[WIP] Ant-Man, Civil War Style

[Vox]

Making a full suit is a daunting task, and it is about 4 times as large as any of my previous sewing endeavors. That said, I am optimistic about where this is going.

I started by tracing out all of the patterns that were sent to me onto stock paper, to make them easier to work with while tracing onto fabric.



Once all of those were cut out, I started working with the test fittings of the undershirt and vest, to ensure that the shape-influencing seams would do their job. So far, it is looking good. Only minor alterations to be made in one or two places.



Next up will be the pants, and if a full rendering fits as I hope they will, specific panels will be cut out of the entire costume and construction with the proper fabric will begin.

I wish I had more to show! But unfortunately the muslin-mock-up phase is a lot of repetition with a very bland fabric. More exciting stuff soon!

[Vox]

Matched up the fabric swatches, and ordered the right stuff. It should be here in a few days.



Meanwhile, because the suit is doing a number on my brain, I decided to start on the foam work with which I am much more comfortable. Here's a pic of the rough shape of one of the grieves.



And here is some pics of the templating I've doing on some of the other pieces. I have a feeling the backpack will have to be made and cut first to test for fit, then have some alterations made to it. Good thing foam is cheap!



To anyone still following this build with any interest: thank you. Without going into personal detail, things behind the scenes on this end have been tough since I started this build 9 months ago. I am still going to see it through to fruition even though it has taken far far longer than I would have liked. "Always forward," "Excelsior," etc. etc. and all that. Thanks for continuing to pop in and see how it is going!

[Vox]

The backpack was giving me too much trouble, I can't decide what material to make it out of due to its size and complex shape/curves. I decided to step away from it and work on something else until I come up with a good idea. I moved on to the belt.

1/4" EVA foam. Here is what the pieces looked like flat, just before I applied the hot glue to the valley in the first pic. The contact cement had already been applied. I had to move fast, because I needed to close up the contact cement seams while the hot glue was still warm enough to be malleable.



Then I cut some supports that would double as the visible outside edges.



And these are what they look like once I cut the accent lines in them. One side is flipped over so you can see what the underside looks like.



I now have all of the fabric I should need to build the suit. Just have to pick a good starting, which will probably be the vest.

[Vox]

I decided that the helmet was too shiny. It was lacking that natural layer of grime that gets into all the nooks, crevices, and corners of metal objects and is usually impossible to completely remove. So I applied a black wash (watered down black acrylic paint) to all the places where gunk might accumulate, then wiped it away with a paper towel, leaving just enough to really make the details pop. Here is a before and after comparison:

[Vox]

It has been a while since I had an update! But I figured I would wait until I had some progress to show. The shirt took a lot of trial and error, the sleeves especially!

I started with a work-up of the pattern.



I wanted a little more prominence from the red stripe, so I slightly modified the pattern for a wider red stripe and worked up another sleeve. Below is a layout of the entire process, from right to left.



And here's the finished shirt! I split the body of the shirt so that the neck of the shirt would be black but the shirt would still be red visible underneath the rest of the suit. Hems and cuffs still have to be finished and seams need to be trimmed, but the damn thing fits and I am psyched. Finally, on to the rest of the suit! Big thanks to @SMP Designs for his help and guidance in getting to this point. I can't recommend him enough to anyone who wants to commission a costume. He knows his ****.

[Vox]

I am now convinced that Marvel hires costume designers that really have a grudge against costume constructors...

Before I sewed the shoulders on, the torso itself had 20 separate panels. TWENTY. And I gotta say, sewing around that gray t-shape in the middle was probably the hardest stitching challenge I've ever faced.



With the shoulders attached, it fits quite well around. Only the gray parts have headliner foam put in right now, and I am testing for fit to see if every panel needs the backing, or just parts of it. The edges need to be finished, but that will be done once the foam necessities are determined.



Starting work on the pants.



As a personal note to all the makers who may view this: don't get discouraged if something is more difficult than you anticipated, or if your progress isn't what you want it to be. And especially do not compare yourselves to others, in progress or product. If you still like what you are making, and you are learning as you go, then you are on the right path. This project has taken many months more than I originally wanted, and while part of that is because other things in my life have taken priority over my time, the other part is that I am having to learn a ton of stuff in the process. I'm loving it, though.

[SMP Designs]

Looks very good so far! I've heard from friends at Marvel that, before Black Panther, Ant Man was the most complex suit created. You're a brave man. Keep it up!

