One Black Catsuit

Things have a way of working themselves out... aka the Death and Dream story

2011-07-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Things don't always go as you want them to or even more rare, as you plan them to. Thus is the story of how our plans to make the Darkness and the Angelus for Phoenix Comic-con 2011 turned into a pretty-darn-good-if-I-do-say-so-myself version of 2 of Neil Gaiman's endless Death and Dream.

First, let's start with the factoid that I don't think there's been one event yet that Garrick and I haven't been rushing to finish something up until the day of the deadline. Ah, such is the life of procrastinators...That been said, I actually had Darkness and Angelus planned out for over a year! Serves me right for planning ahead!

I have loved the Darkness/Witchblade for a while now so it was only natural that I would bribe Garrick into dressing up like Jackie. We had planned a few different ideas on what we wanted it to look like from the classic Darkness and Angelus to a more modern "plain clothes" take on these characters. When doing "over-the-top" characters, I usually like to take a "plain-clothes" approach to translating their costumes into real life. Not everything that's drawn will look good in person. So I decided to base these ideas off of a few concept drawings I had seen.

The Darkness/Jackie Estacado

I had an idea (I know it's rare...) since Garrick and I were working with EL wire so much for all of the TRON stuff, I thought how great would that be to try to incorporate our new-found skills with that and use it for something different. Since I though Garrick would be more comfortable in a nice suit instead of another spandex catsuit with many felted muscles underneath I thought it would be fun to show the duality of the Darkness in a way I have never seen any one portray him.

My idea was to make a panel on the inside of the lapel of the jacket that was composed of between 10-15 pairs of glowing eyes. We would make this by cutting varying sizes of EL tape and cutting the shape of "darkling" eyes out of electrical tape and taping that on top of the EL. Through the placement and the setting on each battery pack we could achieve a flickering effect in varying degrees for each set of eyes so they would look like they are living in the dark of the jacket. This would only be a low-light or night time costume in order to show off the effects properly. I was pretty proud of myself for this one, too bad it hasn't happened yet...

The Angelus/Original Host

The Angelus I decide to take the same approach to. Not only am I not comfortable wearing next-to-nothing, but that doesn't really challenge me as a designer either. So I decide to take a page from Adam Hughes and his "Women of the DC Universe" spread and model the Angelus's clothes after Wonder Woman's dress. The two characters are similar in the way they carry themselves and their attitude and WW pose in that picture struck me as a pose the Angelus would take, hense where I got the dress idea. Gladiator heels were then a must and the wings and color scheme were going to be modeled after Stefan Sejic's drawing of the Angelus Timeline.

Alas, this also was not meant to be just yet...

Now that you have that background of planning here's one giant run-on sentence about what actually happened.

(deep breath!)

We went to Goodwill to find Garrick a nice suit and pants and found one that also had some colored cumber buns that I could re-purpose for Zatanna, in the same trip I found a black double grommeted belt that was in my exact size which I bought because I had always wanted to make a Death costume and you don't really find things like that often so we went home to order the wigs and the feathers but decided to wait on the feathers because it was only a month away and we didn't know if we were going to get them in time to actually finish them properly so I decided to do a plain-clothes version of Witchblade since Jackie and Sara had a baby in the new issues both the costumes would still go together (see picture below) but then we

ran out of time to make the Witchblade and the Darkness gauntlet and the wigs came in and they were awful, mine looked like a tranny and Garrick's looked so emo it hurt so.....

(deep breath!!!) I remembered buying the belt and thought "hey I have black hair, and black pants, and black boots, and a black blazer, and a smiley face pin that Ron left at the house that come free with the jackets he bought (that left at home when packing for con...), and white make-up I should go as Death" all I would need is an umbrella and an Ankh so I told Garrick and forced him to be Dream by re-styling the emo wig with tons of cheap hairspray, doing a test run of the makeup, and having him try it all on with the suit we had just bought and there you have it, that's how Death and Dream were born!

I just recently bought some black contacts for Dream and some grey ones for Death so hopefully we can get a photo shoot set up soon!

