Have been working a classic 90’s Rogue costume, mostly inspired from the animated series, this all started when I I was sorting though some old clothes and found an old tan leather jacket I’d forgotten about and got thought, “Hey this would work great for Rogue...”
In the end I didn’t use that jacket anyway.
First part was the bodysuit, loads of places on that internet, do Rogue Zentai, but none seemed to get the details just right IMHO, the colour blocks are wrong or they try to add in fake boots or gloves or what ever, in the end I got a custom one from Herostime http://www.herostime.com/ it wasn’t to expensive, got the gloves from them as well. But the suit came with far to long in the arms and legs (and I’m very tall) even though it was custom size, the collar was floppy and sort of collapsed when worn and the stitching on the X badge was poor with black thread showing through. I shortened the sleeves and legs, back the collar with some craft foam to make it stand up and painted over the black stitching on the X badge.
Boots, found some cheap yellow knee high PVC boots on Ebay in my size (which can be hard cause I’m on the large side), but Rogues boots are over knee and have green (well its black in some pictures..) stripes on them with sort of flaps front and back, so need modification. In the end I made some “Boot Toppers” which where tubes of yellow and green PVC fabric which sit over the top the boot and bring them up to my knee joint, sewn into them are yellow PVC are a front and black flap things, which are backed with craft foam to make them stand up. There’s also a bit of interfacing in the tube to stiffen them up a bit and make them fold and crease like the boot material. Only real problem with these is the Yellow PVC isn’t an exact match to the boot
I scoured fabric shops looking for yellow PVC but could only find lemon yellow or dark orangey yellow, not the mustard yellow colour the original boots are made of. So not ideal. Maybe if I get time I’ll make some yellow Lycra shoe covers or something instead. Did find a trick to sewing PVC, normally it doesn't go though my (very basic) sewing machine very well, its too sticky, normally people get around this with a walking foot or Teflon foot, but those aren't available for my machine (as I said its very basic), but I found if I used silicone dressing aid (This is a slippery silicone fluid used to make getting latex clothing on easier) on the PVC it slid though my machines foot with no problems.
Belt, actually did make most of his myself. One of the reasons I wanted to do Rogue was the belt, cause its got pouches on it, pouches I can put my stuff in, so I don’t have to carry around a handbag at the con I feel very un-superheroic carrying around a handbag but most of there costumes have nowhere to put your stuff. So the belt had to be functional and strong, the base belt is actually very strong 50mm nylon webbing which I covered in tan synthetic leather fabric, glued and sewed on (and seams secured at the back with duct tape because erm, well nobody sees that bit). The functional buckle is a proper nylon push buckle, but I made a box with the X logo on it out of PVC foam board and painted with car spray paints to cover it. The body of pouches are also PVC foam board with the synthetic leather glued to it (the stitching is only decorative), the lid is craft foam covered in the pleather and the brass stud is a plastic button cover painted (the lid is actually secured with velcro underneath) . The pouches are larger than they really should be but I had to make them big enough to hold my phone, money, keys etc. The synthetic leather I used was actually quite cheap and fake looking, so gave it a paint over with slightly thinned Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint in Transparent Burnt Umber, then wiped most of it off with paper towels, the idea was to get the paint into the fake grain in the synthetic leather to bring it out and make it look more like real leather, I think it worked quite well.
The jacket, well I didn’t use the one I found in the first place and instead used one of these http://www.selectfashion.co.uk/clothing/s042-0305-013_tan.html I got from a chain store. I modified it but shortening it a little by folding up the bottom and sewing it into the lining, removing the lining from the sleeves to make it easier to roll them up over my too big arms and did the same thing with the brown paint I did on the belt to make it look more like real leather. Finishing touch was a pair of round black and red embroidered X-Men badges I got off ebay on the shoulders. The badges said they where Iron on but I could get that to work (probably required a lot of heat and that would damage the synthetic leather) so I glued them on and added a couple of stiches to make sure the glue held. The animated Rogue's jacket is more green than brown though isn't it
Did use rather a lot of glue on this project, most of it was 3M Display Mount Permanent Adhesive spray, which turned out to work really well on synthetic leather, PVC and craft foam, l like this stuff.
Last thing to do is the Wig and the headband. I did have a large auburn wig and some wefts of white hair I planned to combine, but have gone off that wig. Instead I’ve ordered two of the same long wavy voluminous wigs, one in red auburn and the other in white off ebay and hope to remove the front part from both and sew the white front to the red rest of it. Never done that sort of wig work before, it could be tricky. Also got to try and work on the Southern US accent, “Well Hello Shugar”
Plan is to get ready for the October MCM Comic Con in London in a couple of weeks.