[Vox]

Looks very good so far! I've heard from friends at Marvel that, before Black Panther, Ant Man was the most complex suit created. You're a brave man. Keep it up!

I'm a crazy man, but I'll take "brave." Having worked on this suit for this long, I fully believe that statement about its complexity.

[BobbyS95]

Can't wait to see this completed! I loved the Civil War suit so much more than the 2015 film one!

[Vox]

The chest details presented a unique challenge. I knew there was no way I was going to attempt to make them glow, but I still wanted them present.

First, I mounted some theatrical lighting gel to craft foam.



Then I measured out the area through which I wanted it visible, lock stitched the seam on either side, and then ripped the seam between. I then cut the area strategically, so that the flaps could be cleanly folded back and stitched.



Then I top stitched the pieces behind the hole.



Technically, it should be brighter, but it was hard to tell what shade of gel to get. I'm happy with the appearance and the sheen of the gel, though.

[Vox]

Slow progress is as slow progress goes.

Let's open things up here with the back pack. Suffice it to say that templating this thing has been a nightmare and, because I have been unable to find someone to whom I can outsource the job, I have done a LOT of trial and error on this.

I elected to build the center piece by stacking foam. First I tried 4 pieces. That wasn't high enough to get the correct arch.




I cut the same shape six times and glued them together with contact cement. Then cut the arms 3 times each and did the same.




I messed up on this try, by only cementing the edges of each piece. The result was that some of the layers peeled up while sanding.




The latest iteration has the correct shape (more or less) without peeling.



However, to get the clean edges needed for me to know if this will ultimately be a worthwhile method, I need a belt sander and the one at my maker space is currently down for repairs. So the backpack is on pause for now.


I did a test paint of silver leather paint on coaxial cable, to see if it would be a viable choice for the piping/wiring on the suit, and I think it will be. I'm going to keep my eyes and ears open for other options until I'm ready to do that part, but coaxial cable seems like the best thing I have found so far. (Got suggestions? Let me know!)




On the suit side, I have constructed the pant legs, and just have to connect them to each other, then to the torso. Here's a pic of the patterns, and the finished legs. The actual pants are mostly cordura with spandex used for the inseam and rear regions to allow for a form-fitted garment that also allows for movement.

[exo95er]

I did a test paint of silver leather paint on coaxial cable, to see if it would be a viable choice for the piping/wiring on the suit, and I think it will be. I'm going to keep my eyes and ears open for other options until I'm ready to do that part, but coaxial cable seems like the best thing I have found so far. (Got suggestions? Let me know!)

I'm going with the armored telephone cord for the piping above the chest and shoulders. Same cord that I used for the Ant-man helmet/backpack connection.

[Vox]

Shin guard and knee pad construction is done except for the elastic that will wrap around the leg to keep the pad secure.

First I patterned everything out and started with a black strip of cordura and a strip of headliner foam with which to back it, since I wanted to give it some body without making it too rigid. Next I patterned the red details off the pattern for the black base. These were constructed more or less like a sew-on patch, and then top stitched into place.



To finish the edges, I used the same method one might use to finish an edge using bias tape. I cut 4 strips of gray cordura, about the length of the shin guards. Those were top stitched into place, then folded over and the creases were ironed. I wrapped each side around the back, and "top stiched in the ditch" (i.e. right along the crease of where the gray met the black) to secure the back side down.



Stitching the gray border on the octagonal knee pads was a totally different beast. You can see the original shapes on the right of the pic below, and what it looked like stitched together on the right. Lots of pivoting and muscling it into place, being careful not to rip the piece nor ruin my machine in the process.



The knee pad was backed with craft foam for structure, then the gray was wrapped around and hot hot glued down. Stitching it down would have been particularly challenging, and the red would not have blended as well as the black did on the shin guards. So they are a hot mess from the back, but I'm happy with how the front turned out.



The knee pads attach to the shin guards with one line of stitching at the base of the knee pad.



I'm not worried about finishing the bottom, since that will be hidden in the boot covers.

[Vox]

The backpack finally has some shape! Getting 1.5" thick foam to bend and hold shape is not easy, but I'm hoping to coax a little more out of it. It will still need some sort of method of attaching the arms to the shoulders and back piece on the back. I debating between snaps and Velcro. Next step is a TON of Kwik-Seal because the seams on this piece are grrroooossss. I promise some close-up pics of those with the next update.



I also finished up the shoulder pads! They are Cordura fabric backed with craft foam that was first spray mounted with Super 77, then stitched down at the same time as the border which was folded under and top stitched. The straps connecting them to the vest are just long enough so that I can raise my arms.