We had a great time at Phoenix Comic-con this year, went as Zatanna and Batman on Friday because well it's hot hear and any excuse for me to bust out my "no pants" costume the better! We were able to spend time with people we hadn't seen in awhile and we even made a bunch of great new friends! Here's a collage to show everything: (not I forgot my camera in the hotel most of the time so i can't take credit for any of these photos, thank you to the talented people who took them!)

New Years Costuming Resolutions

2011-01-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

You may be asking, "Gee, Jackie hasn't posted in awhile, did she give up costuming?"
Answer: No I haven't given up costuming or writing for that matter. I'll tell you the name of the thing that has keep me from basically everything (including eating and sleeping) for the past month and a half. I goes by TRON.

Before I get into that I would like to talk about my New Years costuming resolutions. Yes I know everyone makes generic ones like "I'm going to lose weight" or "I'm going to be nicer" and they usually end up failing miserably. Well I'm not, because I'm that awesome. For example, I rang in the new year in my Quorra costume dancing on a roof top with Daft Punk'd, beat that! :D

resolution 1.) Finish Catwoman. I have been putting this off forever. She needs a pvc suit and gloves and new boots, end of story. This will happen.

resolution 2.) Have the Angelus and the Darkness ready and done by Phoenix Comic con 2011. Again this will happen. I can't let the nice editor at Top Cow you gave me his personal info to send him progress pics think I'm a lier now can I?

Resolution 3.) Have professional photos taken (in the winter) of all of our costumes. I can't enter into featured blogs or contests because professional picture always look better. I want to build a portfolio and do my work justice!

Resolution 4ish...) Stick to my diet/exercise plan (oh and I won't fail because I started in November and if I could make it through Christmas I have the will power of...something that has a lot of will power. I also want to take my work to the next level and constantly improve my quality and design which leads me into my next topic...

TRON

This will have an entire post dedicated to itself once I get some completed pictures back. Let's just say so far this is my best work yet!!
Here's a teaser pic that was taken at TRON party we went to. It was a test run my arms and leg didn't light up yet and I didn't put on the boot armor.

Let me know if there's anything all of you would like to see me make this year. I have some ideas like Pixie and Velocity but would love some suggestions!!

Hope everyone had a great holiday and an even better 2011!

Halloween!

2010-11-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

So last minute costumes are usually the best and this is no exception.

Garrick and I had a friends' wedding (thanks and congrats again Sam and Samantha!) to go to on Halloween night and we were going to pull Batman out and I was going to debut my comic Catwoman (blog post to come soon on her, she's almost done) but it's hard for Garrick to sit and eat and enjoy himself in Batman and Catwoman wasn't completely finished so we came up with another idea...

yay last minute ideas!

I decided to replace MJ with Black Cat becasue to be honest, I've never really liked MJ all that much and I always though BC was a better fit personality wise. And, let's face it, they match! The OCD in me can't pass that up! :D

Garrick has had a licensed Marvel Black suit Spidey costume lying around since he was going to attempt a venom costume. That never came to fruition so we thought we'd re-purpose it. One Goodwill Armani jacket and some white fabric paint later and we had this!

I used my mask, wig, boots, and new green contacts I had for BC and re-purposed my Christmas dance dress from high school... (P90X I have a confession to make... I need you now more than ever. After squeezing that dress on this weekend I want to say I'm sorry I haven't paid much attention to you. Can we be friends again? Thanks. love Jackie.) Then I bought some opera gloves and put the same white fur around the top of them to give it a little bit more of a traditional BC feel.

Garrick them cut the eyes out of the original mask and I proceeded to cut and style new more comic style lenses out of foamies and the mesh you get out of splash guards. Easy-peasy!

All that's left to do it paint the 4th pair of "legs" on the suit and take out the center panel on the mask and replace it with one that doesn't have nose holes punched into it.

Here's some more pictures of that night:

Spidey with Daft Punk

Here's a Catwoman teaser. I still need to fix the gloves, make a belt buckle, and I think I may just dedicate that suit to Domino and go with 4-way stretch PVC(so shiny!) for Catwoman. This is my FAVORITE version of her and I want it to be perfect! Let me know what you think...

Domino update! I got my contacts and my new wig! After I dedicate a catsuit all her own, she'll be 100% done. Right now she's some cabinet liner and well placed seams away from being finished.

Zatanna!

