Spider-man suit final stages

[Radium]

Hey folks, just in the early stages of a spider-man project. Have just purchased a pattern file from Gun Head Design and looking into local printers at the moment with the intention of puff painting before getting it all stitched together.

One thing I'm curious about is the potential of multi-part suits when made of Lycra. Searching the forums I've found a few odd mentions of the idea of splitting the suit into trousers, a top, boots, gloves and the mask but not yet found any talk of actually carrying it out nor of potential results so just wondering if anyone has any experience on the matter.

Now when it comes to a seperate mask, it looks as though it just boils down to an overlap of the materials, but that I imagine is mostly feasible due to the shape of the body. But I'm curious as to how the material will work for an overlap in an instance where there isn't any body shape to hang onto (the fore-arms or the midriff etc), my gut reaction is that it wouldn't so I'd need some form of a fastener (velcro maybe?)

Any thoughts on the matters are greatly appreciated.

[Edit 1 - 26/07/2015] So I've started progress which will be running from post #16 on-wards and fingers crossed it should be frequent.
[Edit 2 - 14/08/2015] Post #24 including painting progress and curiosity of lens frames.
[Edit 3 - 17/11/2015] Post #25 - Post Event - Near complete Suit

 

[GF]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

best is a one piece suit less stitching the better, separate mask will look cheap and unprofessional, will be hard to line up webs perfect, also the zipper is important they are located in invisible spots like movie original, from arm pit down behind back and up to other arm pit, please don't put zipper right in the middle of back that's really crappy looking.

 

[Hazmat]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g39/bradolson/Spidey7pc.jpg

This is a seven piece suit that looks better than most sub dye suits. He used hook and eye fasteners to keep everything in place so that all the web lines match up. Google "7 piece spider man costume" if you havent seen it already. At some point when I make a spidey suit this how I want to do it.

 

[Radium]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

will be hard to line up webs perfect, also the zipper is important they are located in invisible spots like movie original, from arm pit down behind back and up to other arm pit, please don't put zipper right in the middle of back that's really crappy looking.

Yeah I certainly concur with what you've stated. Did have zippers mentioned in the original version of my post but part of the reason I was weighing up the multi-section costume was that no zippers would be required so none would be visible. Say the waist-line split would have the red web section as the bottom of the "top" and then the blue as the top of the trousers would reduce webbing alignment issues. But yeah, defintely taken note that that won't be quite as straight forward for the mask.

Hadn't really given much though to the zipper placement if I did go uni-body. Definitely would have wanted to avoid the zip down the spine. I take it your description means armpit-to-armpit via the waist line? Thanks for your input.

This is a seven piece suit that looks better than most sub dye suits. He used hook and eye fasteners to keep everything in place so that all the web lines match up. Google "7 piece spider man costume" if you havent seen it already. At some point when I make a spidey suit this how I want to do it.

Oooh, I certainly hadn't come across that one. Thank you kindly for making me aware of it. Had pondered hook and eye fasteners breifly but hadn't figured they'd be subtle enough to consider as a potential solution. The cut in the fabric certainly aligns with the train of thought I was wondering about. Will look into that one, thanks again.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

I'm currently working on my TASM2 suit with movie accurate zipper placements. One zipper on the neck, one zipper on each wrist, one zipper on each ankle, one separating zipper along the waist and one half-back zip. I'm probably going to add separating zippers on each boot, so I could take them off easily. I'm currently sewing the top half of the suit, so I'll let you know how that looks. When it's all done

 

[The Spiderkid]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

I bought an under armour mock compression suit, and they basically have a rubber-band type belt under the shirt at the bottom (where your waist is.)
It holds it tight to your body. I imagine you could do that for your suit, if you could find an appropriate substitution. You could probably do it for gloves, too.

 

[Radium]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

I'm currently working on my TASM2 suit with movie accurate zipper placements.

Sounds intriguing, am curious to see how it works out for you. are you uploading progress at all? I'm personally hoping to avoid zippers, the thought of my hairy bod getting caught in them makes me cringe.

