Work in Progress: "New" Batgirl and Nightwing

[Gaz]

Hi everyone,

I'm taking a break from Iron Man builds (see my previous build posts for my last four suits) and deciding to take on something different.

Inspired by the release of the concept art for the new-look Batgirl, my wife is now setting about building the new style costume:

Her plan is to stay as true to the above pictures as possible in terms of garments and materials. She has already sourced the jacket, pants and boots, and the rest is going to be home-sewn. I'll be building the cowl based on my knowledge of foam building.

I myself, to complement her for conventions, will be working on a Nightwing costume. As the new Batgirl design is very much "real world", I'm going to be designing my own version of Nightwing along the same lines. It's going to be armoured and feature electronics, but in a much more "Dick Grayson can build this thing at home and not borrow a batcave" style.

I'll post work in progress photos soon, but would imagine to finish them both within a month or so. Stay tuned!

 

[The_Mike]

I'd love to see the recipe for her costume. My wife absolutely loves it and wants to do this too. Any help with the cowl would be appreciated too since we're both pretty new. Excited to see what comes of it!

 

[Gaz]

Today we've made some progress with Sarah's Batgirl outfit (I'm at a standstill for the minute as I'm waiting for a main component to turn up with a long shipping date).



Everything is a little rough right now as we are in the prototyping stages. We managed to source a blue leather biker style jacket through good ol' Amazon, as there was no way either of us had the skill levels to make one, particularly for the price we managed to get the jacket for. We're both pleased at the resemblance to the artwork, and we would have spent literally forever failing to find an exact colour match, which frankly doesn't matter. Today we picked up a press-stud (popper) kit from a local haberdashers, and we'll be installing the shoulder poppers for the cape later tonight (not pictured).

We have a cheap pair of dark blue leggings also on the way, and these will need to be modified with the matt black stripe down the sides of the legs, and this will need to be same material as the exterior of the cape.

The white bat symbol in the photo is obviously only the card template, but we are still debating whether to use yellow leather or PVC for this, the gloves, the cape interior and belts.

Sarah has mocked up the gloves today from scratch (a nightmare, I understand), but she now has a template ready to build as and when.

We've done some digging around and have some yellow Doc Marten boots on order right now, and they should arrive next week. These look exactly like the ones that the artist had in mind when designing the outfit. Interesting, and FYI for anyone looking at getting some too, a local shoe shop told us that the yellow colour is being discontinued this season, and they are selling out fast...

As for the cowl, the one in the photo is a custom foam build that I made today. At the heart of it lies a heavily modified pep file for the Captain America helmet that can be found elsewhere on here. After trying it on, Sarah has decided that she wants to card pep / resin the cowl, just to literally smooth out the harsh edges of the foam.

So that's it for today! Lot of progress, but that is sure to slow down over the next few weeks. Hopefully I can make some advancement on Nightwing soon too!

 

[Htofstead]

My advice and this is just me hating foam built cowls. But I would suggest you spend the cash and buy a batgirl Reevez FX cowl and just modify it to look like the one in the photos above. But that's just my advice. But I do love this new batgirl and want to make one for my oldest daughter for Halloween 2015 or 16.

 

[Htofstead]

For the bat logo on the jacket I would personally sew either yellow leather bat on the chest or go all urban rough and spray paint/air brush a yellow bat since that is what I feel she would have done with her outfit.

 

[Billzebub]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TheMogan-Fa...t=US_Womens_Leggings&var=&hash=item4619dbe165

 

[Htofstead]

Dude those are perfect. But I thought her pants were suppose to be leather? Either way these work just as well

 

[King of Kittens]

I love the new batgirl design. I'd do it but im a dude....

 

[Gaz]

Thanks for the replies regarding the pants. I've read a couple of different articles on the design process undertaken by the artists, and they state that the pants are leggings. As for the material, there is no actual mention. I concede that I think leather would be ideal, but colour matching the jacket would be a nightmare, as well as the likely cost of real leather. As it stands I've ordered something very similar to the eBay link, but I may fall back on those should my order not live up to expectations.

We've now ordered the yellow leather, so yes, the bat symbol and everything else will be leather. I like the idea of the yellow spraypaint for the symbol, but Sarah wants the jacket to look convincing as a "real world" jacket that she could wear beyond the cosplay. The leather panelling will hopefully just look like something similar to a motorcycle jacket to the untrained eye.

 

[Htofstead]

Well i can't wait to see the final results. I have a feeling a crap load of ladies out there are jumping on this one. Like the post above, I be all over this if I was a lady. But lucky for me I have two daughters that I can design this for. But I will wait until next Halloween or the year after.

 

[Htofstead]

So I am wondering cause I have seen different images of the new batgirl. Is her suit black or purple? Or a dark grey?

 

[DarthStevenus]

Purple, from what I've seen.

 

[runnothide]

Do you happen to have a link for the jacket? It looks super close.
Thanks,
Brandon.

 

[Htofstead]

Not sure if this is the same jacket that was used in the above image but here is an awesome link for one that i feel is pretty damn close. And there are color options too.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=200938732377

 

[runnothide]

I cant tell if the suit is supposed to be purple or dark blue -- any thoughts?

 

[bh1138]

Definitely looks blue to me. May have just a hint of purple to it, but mostly blue.

 

[DarthStevenus]

I figured it's supposed to be purple, but I guess a lot of people think differently. It's probably right in that middle ground between purple and blue.

 

[bh1138]

Well, the day of the announcement I saw 2 official pieces of art. In this one, her phone case looks purple, and the costume is definitely something different. If it is purple, it's a shade that's heavy on the blue.

 

[Billzebub]

Slate gray?

 

[Gaz]

I'll chime in here and side with the blue team. We bought the dark blue variant of the eBay jacket, as pictured, simply because it was going to be a nightmare colour matching a purple tone
The purple jacket on sale is more the 60s batgirl colour than anything else. I can say that in the flesh, and in daylight, our blue leather is a very nice tone.

We now have the boots, and will post further photos once the leather turns up.