2010-08-19T17:37:00.001-07:00

Ah Zatanna...

One of my most favorite costumes, and for many different reasons.

Reason 1. I don't have to wear pants!! Do you know how exciting that is for people in Arizona?!

Reason 2. It was a very last minute costume that I found 90% of the components for in my closet.

Reason 3. Every time I go to "update" her or replace worn out pieces, they're always on clearance!!!

This is a huge win in my book!

Yes I realize this is not a black catsuit, but you gotta change it up every once-in-awhile! Besides I did this costume before I had the blog and it just didn't feel right leaving her out!

So I'm brushing the dust off of her for this exciting thing at City North tomorrow, I can't say much about it just yet, but I'm dressing to impress!!

So same Zatanna as the one I wore to San Diego Comic Con 2009 (above) but I'm tailoring her a bit more.

Costume

I had already nipped and tucked the jacket to fit me like it needed to but now I'm going to adjust the shirt so it's more lady-like. Just need to take in the sides (love when it's taking in something and not letting it out...) an inch or so. I also bought some better fitting gloves, new fishnets, and a super cheap pair of black stacked heels so I don't have to were those dorky boots I wore before. Come to think of it I couldn't wear them anyway I sold them, well good upgrade regardless! I also borrowed a real beaver-skin hat from the early 1900's from my friend to complete the look. if I can find a decent looking hat that "pops" (you know what I mean, like a magicians hat) I'll switch it up, I haven't found one yet so if anyone has any suggestions feel free!

Props

Not much for this one, just an old wooden dowel that I painted to look like a magic wand.

Make-up

I'm based the costume off of the Adam Hughes drawing above (surprise) so I decided to go with a smoky eye, some modest fake lashes, and the dark red lipstick, classic. When my contacts come in from over-seas she'll have deep blue eyes as well.

That about covers it! I'll post more pictures after tomorrow!

micro update!

2010-08-06T11:03:00.001-07:00

Ok so I haven't posted in a while... some things have come up (or haven't come up, like money...) and some health concerns so... I have been trying to save some green and help G fold some paper to get his War Machine going. We've made some good progress so far!

I've also been trying to workout a lot. I've decided that there are costumes that I want to do that I would feel more comfortable if I were a little lighter and more toned. So P90x here I come!!

Now that I feel like things are falling back into place....

I went out and bought the material for Black Widow. It ended up deciding on two fabrics that I'll sew together; I think this will give it the dimension I was origionally looking for. One is a black stretch mesh that will be the top layer and the other is charcoal grey spandex that will be the bottom layer. I'll post pictures when I start sewing today and tomorrow.

My holster came in and it's perfect! I'm pretty sure that it's a re-cast of an actual Blackhawk holster and not an airsoft one because Blackhawk is molded into the plastic and they have never made airsoft guns or accessories. Gotta love companies over-seas! The gun I have however does not quite fit, so instead of spending $100 bucks on an airsoft replica I think I can modify the one I have.

I also found a picture of Domino completed from X-men day where my eyes are actually open!!

and one of G

This kid was so cute, he asked G and I to sign one of his comics that had both of us on it, adorable!!

I've decided after some researching that I'm going to slightly modify Domino's suit to give it more visual interest. This means some more seams, some mesh to make it look tactical and possibly some quilting with a non-shiny spandex down the sides. I'm also going to make gloves out of hosiery because I ended up with some hand prints in some questionable spots :D

I also need to finish catwoman by halloween...

ok in order of completion!

1. Black Widow

2. Catwoman

3-5. Angelus, Domino, and The Major

(oh yea I decided on a new project!! The Major from Ghost in the Shell! One of the reasons other than the Angelus that I need to kick my butt into shape!)

now all I need is a Tachicoma!

Black Widow the beginning...

2010-07-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ok so I thought I would do an update...

After much convincing and telling myself I should not be lazy I'm going to start on the Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) catsuit from Iron Man 2..... FROM SCRATCH!

Oh emm gee!

I hear little seamstress women in china sobbing and lamenting my business!

please don't make me do this on my own!

I'm still changing the suit color to black (don't worry I won't have to change the blog name to "one black catsuit and oh yea, that one navy blue one", I'm not that ambitious yet!!) but I am going to try and mimic the texture of the movie suit by using this material my friend scrapped when he was building his black suit Spider-man 3 costume.