I bought an under armour mock compression suit, and they basically have a rubber-band type belt under the shirt at the bottom (where your waist is.)
It holds it tight to your body. I imagine you could do that for your suit, if you could find an appropriate substitution. You could probably do it for gloves, too.

Yeah, this is the idea that I'm looking at for the boots and gloves at the moment. I reckon you could potentially get a lot of overlap towards the outer ends of the arms and legs. I really like the idea of using the flat hooks which you find on dress trousers to keep the waistline together too which I came across following up on Hazmat's suggestion.

Hoping to get the printing up and running soon so that I can move away from the drawing board and make this a progress thread.

But yeah, still a lot of thought to go into faceshells and lenses but that can come later.

Big thanks for all the feedback so far.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Sounds intriguing, am curious to see how it works out for you. are you uploading progress at all? I'm personally hoping to avoid zippers, the thought of my hairy bod getting caught in them makes me cringe.

Unfortunately, no I am not uploading any progress. I'm just really bad at keeping things up to date :lol However I could show you some pictures of where I'm currently at when my camera finishes charging.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Alright man. So as you can see here, I have the wrist zippers. One on each side.




And down here, you can see the separating waist zipper.



And here's what it looks like from the front (not quite finished though)


And the back side:



And over here, you can see how the T-Zip system works. In the space between the start and end of the waist zip, an invisible zipper was added and it should do up until just below the back spider



Obviously you'll need a neck zipper, so you can catch your breath when it gets too hot.


I've only started doing the legs. I have the two out of six pieces of the legs, plus the crotch. Currently puffy painting the other leg parts.


a closer look at the puffy paint:



And finally, here's the zippers being added to the crotch area.




Don't worry man, I worry too about body hair being caught. But the simplest solution would be to wear an undershirt. I hope this helps you

 

[Radium]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Alright man. ... I hope this helps you

That's looking pretty sweet. Thanks for sharing, it has certainly given me a lot of insight into the zipper route so is worth considering.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Glad to help. But if you'd rather have less zippers to worry about, you could definitely go with the U-zip system. Although I'd still consider adding the wrist zips and crotch zippers. Very convenient.

 

[GF]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

way too many zippers for no reason, breaks the flow of the slick design, even if the zippers are invisible you will still see were they are as they will create some wrinkles and stress points. U style zipper is the best design and reason it was used for the movie suits.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

way too many zippers for no reason, breaks the flow of the slick design, even if the zippers are invisible you will still see were they are as they will create some wrinkles and stress points. U style zipper is the best design and reason it was used for the movie suits.

I think in the end, it all comes down to personal preference and whatever's most convenient for you. The last suit I made had the U-Zip system. And it was a real challenge when I had to go to the bathroom. I'm adding more zippers onto this suit to follow exactly how they designed the Amazing Spider-Man 2 suit, because I don't think they'd add that much zippers if it wasn't that hard to get into. All of my zipper placements are accurate, except for the removable boot zippers which I will add for my comfort.

And by the way, they only used the U-zip for the Raimi suits. TASM had a different variation of the U-zip. And TASM2 was the first to use the T-zip.

 

[GF]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

To be honest I'm not a fan of the TASM suits so I have no idea how many style zippers it has never bothered to research it, I prefer the Rami suits with the more athletic muscular body in fact I have two of them, the most common question I get from people is how the hell do I get in the suit as they can't see any zippers, like I said when I see visible zippers on a Spidey suit its a complete turn off for me.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

To be honest I'm not a fan of the TASM suits so I have no idea how many style zippers it has never bothered to research it, I prefer the Rami suits with the more athletic muscular body in fact I have two of them, the most common question I get from people is how the hell do I get in the suit as they can't see any zippers, like I said when I see visible zippers on a Spidey suit its a complete turn off for me.

I personally love the TASM2 suit, although I was supposed to make a Raimi suit for my second suit. However, my body is not bulky and as muscular as yours, so I went with a TASM 2 which had a slimmer look. Great looking suit btw! Looks like it's ripped out from the movies. But like I said, it all comes down to personal preference. I had a hard time getting into my last suit, so I'm trying out different zipper styles. So hopefully, this one is easier to get into.

 

[Radium]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Okay, so I've been dabbling with bits and bobs over the last 3 weeks and can officially say that I have gotten the ball rolling.

