curtinparloe
New Member
I started work on the Zapp outfit in about August, and it was pretty slow going, mainly due to other things getting on the way. Before I knew it, London MCM was on the horizon and I wasn't ready, so I got stuck in.
You can tell from this reference that the shoulder pieces are cones, rather than wedges, so I decided to have them all the way around (thinner under the armpit).
The boot were a disaster. I bought some Plasticote garden furniture spray, as I figured it would be flexible enough for the rubber. The problem was the drying time. It was supposed to be an hour to touch dry.
This is from the newspaper it fell over onto three days after spraying. It stuck fast on the journey down, so I ended up buying some basic white primer and spraying over the top, just to make them usable. The newspaper has started to peel off now, eventually I'll be able to do a respray.
I decided to use real velour (naturally), which made things interesting. Some of it is machine-sewn, some by hand. I made the shoulders and epaulets out of foam and decided on gold velour to cover them.
This is the neck piece, showing the press-studs. The original intention was to have the neck join at the back, but I just ran out of time and threw it on. I also sewed the tips of the epaulets onto the neck piece, which was alright, but didn't work as well as I'd hoped.
As you can see, the stitching is a mess. It was too hard to machine around the shoulders, so it had to be hand stitched. The velour had a tendency to curl in on itself at the edges, so even lining it up became an adventure. It didn't help that I abandoned the template I'd made almost immediately, and ended up having to restitch along seams to fix low shoulders.
It was done enough for London, anyway. The gloves were Tig Welding gloves, the belt was my own, and I added a cheap ray gun for modesty - it was always meant to be as short as possible! The pouches were whatever I had floating around, and I had a little diary in a holster at the back - Zapp's Little Black Book Of Pick-Up Lines.
London went okay, but so many seams burst it was covered in safety pins. Also, I'd forgotten to cut a neck oval, so the press-studs kept popping open.
This is Birmingham. The night before I made all the running repairs - restitching the armpits, attaching the epaulets at both ends, and cutting (and hemming) an oval for the neck. The press-studs didn't keep popping, and the general fit was better.
The next version (eventually) will have a doop patch, and be a little tighter, and a lot more even. I'm toying with the idea of doing a JJ Abrahms-style reimagining of the outfit.
You can tell from this reference that the shoulder pieces are cones, rather than wedges, so I decided to have them all the way around (thinner under the armpit).
The boot were a disaster. I bought some Plasticote garden furniture spray, as I figured it would be flexible enough for the rubber. The problem was the drying time. It was supposed to be an hour to touch dry.
This is from the newspaper it fell over onto three days after spraying. It stuck fast on the journey down, so I ended up buying some basic white primer and spraying over the top, just to make them usable. The newspaper has started to peel off now, eventually I'll be able to do a respray.
I decided to use real velour (naturally), which made things interesting. Some of it is machine-sewn, some by hand. I made the shoulders and epaulets out of foam and decided on gold velour to cover them.
This is the neck piece, showing the press-studs. The original intention was to have the neck join at the back, but I just ran out of time and threw it on. I also sewed the tips of the epaulets onto the neck piece, which was alright, but didn't work as well as I'd hoped.
As you can see, the stitching is a mess. It was too hard to machine around the shoulders, so it had to be hand stitched. The velour had a tendency to curl in on itself at the edges, so even lining it up became an adventure. It didn't help that I abandoned the template I'd made almost immediately, and ended up having to restitch along seams to fix low shoulders.
It was done enough for London, anyway. The gloves were Tig Welding gloves, the belt was my own, and I added a cheap ray gun for modesty - it was always meant to be as short as possible! The pouches were whatever I had floating around, and I had a little diary in a holster at the back - Zapp's Little Black Book Of Pick-Up Lines.
London went okay, but so many seams burst it was covered in safety pins. Also, I'd forgotten to cut a neck oval, so the press-studs kept popping open.
This is Birmingham. The night before I made all the running repairs - restitching the armpits, attaching the epaulets at both ends, and cutting (and hemming) an oval for the neck. The press-studs didn't keep popping, and the general fit was better.
The next version (eventually) will have a doop patch, and be a little tighter, and a lot more even. I'm toying with the idea of doing a JJ Abrahms-style reimagining of the outfit.