Here goes nothing!

I have the boots done already

and I have the gloves

(as seen in my Domino pictures)

And I'm working on the gauntlets which are going to be made out of foamies and nerf darts that I'm commandeering from my husband's Deadpool gun. (they are the perfect size and shape!!)

and I have the patches

I also found a wig I'm pretty happy with that I have yet to order

AND

I ordered an airsoft replica of her Walther PPK holster. My husband had a very similar PPK airsoft laying around the house so all I needed was the holster.

Now onto the belts and the suit!! More updates soon! I'll post the build threads in clusters because I feel my posts are painfully long...

On to help the mister fold more paper and next post will be a boots and gauntlet build!

(oh and next week I'm going out to y the horns to start my Angelus's horn sculpt... who's being productive? Oh that's right, it's me!!)

Now for something (almost) completely different...

2010-06-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

So this post isn't a build but a personal one. I have been doing a lot of thinking about life in general and why people do the things they do. I feel like this is what it would feel like to go through a mid-life crisis but I'm only 25, unless this is a sign!!

Ok seriously though, I think all of the recent changes in my life have helped me come to the realization and appreciation that life is too short. Really think about that over-used phrase "life is too short," it really is. Think about all of the things you want to do and about how long it would take you to master them or realistically learn them or complete them. you couldn't do everything without sacrificing others.

For example, me and my crazy decided it would be awesome to become an MMA (what UFC is) fighter so I started looking into classes and found other martial arts that I wanted to take like Akido and Kenpo. Why you ask... well why not?! I want to be in shape and I want to be able to say "oh btw I'm an MMa fighter, yea, I know it's awesome..." I don't want to compete though, I like my face and teeth where they are too much for that but it would get me into killer shape! There wouldn't be a costume I wouldn't do after that workout! (I told you this would be somewhat relevant)

Back to topic, there's no way that with work, Master's program, costuming, Husband, and needy cat I would be able to master all of these martial arts. Some of these people spend their whole lives mastering one and even then they are still learning. A little bit of everything is good enough for me but what if I wanted to master them all? I couldn't. I couldn't even begin to try.

This goes for the same with what I want to do for a living. I would love to work on comic books inking or coloring but this takes time to build a portfolio and get out there. My frequenting con's has helped me make connections which is great and one of the reasons I go, but how long could this realistically take for me to accomplish? A long time, especially with all of the other things I want to do...like building props and costumes for movies. I'm not saying I want to be the lead designer or anything, I just want to help build stuff, work on a part of a costume or prop. Even this could take forever to meet the right people and get known. Again attending con's helps with this but it's still not a guarantee.

This is why I've decided I need to ust start doing what I want to do for that simple reason, life's too short and I want to die saying I at least attempted to do everything and anything I felt like I wanted to accomplish. Now I'm not saying I'm going to leave my job and start wandering the land looking for sensei's to teach me kenpo while I build costumes from trash bags to make money while I'm on the road... (although that's a pretty cool idea...) I just want to stop being apprehensive or scared to try new things for fear of failure or embarrassment. Ever since I was a little girl I've been so shy until recently. I want to keep going in this direction and embrace the unknown, fearless and confidant that I will go on and I will have fun doing so.

There's also the fact that I don't want to accept that the people I love are all getting older and some are leaving this world sooner that I want to accept. I don't want to get to that point and realize that I haven't done what I wanted to in life. I also don't want to be so scared of losing people that I love that I don't involve them in my life as much as I could, even if that means sharing things that aren't commonly known or accepted as progress towards a possible career such as props and comic books. I want to be unapologetic about what I like and do. This is me and I won't change it for anything. I love this feeling of "the world is my oyster" (man me and these cliche' sayings...) and I'm going to run with it.

Relating more to the purpose of this blog, I've said why I want to work on comic books, movies, and be an MMA fighter, this is why i like costuming.

