Sandman0077
Sr Member
Holy crap this is going to be amazing.
-The Truth is Out There-
-The Truth is Out There-
Vash the Stampede
- Thread starter MrGreene
- Start date
MrGreene
Well-Known Member
Alright, I got some new materials, so here's the whole happy little group:
Four full goat hides, six yards of heavy cotton (with special thanks to the ridiculously cute fabric store girl who got me a 92% discount!), 48 correctly sized shank buttons, and enough spandex to make two whole bodysuits, just in case.
The spandex has sort of a luster that gives it really cool color properties. I haven't taken any good daylight photos yet, but the color seems to be just about perfect on camera from what I can tell.
If anything ends up being too dark or saturated, I'm toying with the idea of letting it sit outside for a day or two to give it that nice sunbleached, worn-in-the-desert-for-100-years look, but that comes later.
Next week is go-time for the undersuit, and since I've got just over 10 weeks to go before my deadline, things are looking good!
Four full goat hides, six yards of heavy cotton (with special thanks to the ridiculously cute fabric store girl who got me a 92% discount!), 48 correctly sized shank buttons, and enough spandex to make two whole bodysuits, just in case.
The spandex has sort of a luster that gives it really cool color properties. I haven't taken any good daylight photos yet, but the color seems to be just about perfect on camera from what I can tell.
If anything ends up being too dark or saturated, I'm toying with the idea of letting it sit outside for a day or two to give it that nice sunbleached, worn-in-the-desert-for-100-years look, but that comes later.
Next week is go-time for the undersuit, and since I've got just over 10 weeks to go before my deadline, things are looking good!
Extimorous
Active Member
These are amazing.
Nth
Sr Member
Very very awesome. I was just thinking that if you get the Abbyshot Vash duster, they will actually modify the coat with a zipper on the arm to detach the sleeve to allow for the cybernetic arm to show.
MrGreene
Well-Known Member
I started the undersuit this week, so it's time to bust out my custom-made Stand-O-Tron 5000:
(It apparently suffers a rare psychological affliction. There are dozens of them. Dozens!)
I decided to cut out the leather sections first to use them as a base form for the spandex. It's going to be interesting getting everything sewn together, but hopefully not too tedious.
To be honest, this is only the second time I've even used this mannequin for pattern making, and it turned out WAY better than I expected.
I bought the cheapest whitish muslin I could find, and after a day or so of checking proportional measurements with the concept art, I ended up with a useable pattern that's perfectly proportional to little ol' 6-foot-tall me (since Vash is over 7'10" tall).
(by the time I got to taking photos, I had already done the legs)
I cut out all the upper leather pieces and managed to get by with only using two goat hides for the entire undersuit! Yay geometry!
I dyed all five pieces using the same process as with the arm sleeve and sewed everything together with ultra-heavy-duty thread.
At this point, the legs fit fine, but the upper half was just a little too tight. Now, garment-weight goatskin gets very stretchy when wet, so I did what any sensible man would do and stood in the shower wearing my new ultra-tight sexy leather vest (sorry ladies, no photos).
After a few minutes of asking even more passersby if they'd seen my beach ball, the leather was perfectly formed to my body, and I stretched it out over my mannequin to dry in shape:
So that's the undersuit so far. I left a 3/4" allowance along each edge, since the edges are folded around and sewn in on themselves.
I'll also do a writeup on the gun belt / holster when they're done.
I can't finish the spandex parts until my zipper is delivered next week, so I decided to go ahead and start on what might be the most time-consuming part of everything: dat needle noggin.
I've searched the web for months and months trying to find a wig that's useable for Vash's all-up spikey hairdo, and in all my travels I've found exactly ONE that will work: Arda Wigs sells a medium-length lace-front version of their Jareth wig, which they call the Morpheus. The color is Dark Ash Blonde.
For those that don't know, wigs have rows of hair fiber called wefts sewn into them, and cheap wigs are made with just a few of these wefts, all sewn down facing the edge of the wig. That's why when you try to spike a normal wig, it looks like crap and you can see the fabric base at the hairline. The Morpheus wig is made with 3x to 4x the wefts, for extra volume, and they're all sewn in facing up instead of down, for maximum spiking power. It's also a lace-front wig.
Lace front wigs are different in that, while they can still use wefts for the upper scalp area, the edges are made of a super-fine lace with individual hairs tied through each hole with a process known as ventilating.
(exhibit A: tiny-ass ventilating hook/needle, with Abe to scale)
When pulled back, the hairline looks natural, even from just a foot or two away if done right. The fewer hairs used at a time, the better it looks. Wigs used in films are often completely lace, ventilated one hair at a time so they can look completely real even from a few inches away.
Guess which technique I'm going with...
Now, the Morpheus, being a lace-front wig, is designed to have hair added to it in a custom hairline along the front, which for most styles looks fine:
The default wig does, however, come with a super-lame flat hairline, and Vash's hair is spiked up all around, not just along the front.
