Netflix Daredevil - Red Suit WIP (Pic Heavy)

SMP Designs

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RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Hello all! Brand new project getting underway and I'm really excited about this one as it will also include the amazing cowl being made by GraphicJordan.

So, here we go...

Suits like this seem to be a big trend now - an 'armored' chest and torso section, with an undershirt that contains the sleeves and pants with a belt that covers the join at the waist. It's very similar to the patterns I made for the recent Captain America Age of Ultron suit. So, naturally, I decided to create a new block pattern based on that project to use for other costumes that are similar.
I began with the block and created a mock up of the torso 'vest' and the undershirt in white and started sketching out the seams based on my reference library for the suit.

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I'd like to take a moment here to address something that I've gotten questions about in the past. Looking closely at the front picture above, it's clear that, the way the new seams will work, there would be a dart right in the middle of the chest inset.

daredevil-pattern-1.jpg


Obviously, I don't want a dart running through the middle of this inset, but I still want the contour in the chest piece that it creates. So, I need to move this dart. Here's how:

When the pieces are cut and laid flat, I get the the diagram below (not to scale). In the diagram, the dart is shown in the middle of the stripe in blue and is a 3/4" dart. What I then do is take that 3/4", move it to the top of the stripe, mark it and draw a line to the pivot point. This top section is then cut away.

daredevil-pattern-2.jpg


This serves two key purposes:

  1. It moves the dart out of the middle of the piece and places it on a seam line where it belongs
  2. It make the stripe a uniform width throughout, so it will look correct when 'armor' padded and finished (again, the diagram is not to scale).

With that edit made, the new pieces will look like this.

daredevil-pattern-3.jpg


This method does elongate the dart a bit but it's negligible and will not impact the shape enough to be a problem.

With the pattern altered, I was able to begin construction on the chest. I first stitched the two chest pieces together with the insets. Next, I cut the 'armor' pad for the black inset from 2mm craft foam (less the seam allowance) and spray mounted it in place.

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Each piece was then completely backed with a headliner foam pad and the topstitching around the inset was completed. Lastly, the center piece that attaches the two sides was sewn in.

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With the shell of the chest assembled, I moved on to the abs. There are a lot of small angles and edges to this section. I cut apart the mock up piece by piece and made my paper patterns. Then I cut the cordura and worked from the bottom up.

The center bottom and center top insets are backed with headliner foam so that they will have the padded look, but still have good flexibility and not be too restrictive. The front tabs for the buckles also needed to be incorporated at this point.

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The hardware will be added next to the torso and then the middle center and two side inset sections will be 'armor' padded with craft foam and all the backing and lining will be added to both the chest and abs.

Here's what the two sections look like together at this point.

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More to come, stay tuned!


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Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

Update time!

I needed to build in the rest of the under-structure and armor padding in the chest to make it more bulky and defined. I created both upper and lower templates for the pads. I then cut the upper pads from 2mm craft foam and the lower from 6mm foam.

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I cut the 6mm foam with a bevel so that it would have a nicer dimension when stitched into the layers. I removed the old 2mm foam from the lower chest section and added in the new pieces with Super77. I also added headliner foam padding to the center section to make it more substantial.

daredevil-vest-9.jpg


Next, I moved on to completing the abs area. Just like the chest, I made templates and cut 6mm beveled foam pads for the upper side insets and the center inset. The upper and lower center insets are already padded with a layer of headliner foam - so, they will have 2 layers of that when the piece is done. I added these in with Super77 and glued the entire piece down to a section of headliner foam.

daredevil-vest-10.jpg


The headliner was trimmed away and all the top stitching was completed. Next, this piece was joined to the chest.

daredevil-vest-11.jpg


With the entire front section together, I needed to add on the sides. The sides consist of two main sections: the 'ribs' and the lower sides.

The ribs have a small black inset that was stitched in and given a 2mm foam pad. Then the entire piece was backed with headliner and top stitched. The lower section was constructed and lined with muslin and the two sections were joined.

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The seams that join the sides to the front also feature some narrow black piping. I created this piping myself by encasing elastic cording in a thin nylon/spandex material. I wanted the piping to have some stretch to it so that it could easily make the sharp corners on the piece.

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The piping was stitched to the side pieces first and then the sides were joined to the front and the seams top stitched.

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Moving on to the back of the vest, I began with the shoulder blades. These are the only pieces on the back with any kind of padding and they have just one thin backing of headliner foam. The black accent pieces were attached to the upper center back and the shoulder blades were inset and top stitched.

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The rest of the back pieces were assembled moving from bottom to top and the upper and lower back sections are joined with a 'v' shaped stripe in the middle.

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Next up for the vest are the shoulder straps, side zippers, hardware, piping and waistband/belt. Then, it's on to the shirt and pants...

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Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

SMP Designs That is unbelievable. You are amazing, seriously. I've been waiting for someone to make this suit for soooo long. I'm so happy that someone is finally making it and that person is you.
 