I've always had a hard time finding my place in the art world, I have a very hard time just creating things from my imagination. I've always been a realist and have had to use a reference to draw, paint, or sculpt. Costuming is finally a form of art that it is completely acceptable to use something for reference, and one that I'm very good at! This is where my skill lies is in detailed reproduction. You don't know how good it feels to finally find something you're almost effortlessly good at (I use effortlessly very lightly, most of these have required much effort!!). I've decided that I need and like doing this and I'm not going to stop. Hopefully something comes from it like a career but if it doesn't I'm still having fun and that's what matters.

Most relevant:

Here's my 80% completed domino with improved make-up. I just need to re-dye my hair, paint my nails, and make the domino necklace and she'll be done!

And here's my finished Widow boots

X-Men Day: Domino and Deadpool

2010-06-09T16:09:00.001-07:00

Hero Comics asked G and I if we had any costumes for X-Men day

I think we can come up with something...

We went along with the recent story of when Deadpool decided he wanted to be an X-Man. Well it just so happens that there was a black haired, black catsuit-wearing character in tall black boots in this plot line... what was I to do? Say no?!

No, I said hell yea and ran out and bought some face paint

20 minutes later...

this is what happened.

For the rest of the costume I'm going to re-purpose my boots and finger-less gloves I bought for Black Widow (she's still in progress, all I have right now are the boots and gloves for her ...) and my belt from Black Cat (G is going to cut me an "X" belt buckle that I can Velcro onto it). So now all I need to do is buy some actual black lipstick, fine tune my make-up skills, re-dye my hair, find a domino to turn into a necklace and I'm an X-man...!

Now for D.Pool, I'm going to try and find one of those Wolverine costume shirts and spray paint "D.Pool" on the back and G is going to cut himself one of those belt buckles and replace his Deadpool one (good thing it he attached it with Velcro the first time!)

It'll look similar to this, but we thought the costume Wolvie shirt would be great!

(and I don't think G would be happy about having to wear a 3rd pair of underwear...)

Coming up War machine progress, Black Widow, Angelus, Avatar: The Last Airbender (this may be my first, wait, no... second costume that's not a black catsuit!)

Also G and I are working on a proposal to do a costuming panel at Phoenix Comic Con next year! If anyone has any tips or ideas let me know...

Phoenix Comic Con

2010-06-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've gotten most of our pictures back from Phoenix Comic Con so here's a few of my favorites!

We stayed at the Hyatt right next to the con so we could just suit up and walk over.

We had a great time and met a lot of awesome people. They guys at the Top Cow booth were especially helpful and friendly and hopefully G and I made a friend with one! I'm glad that they and Wildstorm were able to show up this year it helped to give it a bigger con feel with some big name publishing companies. This year was 4 times bigger than last year as far as the amount of people attending, the quality, and the events. Hopefully it will continue to grow and we'll have an awesome con in our own state!

I still need to work on some new poses, also no prosthetic adhesive in the world can keep anything glued to you in 100+ degree weather... Poor sweaty mask... just thought I'd share the tip!

Now that Black Cat has made her big debut i can move on with some of my other projects in the wings, that'll be for another post though. Now we just need some professional pictures shot of the 4 of us. I hope to continue to do that for every costume we make because it's such a great thing to have to build a portfolio. I think I've convinced one of our friends to do it, we just need to get together.

(note: guilty pleasure was G dressed up as "vacation Green Ranger" and went down the the Anime Rave in the hotel and did his thing with some green glow sticks every night for about 10 minutes and every night my stomach hurt from laughing so hard...)

Next on the agenda: X-Men day, Black Widow, and Avatar: The Last Airbender

Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) build

2010-05-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ok so I've postponed it enough... here's my build for Black Cat

I don't have many progress pictures because well, I was tired and had a week before FCBD to get this done and I had pictured myself out taking progress pictures for Deadpool.

I trust all of you to use your imaginations and if you have any questions email me!

Here are two pictures from FCBD to base my descriptions off of.