Solution: turn the lace-front wig into a completely lace-edged wig. No big deal, all I had to do was carefully cut the seams of all the edge-wefts and rip apart my crazy-expensive new wig.
And so, with a single manly tear, I took a razor to it, ripped off all the edges, and rebuilt it better than it was before by sewing in the extra lace that was cut off the front edge. The edge wefts were then sewn back on facing upwards like the rest of the wefts so they can be perma-spiked.
Here you can see how thick the hair is with the doubled-up wefts:
Basically, the process is pretty simple: start at the innermost edge of the lace, tie in a couple hairs, move down one or two fibers of lace, repeat as necessary until you can no longer see the sewn edge of the weft. Here's an example from the back:
..yeah, it takes a long time. For example: the square inch in the above photo took about an hour.
I spent a couple of days working on the front hairline to make it match the concept art. It's much better now than it was out of the box, but it's still got a LOT of work to go before it's ready for cutting and styling.
The extra lace you see is just to be safe and will all be cut off once the hairline is finished.
After that, I'll sew in the rest of the extra wefts I bought to add more volume to the back, which is still a bit lacking.
Chances are I'll be working on this part on and off while I work on everything else. For any of you who've made chainmaille, it's a similar sort of monotony, but literally 100x more tedious and time-consuming.
Worth it? You bet.
(It apparently suffers a rare psychological affliction. There are dozens of them. Dozens!)
I decided to cut out the leather sections first to use them as a base form for the spandex. It's going to be interesting getting everything sewn together, but hopefully not too tedious.
To be honest, this is only the second time I've even used this mannequin for pattern making, and it turned out WAY better than I expected.
I bought the cheapest whitish muslin I could find, and after a day or so of checking proportional measurements with the concept art, I ended up with a useable pattern that's perfectly proportional to little ol' 6-foot-tall me (since Vash is over 7'10" tall).
(by the time I got to taking photos, I had already done the legs)
I cut out all the upper leather pieces and managed to get by with only using two goat hides for the entire undersuit! Yay geometry!
I dyed all five pieces using the same process as with the arm sleeve and sewed everything together with ultra-heavy-duty thread.
At this point, the legs fit fine, but the upper half was just a little too tight. Now, garment-weight goatskin gets very stretchy when wet, so I did what any sensible man would do and stood in the shower wearing my new ultra-tight sexy leather vest (sorry ladies, no photos).
After a few minutes of asking even more passersby if they'd seen my beach ball, the leather was perfectly formed to my body, and I stretched it out over my mannequin to dry in shape:
So that's the undersuit so far. I left a 3/4" allowance along each edge, since the edges are folded around and sewn in on themselves.
I'll also do a writeup on the gun belt / holster when they're done.
I can't finish the spandex parts until my zipper is delivered next week, so I decided to go ahead and start on what might be the most time-consuming part of everything: dat needle noggin.
I've searched the web for months and months trying to find a wig that's useable for Vash's all-up spikey hairdo, and in all my travels I've found exactly ONE that will work: Arda Wigs sells a medium-length lace-front version of their Jareth wig, which they call the Morpheus. The color is Dark Ash Blonde.
For those that don't know, wigs have rows of hair fiber called wefts sewn into them, and cheap wigs are made with just a few of these wefts, all sewn down facing the edge of the wig. That's why when you try to spike a normal wig, it looks like crap and you can see the fabric base at the hairline. The Morpheus wig is made with 3x to 4x the wefts, for extra volume, and they're all sewn in facing up instead of down, for maximum spiking power. It's also a lace-front wig.
Lace front wigs are different in that, while they can still use wefts for the upper scalp area, the edges are made of a super-fine lace with individual hairs tied through each hole with a process known as ventilating.
(exhibit A: tiny-ass ventilating hook/needle, with Abe to scale)
When pulled back, the hairline looks natural, even from just a foot or two away if done right. The fewer hairs used at a time, the better it looks. Wigs used in films are often completely lace, ventilated one hair at a time so they can look completely real even from a few inches away.
Guess which technique I'm going with...
Now, the Morpheus, being a lace-front wig, is designed to have hair added to it in a custom hairline along the front, which for most styles looks fine:
The default wig does, however, come with a super-lame flat hairline, and Vash's hair is spiked up all around, not just along the front.
Solution: turn the lace-front wig into a completely lace-edged wig. No big deal, all I had to do was carefully cut the seams of all the edge-wefts and rip apart my crazy-expensive new wig.
And so, with a single manly tear, I took a razor to it, ripped off all the edges, and rebuilt it better than it was before by sewing in the extra lace that was cut off the front edge. The edge wefts were then sewn back on facing upwards like the rest of the wefts so they can be perma-spiked.
Here you can see how thick the hair is with the doubled-up wefts:
Basically, the process is pretty simple: start at the innermost edge of the lace, tie in a couple hairs, move down one or two fibers of lace, repeat as necessary until you can no longer see the sewn edge of the weft. Here's an example from the back:
..yeah, it takes a long time. For example: the square inch in the above photo took about an hour.