[SMP Designs]

Nice, man! Happy to see this moving forward and it looks awesome.

[Vox]

There's a lot going on behind the scenes right now, since I'm working on both this project and several others in preparation for a con. BUT I do want to share one thing about which I am particularly excited:



The top half is attached to the bottom half. AND EVERYTHING LINES UP! ... Okay, so maybe you won't find that as exciting as I do, but I am excited. So there!

Lots of things currently on order, so I'll have more to share in the coming weeks.

[Vox]

A lot has happened since my last post, but I was crunched for time and could not afford to take good in-progress pictures. So you'll have to READ!

The backpack has a base of 1/2" foam, shaped out of 1/4" foam, and the "arms" are covered in a combination of 1/4" and craft foam. The final pic, clockwise from the upper left: top-down view, view of the hollow inside from the bottom, back view, side view. I am not completely satisfied with it because it is nowhere near as cleanly assembled as I'd like it to be, but it will have to do until I figure out a better way to construct the complex shapes (that does not break my bank).





The gauntlets are made of 1/4" and craft foam. The detail lines were scored with a hobby knife, blasted with a heat gun to open them up, and then painted black with a very fine tip brush (after the greater silver paint application) to make them pop. The red stripe is theatrical lighting gel (which isn't actual gel, more like a sheet of transparent tinted card stock) layed into the foam before gluing it all together. The inside (lower right) was left open on the underarm side of the gauntlet, but is kept in shape by strategically placed elastic, for easy on-off.





The belt is made of 1/4" foam and pvc sheet (Sintra). I like the finish of the Sintra better (see top pic), but the shape of the hip parts was just a little too wonky to try and build out of a material stiffer than foam. The Sintra was spray painted and the hips we're sponge painted with Angelus leather paints. Then all the details and crevices received a black wash with a fine tip paint brush. The bottom pic shows what the hidden underside looks like, and the whole thing stays together on a strip of nylon strapping. It connects to the suit with snaps.





I needed a way for the shoulder pads to stay up, but I also did not want the slack on the gray strap holding the shoulder pads to be floating there. So I measured a length of elastic and stitched it to the underside of the suit, and the other end to the gray strap. From the front, you can't even tell because they are stitched right along the top-stitching line of the gray fabric panels.





The hardware was commissioned from 3D modeler @GraphicJordan and I cannot recommend him enough. It looked FANTASTIC. I had it all 3D printed by Shapeways. To paint them, I stuck them to masking tape and then taped down those masking tape strips.





Unfortunately, my plan for how to do the piping/wiring on the suit completely fell through. The plan was to use black PVC plastic tubing, threaded through tinned copper cable coil (see picture below), which would then be hand-sewn to the suit by weaving silver thread through the coil and the fabric in a spiral fashion. I sewed the arm piece, and then did a test fitting and was disappointed to find that the tubing was a bit too stiff to serve its purpose. It felt like I was lifting a 5 pound weight each time I lifted my arm (which would be tedious over the course of several hours), and it was dangerously pulling at the fabric. The last thing I wanted was for this tubing to tear the fabric after all the work I put in. I unfortunately had to opt not to use it, which was a great disappointment because of how beautiful the hardware had come out.





However, I still was able to use Jordan's great chest piece to tie everything together. I overestimated the size of the piping (I estimated 3/8" and it should really have been 3/16" or 1/4") and he was gracious enough to modify the design of the chest piece such that it would fit the 3/8" piping I intended to use, but still keep the appearance as accurate as possible (this was before I knew I couldn't use the piping). Once again: I HIGHLY recommend him for any modeling work you may need done.





The gloves were purchased off Ebay, and the plating on them is Sintra, spray painted and black-washed.





The knee pads were held up by elastic, which was first sewn to nylon webbing strips, and then glued down so that they would not pull away from the mounting points.





If you have any specific questions about the construction process of any of the pieces above, feel free to ask!

[Vox]

This is what the finished suit ended up looking like! A big thanks to my friend for snapping this pic of me. I'll post some more at a later date, but this is the version that I wore to C2E2. As you can see, it doesn't have any of the wiring, but I am not too hung up on that because the seam lines really pop. If I can figure out a way to get a clean wiring setup, I will be upgrading the suit.

[andrewrgross]

Oh wow. That came out ​great.

[trackboy186]

Nice work!!

[SMP Designs]

It looks awesome and well done you!