Catsuit

I bought another fantastic catsuit off of ebay but this one had a keyhole chest and a high collar with a clasp to connect the two sides. The reason I got this on was because I was basing this particular version of her on one of Adam Hughes's drawings

I picked this version because one I love all of his interpretations of these characters and because most of his drawings translate well to real-life. I also liked the fur and the open neck line and wavy hair. That being said, I bought the open necked catsuit because it gave me a basis to easily modify the neckline. I tried on the suit and used a piece of light colored chalk to trace how big I wanted the neck line to be. (didn't want the girls to be too over-exposed... it is an Adam Hughes drawing after all :D )

I took into consideration how much room would be needed for a hem and then went to town! After cutting the neck line out and pinning the hem in place, I tacked the hem down with some fabric glue before sewing it (note: when sewing stretchy materials it is a great idea to tack down your seams with fabric glue as long as you've tested it on a scratch piece to see if it leaves a mark...) ((double note: always try on your catsuit when you get them to make sure they fit, never start cutting without doing this. You may need to take it in some places you haven't before, this will give you the best custom fit.)

Ok so I sewed the hem on the neckline and re-secured the zipper with extra stitches and some glue. Nows the fun part, the fur!

Fur

Followed my reference pics and placed and measured the fur around the neckline in the thickness that I wanted. I bought a fur that wasn't uniformly fluffy like a new toy, I bought one that was long enough to trim while looking more "worn-in" I think this worked out better than the super fluffy stuff, this way I didn't look like a giant stuffed animal. Then I measured on my forearms how far up I wanted the fur to go and I cut this piece out in a skinny triangle, the widest part closest to my elbow.

It's helpful when adding small details like this to have many reference pictures from many different artists and to even go on flickr and see what other people have done to see what you like the best and what translates best to real-life. These are the details that will make or break your costume, seriously. After I attached the fur on the neck and the arms I trimmed it so the longest part was closest to my elbow and it got shorter the closer it was to my wrist. The reason I did this is because she's drawn this way often, cats' fur actually grows this way, and it's a small detail that really brings such a seemingly simple costume together.

I cut another pair of triangle pieces, this time a little wider and longer for the boots (normally I wouldn't devote a whole pair of boots to one costume unless absolutely necessary, but this looked the best... and the boots were on sale so plus all around)

Wig

I did much ebay research on finding the perfect wig. It only cost about 30 bucks shipping included from Korea and it was beautiful. Wigs are another big part of a costume. You don't always have to spend a ton of money on one but finding one that fits your face well and looks good on takes some time. Sometimes if you're looking for colored wigs it's best to get a white one and dye it yourself. There are tons of sites online that tell you how to cut, dye, and style a wig. More importantly it tells you how to take care of them. You can't treat them like real hair you'll ruin them.

Anyway got an awesome one that looked like my hair if it were white. (one step closer to my Lady Gaga costume run now!! haha you think I'm kidding...) Another thing, always invest in a wig cap, they're two bucks and they make your wig fit and look ten times better.

Boots

After my Catwoman and Zatanna fiasco at SDCC 2009, I needed a new pair of boots that a.) didn't look like tacky stripper boots and b.) didn't absolutely suck to walk in. Lucky me I found both! Now I have classy stripper boots that are awesome to walk in!

(boots note: I opted for the 5 in instead of the 6inch stacked heels because if you're even thinking about going to cons in these you need boots that you can walk and stand in for more than an hour. Try huffing two miles to the SDCC and then walking up and down that place and two miles back in the same 6in non stacked heels, suck..... big suck. It may sound strange, but opt for stacked heels if you can, the extra padding on the ball of your foots helps for comfort and adds height without you actually having to walk in true 6inch heels. Adding comfort soles and inserts can help too.)

Gloves

Got a free pair of matching gloves with my catsuit!!! Oh Chinese seamstresses how my love continues to grow for you....

I wore these underneath my catsuit because I attached the fur to the suit rather than the gloves. This was a style choice on my part because I didn't want the fur to move around like gloves would and I'll wear through gloves faster than the suit so I would rather replace plain gloves than have to measure out the fur a few more times. Always think of how you can re-use pieces from one costume for another to save on cost and closet space. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. But it's always better if you can...

Mask

I bought my mask from xtremedesignfx.com. this guy makes awesome generic hero masks in any color that you can attach with prosthetic adhesive. The reason using these is usually better than make-up is because they give that polished look. There are also tutorials online to teach you how to sculpt your own masks to your face. This is something I didn't have time for for this costume but is something I would love to try for others. If you are serious about costuming always opt for the most custom-to-you option, it will always work the best. But i love my mask and Will use it until I need a new one!