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Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

@SMP Designs That is unbelievable. You are amazing, seriously. I've been waiting for someone to make this suit for soooo long. I'm so happy that someone is finally making it and that person is you.

Thanks man! It's a very cool project. Aspects of it are very similar to other things I've done recently, but there's a lot of new challenges to figure out and some new techniques I'm looking forward to getting more experience with along the way. Cheers!

Subscribed!!! Amazing work!

Thanks! :)
 
Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

OK, update time!

The second major component of the costume is the undershirt with the sleeves. I began this piece by cutting apart the mock up and transferring the sleeve patterns to paper.

daredevil-shirt-1.jpg


Once the patterns were done, I began construction. The red bicep sections were assembled first. All of these sections were backed with muslin for support and also to make the costume more comfortable against the skin. The black inset section was cut from a stretch fabric. The shoulder area of this piece was backed with a single layer of headliner foam - this was done to provide additional structure to this area as well as provide good support for the rubber 'armor' plate that will be cast and attached here.

The black piece was inset and the upper part of the shoulder (in red and also backed with headliner) was added to complete the upper arm.

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Once the upper arms were together, the forearms and elbow sections could be attached. The elbow band and the inner part of the forearm are made with the same stretch fabric as the upper arm inset. The outer section of the forearm is made of black cordura.

daredevil-shirt-5.jpg


At this point, I just needed to close the last sleeve seam. Except - there's an elbow pad that needs to go on and the seam runs up the back of the sleeve. So, I stitched the seam up to the red section and then attached the elbow pad. Leaving the red area open allowed me to turn it back and have access to sew the elbow pad in place.

The pad is simply made of a piece of black cordura spray mounted to a headliner foam pad and then spray mounted to the sleeve to hold it in place. I then turned the sleeve inside out up to the red and stitched it down. Once that was done. I was able to finish the sleeves.

daredevil-shirt-6.jpg
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I then completed the body of the shirt. The shoulders consist of red cordura with a black cordura accent that matches the black on the front of the sleeves and continues part of the way around the neck.

daredevil-shirt-8.jpg


The main body of the shirt is made in black jumbo spandex and ponte that matches the red cordura - red on the sides where the underarms show at the vest - and black in the center front and back. Once the body was assembled, the sleeves were attached. There will be a stand up collar attached and a zipper in the front, henley-style.

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Here are the shirt and the vest pieces are they are now.

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In the midst of the shirt construction, I also began working on the pieces that will be cast - the shoulder plates, the plates on the vest straps and the belt and leg holster sliders.

I began by cutting the shoulder plate from 6mm EVA foam based on a template I made from the sleeve pattern. I then used a power drill with a sander attachment to round off all the edges.

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Next, I marked the detail lines around the edges with a silver Sharpie and used an xacto knife to make a slice about halfway through the thickness of the foam. When a heat gun is used, the foam recedes and the slice opens up to form a very fine bevel. The more heat, the wider the bevel opens - but care has to be taken not to bun the foam.

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I then used a dremel to create the recesses for the hex bolts that accent the shoulder plates.

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The next pieces to prep were the shoulder straps. Unlike the plates (which are symmetrical), I had to create two strap pieces - one for each side. I began by creating a paper template and then tracing the two layers onto 2mm craft foam.

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I cut the layers, used Super77 to adhere them together and created the small lines in the lower layer using the same method as above.

Next, I cut the sliders for the belt and the leg holster out of foam and sanded and shaped them as I wanted. At this point, I needed to get them on the base of my mold box. I cut the base from cardboard, covered it in packing tape and glued the pieces down. Then, 3 coats of ModPodge to seal them, the rest of the box was constructed and the whole thing was sprayed with some gloss metallic paint to help it release.

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The mold was poured and I'll cover the results of that in the next update as well as the finishing of the vest and the start of the pants.

I will readily admit that I'm a newbie to the molding and casting process. I've done a little bit of it (Using OOMOO and resin) and know enough to be dangerous. For this one, since I want most of these pieces cast in rubber, I'm taking advice from a friend and using Mold Max for the mold and Vytaflex to cast the pieces. So, this is relatively uncharted territory for me (but it's time I learn how to do this - especially for small pieces) and you will be sharing the success or messy failure right along with me.

Zoinks, and away!

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Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

Been working on a modified suit with a client and recently finished up my (our) side of it, so good to see top quality builds out there. The one we've done is cordura and leather btw.
 
Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

Holy smokes! This is looking unbelievable. You and Jordan are crafting one seriously fantastic suit. Thank you!
 
Re: Netflix Daredevil WIP (Pic Heavy)

Been working on a modified suit with a client and recently finished up my (our) side of it, so good to see top quality builds out there. The one we've done is cordura and leather btw.

Thanks! Do have pics of yours somewhere? I'd love to see it.

Holy smokes! This is looking unbelievable. You and Jordan are crafting one seriously fantastic suit. Thank you!

I'm really happy with the way it's coming out so far. I'll be demolding the pieces this afternoon. Fingers crossed that the mold turns out! ;)
 
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