Young Justice Doctor Fate Costume

[BooDoesArt]

Hi everyone! I’m Boo, I’m a new member here on the forums but a longtime stalker of theRPF. I figured since I’m almost done my first build I finally have a reason to join and make a thread. This is my first journey into prop making and costuming so obviously it’s not perfect but so far I’m pretty happy with the results. I chose Doctor Fate because he’s one of my favorite comic book heroes and there aren’t enough cosplays of him. I really loved the design they went with in the Young Justice show so I tried to get my costume as close to that version as possible. Now I am a girl, so I could’ve gone with the Zatanna version since she does put on the helmet in the show, but there were a few costume changes between the female and male versions and I personally liked the high collar on the male version. Plus my hair is pretty short and I didn’t want to get a wig just to be Zatanna Fate. I actually started working on this in the hopes of wearing the costume to Megacon 2015 but I was still working on my undergrad degree and school just got in the way so now I’ll be premiering the costume at Megacon 2016.





The first thing I started with was the helmet. It’s one of the most crucial parts of the costume and I figured it would take the longest. I decided pepakura was the way to go so I downloaded just about every pep file of the helmet I could get my hands on. I started by making Dung0beetle’s Helmet of Fate but it was way too small and I wasn’t in love with some aspects of it so I decided to forgo scaling it up and instead turned to a JFCustom pep that was moved by Blaxmyth. This thing ended up being huge (maybe it fits larger, masculine heads?) but it was something I could work with. I decided to do some major edits to the helmet starting with cutting off a lot of the front and back which were just too long for my face. The eyes were well below where my eyes actually are and they were a bit big for my taste so they got an edit. The mohawk part was now to big for the helmet so it was cut down a bit. Finally I played with the cheeks some to give them a nice flare.





Of course now it was time to do the fiberglassing. I got a bit heavy handed with my initial coats of fiberglass and the helmet warped in some areas. I didn’t notice until it came time to do the Bondo but I was able to fill those areas in with a bit more Bondo and with the way this costume works no-one will be able to see it. It’s definitely something I’ll be more careful with in the future. Sanding and applying Bondo was obviously the most time consuming step. As I said earlier, I had hoped to have this costume done long before now but I had to stop working on it for almost a year because my degree program was so involved. Anyhow, now that I’ve graduated I’ve had plenty of time to start working on it again. I finally got the shape right and then proceeded the prime and fill in small spots with filler putty. I swear I’ve gone through four or five cans of primer just building it up and sanding it down. I hope that’s normal. I had a lot of problems with the primer coming out really gritty and rough and I’m not sure what the problem is there.




I finally was able to achieve a nice finish and then began using super fine grit sand paper. I wet sanded at one point but was happier with the results from dry sanding. The primer was getting a really nice shine which is probably the best feeling in the world because I really didn’t think it was possible. There were still a few little areas that weren’t perfect but we’re only a couple weeks away from the con and I didn’t want to mess with it just incase something bad happened. I decided to pray to the spray paint gods that the gold spray paint I bought would fill in those little imperfections. For the most part it worked. The first coat showed every single flaw in the helmet but as I built up coats most of them went away.


So this is that first coat, you can see all the rough areas. To the touch those areas feel as smooth as the rest of the helmet so I wasn't sure how to fix that.




The final result came out ok, most of those rough parts are gone.


So I think right now I’m going to end this post here. The rest of the costume is about 80% done, my mom has been amazing in helping me do all the fabric parts because I have no idea how to sew. I’ll be posting those parts soon.


I do have a few questions regarding the helmet. I’ve heard that some people do a layer of self setting resin over sanded primer to get a really smooth finish. Is this ok to do over Bondo? Any recommendations for which one? I have no intentions of doing this before the con but it would be awesome to be able to do this for future projects.


I have a bit of a problem with the gold spray paint I’m using. It’s so nice and golden that it picks up finger and hand prints and has that “oil spill” effect. Not sure how to describe it but it’s very noticeable and I can take pictures of it if necessary. I let the paint dry a few days before handling it but I guess I should have worn gloves. I haven’t put any top coat on the helmet because I was afraid of changing the color and the finish. I tried putting a glossy clear coat over a test piece and it looked really bad. Any suggestions?


Thanks for reading, I apologize for the gigantic post. Hopefully all my images load up here, again I'm new here so hopefully I did this correctly. I appreciate any feedback!

 

[Klybern]

This is awesome!! Doctor fate is the bees knees. Your helmet is amazing well done buddy

 

[spydrwebz]

Great job on the helmet!

That oil spill effect is due to silicon and oils on the surface of the paint. They way to fix it is to wash the helmet really well with good old dawn dish washing detergent, then rough it up with a scotch brite pad under running water. It will dull the finish down quite a bit. Keeping sanding with the scotch brite pad until the shiny areas are all uniformly dull.

Then use a tack cloth on it after its dried.

Go over it a time or two if you have too, then spray it with the gold again.

If youve been thorough the oil-spill effect will be gone entirely.

You can then finish up with clear acrylic or urethane over the gold if youre looking for high gloss or satin if youre looking for a duller finish.

 

[BooDoesArt]

Thanks Klybern and spydrwebz for your comments

So I didn't see your post until after but I actually had the idea of washing the helmet with dish soap and it did remove some of the oil spill effect but not all. I then did another couple of light coats of gold just to cover it up so now the helmet needs to dry for awhile.