First off, making sure I've got the appropriate credits rolled out to those that need them, as previously mentioned I purchased one of Orhadar's print files from Gun Head Design and it looks amazing. I've managed to get it printed onto fabric by a company called L&S Prints based out of Yorkshire in the British Midlands and the print looks great. Whilst the printing was in progress, I also started to dabble with Face Shells, to which I owe thanks to Gimpee for his pepakura paper unfold.

So, First bit of proper hands on work was the Face Shell. Using Gimpee's paper unfold and a couple of cereal boxes I spent the better part of 6 evenings cutting and sellotaping the cardboard together. The first evening's work is the top right photo from the collage below where I managed to cut and form the 3 sections to form half of the forehead of the shell. A couple more evenings and I had the whole of the top of the head finished before finally needing a couple more evenings to complete the shell. It was originally, purely a practice run to see how it'd work out but actually fits and came out OK. Since the pictures have been taken I've given it a couple of layers of PVA just to hold it together as the sellotape didn't look like it was going to hold long term. As it fits I'm weighing up using it as a base for something more durable like fibre-glass or something as well as my original intention of using EVA foam (Probably using JFcustom's foam unfold which was in the same thread as Gimpee's paper unfold.)



Today I started playing around with Tulip Dimensional Paints. Where I had to re-position components of Orhadar's pattern file to fit L&S Prints' printing area I had a bit of space left over so just copied and pasted some of the red webbing sections and blue brick work into retangular practice squares. My first run was to get used to the feel of using dimensional paint as well as deciding upon colours for the actual suit. One thing I had noticed when looking at tulip's paints online is I could never stumble across results of the different types of paints they sold so was having to go off of peoples recommendations alone. (It was a tad confusing when people were talking about puff painting but using Tulip's "slick" paints instead of their "puffy" paints).

So for that specific reason I'm attaching my decision making picture collage below in case if helps anyone else in future.



So with the above, the Left hand column is the Tulip Slick Black paint and the right is the Metallic Black paint. The top row is photos with the flash on and the bottom without flash. I love the contrast that the Slick paint has to the red. Where as I love how shiny the metallic paint is. It's a bit greyer than the slick paint, and feels more like the Raimi costume. So I'm currently deciding between slightly shiny with high contrast or super shiny grey.

The photos were taking immediately after applying the paint to the fabric so I'm also holding out for them to dry in case they change much once settled. I'll edit the results into this post tomorrow in case they take longer than the quoted 4 hours to dry.

Hoping later in the week to speak to a seamstress to see what their thoughts are in regards to making it multi part. Still can't decide on 7, 5, 3, or 2 peices or just saying screw it and sticking to the one peice (Toilet breaks be damned!)
I'm currently at the point of thinking 7 would be great, but I could live with 3, with a split at the waits and neck lines.

 

[mrush]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

And finally, here's the zippers being added to the crotch area.
View attachment 495725

I'm in process of building a suit myself, and contemplating which zippers I want. Do you have a picture with the pants on? I'm curious to see how the crotch zippers turned out, and how much emphasis they give on that area.

 

[Radium]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

Do you have a picture with the pants on? I'm curious to see how the crotch zippers turned out, and how much emphasis they give on that area.

I'm following Matt's forum post myself, he hasn't uploaded any snaps of completed pants yet so I'm not sure how far off he'll be from being able to answer that question. But the post is currently on the main page page of the Marvel section. I'm still leaning towards a non-zipper approach myself.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

I'm in process of building a suit myself, and contemplating which zippers I want. Do you have a picture with the pants on? I'm curious to see how the crotch zippers turned out, and how much emphasis they give on that area.

Here you go. In my opinion, it's not super noticeable as you have a lot of seamlines along with the suit.

 

[maffhewdc]

Re: Spider-man costume curiosities

So I've started progress which will be running from post #16 on-wards and fingers corssed it should be frequent. One quick question though, is it possible to edit the title of a forum thread here? Can't see a way to add "- Now with Progress?" to the end, maybe I'm not looking hard enough?

You can click edit on the first post, hit the more options button and it should take you to a page where you can edit the title.