Belt/Collar

The belt I added because I thought the costume looked too plain without something. I was origionally going to base my suit off of AH's and this fan concept I had seen for Spiderman 4 that used the "quilting" I had used for Deadpool, but it was all wrong for the neckline I chose so I went the route of the belt. I picked a tactical belt because well if Black Cat were real she would need one of these to climb up buildings and stuff (now I realize the contradiction with the boots I chose and my reason for picking this belt, but like I said, these two look good together in real life while still retaining that comic-feel, I'm not actually planning on robbing people in high rises in this costume...)

After I picked the belt I decided I needed something to go on it and as I was walking through the local costume shop I saw a batman grappling hook. BC's a thief right? So she stole Batman's grappling hook and re-painted it for her very own. My husband even gave it a "weathered" paint scheme to make it look used.

The collar I found at Pet'smart, just a simple black leather dog collar that I got a silver dog tag engraved to say "meow" on one side and "if found unconscious please return to your friendly neighborhood spider-man" I like the stories where BC is funny and mischievous so I thought I would play it up.

Make-up

One of THE most important parts of female characters is the make-up. I decided to go with a very pale "Lady Gaga" image instead of my favorite dark red lipstick version.

I wanted Black cat to be fun and I wanted to try something new so I figured since I already had the dark black outline of the mask I could play up my eyes with some color. I didn't get any contacts for this so I thought I would enhance the green in my eyes (I have weird eyes, they're kinda brown, kinda hazel, but the left one is half green... don't ask) To enhance a color you choose its compliment, i chose bright purple. I did bright metallic purple from the inside of my eye closest to the bridge of my nose and fanned it out a bit (I love those HIP eye shadows, they're cheap, bright, last awhile, and are great for costuming) following it up with a metallic platinum to cool the purple down and blend it. I chose a brighter pink lipstick that went with my skin tone and complimented the purple eyeshadow. I outlined my eyes lightly in black outlined to give definition and added some soft fake eyelashes to add some extra definition.

Before all of this I primed my face in a foundation a tad lighter than I would normally wear (this was to make the make up stand out and to achieve a clean and bright effect with the wig) and did that all over my face (except were the mask would be) and down my neck. It's a good idea to make-up your chest and neck if you're a girl and showing a pretty big neckline so in pictures your face doesn't look a different color than your neck. Always finish with powder so it doesn't get all over your costume.

This is a close-up picture from Phxcon, I had sunglasses on because well, it's hot as hell here and we had a little walk to the convention and I didn't want to squint and mess up all my hard work!! (someone yelled across the street when we were walking and asked if I was Lady Gaga, hahaha!!! They totally made my day....)

Next Phoenix Comic Con!

Black Suit Spider-man, the Shredder, Deadpool, and Black Cat all hang out... weird combination? Maybe, but it was awesome...

Also Garrick and I made an awesome friend...

More to come when I get back out pictures from the phxcon site...

Deadpool and Black cat build (mostly deadpool...)

2010-05-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the (almost) step by step process on how I created my husband's D.pool costume. As I professed earlier, I love buying plain catsuits off of ebay from the sellers in China. The reason why I love them is because for the price it's waaaay cheaper than trying to buy the fabric in a fabric store (even at SAS for those of you who are familiar with that) and it get's to me, in my size (mostly) faster than I could sew it myself. If you're trying to match a fabric (like so many are trying to do for Iron Man 2 Black Widow suit) this probably isn't the way to go, but if you're ok with the material and you need a color matched, they even do that. They also usually throw in a "prize" of some sort kinda like cracker jacks for adults! It's usually something just as useless as the prizes you find in cracker jacks as well...
ANYWAY
We had built a duck tape dummy of my husband weeks before when he thought he was building a venom costume. This came in handy because I could fit the suit to him while he wasn't home, and if you have an antsy husband like I do, he starts doing other things like fidgeting while your gluing and trying to pin things on painlessly and straight.
Example A:

"X X baby!"
Here's the costume right out of the mail and on duct-tape-Garrick:

(sorry the camera didn't like the material that close up)
I then traced the already existing black side pattern and proceeded to make a bigger and more pleasing and Deadpool-like design.

