The Bobs' Begins closet has an impact on me. It's what inspired me to build mine. Mine is nowhere near the level of polish that theirs is, and it's a bit smaller too, but I'm not complaining. General rule I've noticed with both the Bobs' closet and the real one is that the torso is at actual height if someone were standing there. Whereas, in my closet, there's not room enough for legs.
Bob Dullam made my cowl and torso, and the other stuff came from various other people. Bronze Armory belt, Herowares boots, fiberglass gauntlets (for now
), and the batarangs are solid steel, laser cut, from synasp here at the RPF.
Closet building... woo. That was all me. I took design cues from both the Bobs' closet and the real thing (see below). I sketched it out on paper a thousand times before buying any wood. When I did start buying wood, I went cheap. Just plain old soft white pine from the hardware store, which was only a pain in the ass because it's not perfectly straight. Just picked out the wood, the stain, and did the sawing and hammering and screwing and everything myself. The most suck ass part of the whole project were those MOTHER F*)KING brass ring drawer pulls in the back. OH MY GOD I hate those things. Not only did I have to buy 38 of them at $5 each (and even then I got the cheaper, undersized ones), but I had to chisel out the divots for them to go into on each of the 22 faux drawers in the back. That's right, CHISEL. I don't have any really big professional power tools, so it was just me, my hammer, and my chisel, knocking out 38 1"x2" divots in wood by hand. Took weeks and my hands got so raw and blistered. I had a little party when I finished the last one.
Other than that, it was pretty easy just putting it all together. The main thing to remember is so put lots of support on your back wall. Your suit and cowl holder are going to be pulling it forward a lot, so you'll want something really sturdy back there.
The suit and cowl holder I made totally from scratch, and even those took a few months to get my ideas juuust right. Bob is right in saying it's tricky getting the cowl properly supported in a way that won't leave any hardware fixtures showing, but also won't deform the cowl's rubber. Tip: Make a "Y" shape in your fixture where the cowl holder meets the wall, and let the cowl tail fall through it.
My shelves are steel, custom fabricated by a company in WA called K & K Industries. Google for info on them. I told them what I was doing and they were happy to make them and it only cost me about $120 for all 4 brackets plus shelf tops.
Other things, unlike the Bobs' closet which is (for now) an open diorama type display, mine is a fully furniture style armoire with rolling casters and a ceiling, floor, and double doors with brass and pewter handles and a working lock. I also made the batarang mounts on the inside of the doors using some brass brick hangers and N40 magnets. The batarangs stay in place perfectly as you open and close the doors, even with a lot of force, but they can easily be plucked down from their hangers for quick throwing...
Oh, and my utility belt hanging up in the back, is actually hanging on a fancy toilet paper holder from Lowe's, painted to match the other closet hardware. No one ever realizes that
I've also installed the dual overhead light you see, which is wired into the doors so the lights come on when you open the doors. I can't wait to see what they do with their closet doors when they finish it. It's gonna make mine look like cheap crap.
Here's some more of mine:
And here's the real one, side by side compared to mine. It really shows how much smaller mine is than it should be.