was disheartening, and I even thought I wouldn´t do it at all, but you know what? Screw it! It´s a Graphic Novel, before being a movie, so screw it. I decided to go forth with it.
The actual suit was made in about 8 separate days, one being the Belt day, other being the Boots day, other two being the Mask days, one being the Cape day, other being the bodysuit and gloves day, which turned out to be two days, and the last was the shorts day. I am proud to say that I didn´t buy A SINGLE PART of that suit, except the base shoes (which I covered to match my design) and the goggles. All the rest was made by good old me.
Since I also work on other suits, I did this one only in what would be normally called spare time
It all was done, except the cape´s details, and so I thought I´d be A-OK for the premiere and I´d go alone.
hardy har-har....
A great friend of mine asked for a Rorschach, so I looked around, and since I had a Disney Indy hat laying around, I thought I could pull it off. For that I only made the mask, the gloves (in the nick of time) and the scarf, cut the Disney Indy brim to size, (which was done without a single tear, since I got an Adventurebilt Indy from Magnoli last year - YAY to Magnoli again!), gathered a pinstriped 2-piece suit, right shoes, thrift store trench coat and that´s it. No problem, instant Rorschach.
And then the bomb falls.
There are some newspapers here in Brasília, and one of them is distributed for free at all homes in two cities here. The Culture editor called me and asked me if we could talk about making a Silk Spectre suit for the Avant-Premiere , which would be in the 5th. of March. No big deal.
Except he called me on the 3rd. of March, at 8 P.M.
I left my girlfriend home, ran to the newspaper office to see what was the deal, and if he was plain insane. Turns out he isn´t, he has the rights to make many good Avant-Premieres here, including Star Trek, Wolverine, Harry Potter, Terminator and some others I don´t remember or care enough to remember now. So I thought - this is a 7-picture deal, I can´t let this one pass.
And so I didn´t. I closed the deal at exactly 10:22 of the 3rd. of March.
March, 4th.
I wake up early, at 9:30 AM, and buy the materials needed. Luckily I spent until 6 AM planning the course of action, breaking down into elements what I thought I´d be doing during the day. So, I went to the shops and found everything I needed, luckily, even the garter hooks, which were my main concern.
Thus armed, I went home, and at exactly noon, the journalist arrived. She is a cute girl, kinda bubbly, and genuinely interested in what are the Watchmen, for she knew nothing about them. As we talked, I made the corset, as closely as I could match the few pictures I had, and extrapolating as much data as I could (which is just not nice). Even then, everything started to come together.
After that, I went straight to the inner suit, which I divided in a pair of shorts, and a tight shirt, for ease of movement for her. It was NOT as smooth as I thought, and I had to make three different types of sleeves. The last worked, and so I made her gloves and her boots. She had to leave, and luckily the friend who was to be Rorschach showed up, so I gave him the material I bought and my directions to make the belt, which he made the base for me, I just made in that belt the front accent and the clasp´s assembly.
And so this suit was ready by March, 4th. At about 3 AM, making less than 24 hours from start to finish in a full Silk Spectre II Movie Version Suit. The ones with better eyes will notice all the flaws in the costume, but bear in mind the time of execution and that this is version 1.0
Without further ado, the pictures:
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