I read that using car wax or future floor wax can help seal the paint and prevent fingerprints. Any thoughts? Will definitely keep spydrwebz suggestion in mind, might wait until after the con to really mess with it. I'll just have anyone who wants to touch it put on gloves

 

[timelordjedi777]

Great helmet fantastic job. Would love to see it all together when it's finished

 

[BooDoesArt]

Alright so Megacon has come and past and I finally have some time to make another post plus I have tons of pictures. First off, I have to say Megacon was a complete blast. I only went in costume Saturday because I had to work the rest of the weekend but it was so awesome. I ended up entering into the costume contest and got an honorable mention from guest judge Alodia Gosiengfiao. I have to say, for my first costume, I’m super proud of what my mom and I managed to accomplish.

So a little preface: The helmet was made to look how I’ve always envisioned it looking. This is my idealized version of the helmet because I haven’t really seen any other helmets that I’m truly in love with except perhaps the DC Direct Helmet which is way out of my budget. The costume was made to match as closely as possible to the Young Justice show. With that in mind, some liberties were taken but not as many as you might think. When doing costumes from animation, you sometimes have to guess what the artist meant, especially with colors. For example, when looking at the gold body parts of the costume, the arms, legs, belt, and chest pieces appear to have two tones so to achieve this effect we used two different fabrics. We chose to use a shiny gold for the lighter golds and a more neutral gold pleather for the rest.


From here on out I’ll describe the making of the pieces in the order in which we made them. Starting with the cape, because like the helmet, this was critical to the costume being correct. We modified a full circle cape that already included a pattern for the high collar. A fusible interface was used to stiffen the collar (note that we didn’t fuse it because the gold fabric we used will not tolerate heat). These interfaces can be bought at most fabric stores and be sewn into parts to add thickness and stiffness. As I said, the original pattern was for a full circle cape that could close in the front but I didn’t want to deal with all the fabric so the pattern was cut at an angle starting from my chest to my sides. This gives the impression that the cape could close all the way in the front but in reality it doesn’t and can be easily pushed back behind my arms. I’m pretty short so the cape was cut to about my ankles so that it wouldn’t drag on the floor. We used a lining and top stitched the edges of the cape to make it drape properly. Buttons were attached to the cape and the chest piece to hold it in place.


I originally was looking into morph suits for my body suit but I still don’t understand how they expect girls to go to the restroom in those and I didn’t want to take off everything every time I had to go. Unfortunately they don’t make two piece body suits (that I saw, if they do please let me know) so we had to start from scratch. I originally bought a beautiful dark blue black fabric and we made a shirt and leggings. Unfortunately, the patterns we used weren’t fitting correctly and the fabric was far too thick and didn’t feel like it would breath. We ended up picking up a bamboo fabric and new patterns and these worked much better. We altered the leggings so that the waist would come up higher so that it would be covered by the belt. Stirrups were added to both leggings and shirt to keep the fabric from bunching up. Gold fabric was sewn to the leggings (I’m honestly not sure what you would call these pieces but they do appear attached to the legs in the show).


Obviously there was no pattern for the belt so I drew up some rough sketches of the belt on paper and then proceeded to wrap myself in plastic wrap and duct tape and using a sharpie I drew out my right front half knowing that the belt was symmetrical and I didn’t need to worry about the back because it would be covered by my cape. My mom was able to interpret all of these drawings and my duct tape monstrosity and make a pattern that she then quilted (again the interface was used to give the belt some thickness). Originally she wanted to use fabric all the way around the belt but I was a bit worried about the heat and I knew that neither of the gold fabrics breath very well so I suggested we velcro the back up and she created an amazing velcro corset that can be tightened. It worked out really well and gave a nice hourglass shape.

The chest piece was actually made from a leftover pattern from a shirt interface that happened to be the perfect size and shape. I drew up some sketches of how it should look and what lines should be where and just like with the belt, we ended up putting velcro straps in the back so my neck could breath.


The gloves and gauntlets were a bit tricky. I knew I wanted these as separate pieces so I could take the gloves off without having to take off the gauntlets. My mother tried to make the gloves three times but the patterns we bought weren’t fitting properly so she ended up buying a pair of cheap gold gloves online that somehow matched perfectly to the gold we already had (fyi, by the end of the con a lot of the gold had rubbed off the gloves leaving yellow spots everywhere). The gauntlets were made by wrapping plastic wrap and duct tape around my arm and drawing the pattern with sharpie. My mother used this to create a pattern. She used cording around the wrist to create that edged bevel. We put velcro near my wrists to close up the gauntlets.

For the shoes, we used laceless sneakers for a base and a boot cover pattern from a super girl costume. The same stiff fabric interface from the collar was used in the front of the legs to keep them standing up straight. The top back of the boot covers have elastic in them to keep them up and attached to my legs. Cording was added to the bottom of the boot covers so they could be pulled tight around the shoes. Industrial velcro was then added in three strips to the bottoms to keep the covers from coming up.

A lot of velcro and fabric tape was used to hold everything together but I suspect this happens in a lot of costumes. The medallions on the chest and belt were actually tap light covers that I spray painted and glued on.


Again I’m really happy with how this costume turned out but I think there’s a lot of room for improvement. I’d really like to find actual gold boots that I could add the tops too. If not, perhaps I could make boot covers from foam? I’d also like to recreate the belt, chest piece, and gauntlets from foam and worbla so I could get nice hard lines and edges. My mother is already planning to deconstruct the gloves we bought and recreate them from the nice gold fabric we have. I’ll be posting updates as I do them and I’m sure I’ll have questions about foam and worbla as I’ve never worked with them before.


Thanks for taking the time to read and post comments. I really appreciate any feedback you can give and will do my best to answer any questions you might have.



Here have a fun pic of Doctor Fate in a trash compactor.

 

[Vox]

Great job, Boo! And thanks for including such detailed descriptions of everything. I always like reading about the process, and at least one person who reads this will find something that will help them on a build of their own. Congrats on the honorable mention, as well!

 

[Boba Frett]

That helmet looks awesome,great build.