In the end I didn’t use that jacket anyway.
First part was the bodysuit, loads of places on that internet, do Rogue Zentai, but none seemed to get the details just right IMHO, the colour blocks are wrong or they try to add in fake boots or gloves or what ever, in the end I got a custom one from Herostime http://www.herostime.com/ it wasn’t to expensive, got the gloves from them as well. But the suit came with far to long in the arms and legs (and I’m very tall) even though it was custom size, the collar was floppy and sort of collapsed when worn and the stitching on the X badge was poor with black thread showing through. I shortened the sleeves and legs, back the collar with some craft foam to make it stand up and painted over the black stitching on the X badge.
Boots, found some cheap yellow knee high PVC boots on Ebay in my size (which can be hard cause I’m on the large side), but Rogues boots are over knee and have green (well its black in some pictures..) stripes on them with sort of flaps front and back, so need modification. In the end I made some “Boot Toppers” which where tubes of yellow and green PVC fabric which sit over the top the boot and bring them up to my knee joint, sewn into them are yellow PVC are a front and black flap things, which are backed with craft foam to make them stand up. There’s also a bit of interfacing in the tube to stiffen them up a bit and make them fold and crease like the boot material. Only real problem with these is the Yellow PVC isn’t an exact match to the boot
I scoured fabric shops looking for yellow PVC but could only find lemon yellow or dark orangey yellow, not the mustard yellow colour the original boots are made of. So not ideal. Maybe if I get time I’ll make some yellow Lycra shoe covers or something instead. Did find a trick to sewing PVC, normally it doesn't go though my (very basic) sewing machine very well, its too sticky, normally people get around this with a walking foot or Teflon foot, but those aren't available for my machine (as I said its very basic), but I found if I used silicone dressing aid (This is a slippery silicone fluid used to make getting latex clothing on easier) on the PVC it slid though my machines foot with no problems. Belt, actually did make most of his myself. One of the reasons I wanted to do Rogue was the belt, cause its got pouches on it, pouches I can put my stuff in, so I don’t have to carry around a handbag at the con
I feel very un-superheroic carrying around a handbag but most of there costumes have nowhere to put your stuff. So the belt had to be functional and strong, the base belt is actually very strong 50mm nylon webbing which I covered in tan synthetic leather fabric, glued and sewed on (and seams secured at the back with duct tape because erm, well nobody sees that bit). The functional buckle is a proper nylon push buckle, but I made a box with the X logo on it out of PVC foam board and painted with car spray paints to cover it. The body of pouches are also PVC foam board with the synthetic leather glued to it (the stitching is only decorative), the lid is craft foam covered in the pleather and the brass stud is a plastic button cover painted (the lid is actually secured with velcro underneath) . The pouches are larger than they really should be but I had to make them big enough to hold my phone, money, keys etc. The synthetic leather I used was actually quite cheap and fake looking, so gave it a paint over with slightly thinned Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint in Transparent Burnt Umber, then wiped most of it off with paper towels, the idea was to get the paint into the fake grain in the synthetic leather to bring it out and make it look more like real leather, I think it worked quite well. The jacket, well I didn’t use the one I found in the first place and instead used one of these http://www.selectfashion.co.uk/clothing/s042-0305-013_tan.html I got from a chain store. I modified it but shortening it a little by folding up the bottom and sewing it into the lining, removing the lining from the sleeves to make it easier to roll them up over my too big arms and did the same thing with the brown paint I did on the belt to make it look more like real leather. Finishing touch was a pair of round black and red embroidered X-Men badges I got off ebay on the shoulders. The badges said they where Iron on but I could get that to work (probably required a lot of heat and that would damage the synthetic leather) so I glued them on and added a couple of stiches to make sure the glue held. The animated Rogue's jacket is more green than brown though isn't it
Did use rather a lot of glue on this project, most of it was 3M Display Mount Permanent Adhesive spray, which turned out to work really well on synthetic leather, PVC and craft foam, l like this stuff.
Last thing to do is the Wig and the headband. I did have a large auburn wig and some wefts of white hair I planned to combine, but have gone off that wig. Instead I’ve ordered two of the same long wavy voluminous wigs, one in red auburn and the other in white off ebay and hope to remove the front part from both and sew the white front to the red rest of it. Never done that sort of wig work before, it could be tricky. Also got to try and work on the Southern US accent, “Well Hello Shugar”
Plan is to get ready for the October MCM Comic Con in London in a couple of weeks.