I spent a couple of days working on the front hairline to make it match the concept art. It's much better now than it was out of the box, but it's still got a LOT of work to go before it's ready for cutting and styling.
The extra lace you see is just to be safe and will all be cut off once the hairline is finished.
After that, I'll sew in the rest of the extra wefts I bought to add more volume to the back, which is still a bit lacking.
Chances are I'll be working on this part on and off while I work on everything else. For any of you who've made chainmaille, it's a similar sort of monotony, but literally 100x more tedious and time-consuming.
Worth it? You bet.
Last edited:
Dude. You made boots. YOU MADE BOOTS!
That is freakin' awesome.
That is freakin' awesome.
MrGreene
Well-Known Member
Quick update: undersuit test fit success! At this point, it's about 3/4 done.
Taking selfies with no mirror and poor lighting is hard. Also, I really need to shave.
Spandex is surprisingly forgiving and easy to sew without a serger, as long as you use a good stretch stitch. I learned that the pants are designed after buckskin riding breeches, and as such they don't have an inseam.
I still need to sew on the leggings, chest/back pads, and straps/belt before cleaning up the seams. Then I'll do a full-body fit test and start the kneepads and lower-leggings.
Taking selfies with no mirror and poor lighting is hard. Also, I really need to shave.
Spandex is surprisingly forgiving and easy to sew without a serger, as long as you use a good stretch stitch. I learned that the pants are designed after buckskin riding breeches, and as such they don't have an inseam.
I still need to sew on the leggings, chest/back pads, and straps/belt before cleaning up the seams. Then I'll do a full-body fit test and start the kneepads and lower-leggings.
Sandman0077
Sr Member
How hot is that undersuit? All that leather is going to give you a heatstroke lol!
Can't deny the awesomeness though. Pretty sure you are the first to do a legitimate complete quality Vash.
-The Truth is Out There-
Can't deny the awesomeness though. Pretty sure you are the first to do a legitimate complete quality Vash.
-The Truth is Out There-
MrGreene
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I was worried about that at first, but the goatskin is so thin and the spandex breathes so well that it's actually super comfortable.
Really high humidity might be a little uncomfortable, but I'll find out at Dragon Con.
CoffinKnail
New Member
Wow your attention to detail and crafting it all custom, this is amazing. I love Vash you are doing and insanely awesome job!
MrGreene
Well-Known Member
How about some gloves?
It really bothered me that I've never seen anyone do the gloves right. I went straight from the concept art for these by scaling the detailed closeup to my hand:
View attachment hand patch pattern.jpg
I spent a little time learning how to make tight-fitting glove patterns, and after three revisions and a fabric test-glove, I ended up with the final patterns:
The trick to making gloves is to use the thinnest leather possible, and it has to have some stretch to it. Before cutting out the pieces, I wetted and pre-stretched the goatskin to keep the stretch constant.
After that, it was just a matter of sewing together the thumbs, fingers, fourchettes, and sides, then flipping everything inside out and adding some neatsfoot oil (oh, the neatsfoot oil!)
Fits like a... well, glove.
I left the gloves a little long, since the cuffs appear to be rolled up. This actually adds tension to keep them tight below the wrist.
For the patches on the back (which are there to cover some awesome scars), I used the scaled art as a pattern.
I cut the patch pieces out of a different hide that had a rougher texture for contrast. I also added the lines by folding them wet and giving them a couple solid whacks with a hammer. Sew the edges, rivet them on, and voila!
(yes, both gloves are there, but photos...)
Like so many other parts, they're at about 90%. I'm waiting on some brass tubing to arrive so I can cut out the finger rings, and I'm debating whether to dye the inside of the cuffs or to just oil-darken them.
Either way, I really want to wear them everywhere
It really bothered me that I've never seen anyone do the gloves right. I went straight from the concept art for these by scaling the detailed closeup to my hand:
View attachment hand patch pattern.jpg
I spent a little time learning how to make tight-fitting glove patterns, and after three revisions and a fabric test-glove, I ended up with the final patterns:
The trick to making gloves is to use the thinnest leather possible, and it has to have some stretch to it. Before cutting out the pieces, I wetted and pre-stretched the goatskin to keep the stretch constant.
After that, it was just a matter of sewing together the thumbs, fingers, fourchettes, and sides, then flipping everything inside out and adding some neatsfoot oil (oh, the neatsfoot oil!)
Fits like a... well, glove.
I left the gloves a little long, since the cuffs appear to be rolled up. This actually adds tension to keep them tight below the wrist.
For the patches on the back (which are there to cover some awesome scars), I used the scaled art as a pattern.
I cut the patch pieces out of a different hide that had a rougher texture for contrast. I also added the lines by folding them wet and giving them a couple solid whacks with a hammer. Sew the edges, rivet them on, and voila!
(yes, both gloves are there, but photos...)
Like so many other parts, they're at about 90%. I'm waiting on some brass tubing to arrive so I can cut out the finger rings, and I'm debating whether to dye the inside of the cuffs or to just oil-darken them.
Either way, I really want to wear them everywhere
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