I decided that I wanted to make this version of Deadpool more tactical looking while still keeping the comic feel. I had seen a fan poster someone did for black cat where they put "quilting " on her suit that resembled the styling of the new x-men movie costumes so I decided to incorporate this into my idead of Deadpool. I was going to base my black cat off of that picture as well but I'll get into why that didn't work later...
I had bought a few yards of 4 way stretch "wet lame" or the material that the rest of my catsuits are made out of and pinned this pattern to it and started to cut. After it was all cut out I started to make the hem. Learning from the HOURS it took me to pin this stupid thing onto the dummy, (as seen here):

I found the wonderful adhesive of the textile gods, fabric glue. If you pin the hem in place and then tack the whole piece of fabric onto the suit and then sew it in place it is waaay easier to make sure both sides are even and it's so much easier to sew in place. As seen here:

Then came time for the quilting. I made a drawing before hand of where I thought the quilting would look the best. I also studied some of the x-men costumes to see how they did their seams and design. If I had to do it again I might have added some red piping down the sides like they did in the movies, but I'm still really happy with it.
I decided the quilting would be down his sides, on his shoulders going down his arms and around the neck to make a bigger collar. I just so happened to have copious amounts of the "wet lame" and this hideous pink felt like material I had used to make a present for a baby shower ( the baby shower present was cute in this but what the hell do you use 3 yards of pink felt for after that?!...a Deadpool costume, why of course!)
I made another pattern of what I was going to cut and cut this out in the lame and the felt. The felt had to be cut smaller than the lame because it had to fit under the hem so you wouldn't see it on the costume. BTW always practice your ideas on small swatches of fabric before you start the project. Let me tell you, my sewing machine DOES NOT like spandex or anything stretchy. It takes many kinds words, flowers, and a few nights out on the town to coax it into doing what I want it to.

After I knew that would work I started the all of the quilting pieces. I then took a ruler and a sharpie and measured even sections and guidelines for me to follow when I was sewing. Quilting has to be straight, if it's not, especially made out of something so shiny as thins, it will ruin the entire look.

Finished side panel:

I then repeated this process of making a new pattern and constructing the rest of the quilted pieces.
Oh man!!! I don't think I have a picture of it! but I hemmed his gloves and put little Deadpool insignia buttons on the cuffs of his costume. I'll have to take one later, this was my favorite part of the costume! It's the little details right? I made them out of buttons that I painted and then attached with white string so the stitches would be the eyes. Here's the picture I based it off of:
I also made him a muscle suit that I got the idea off our friend Todd. I also used the ugly as sin pink material for this and some quilters batting. If anyone wants to see pictures of this, email me, I'll be taking some soon because I have to re-do the pants. I think that this type of muscle suit helps when doing comic-style costumes because it adds enough bulk to make it look good but it's not that crazy muscles-about-to-suffer-an-aneurism look.

Here's the final product at FCBD. A big thanks to Diane and David for hanging around all day and taking awesome pictures of us, thanks so much!!

Garrick ( Knowone251))

is going to post a build thread soon about how he made the mask, belt, and acessories on http://www.therpf.com/.

I think I'll hold off on the Black cat build until I get more pictures back from FCBD... I don't have any of the belt and I need to find some where I don't look like I'm about to seduce my friend Becky...

Got to start getting my face to not make dorky expressions in costume...or at least in costume on film :D

Here's list of ingredients that went into it though
-latex mask from xtremedesignfx (good work guys!)
-black catsuit (surprise!)
-white wig
-white faux fur
-tall boots
-batman's grappling hook
-utility belt
and
-me

FCBD 2010

2010-05-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

My first post, how exciting. So we just finished Free comic Book Day 2010 at Hero Comics so once a get a few more pictures back I can post a build thread. A big thanks to Todd and Corey at Hero comics for letting us come back to do FCBD for a second year, it's always a great time and a good way to get a feel for how our costumes are going to go over. Thanks guys!!

We were originally going to do a spider-man group, Todd C. as black suit Spider-man, Garrick as Venom, and myself as Black Cat...that didn't end up happening. Let's see, it was a month before and G and I hadn't started on anything (I only had the fur for BC!!)so, while I was reading some Deadpool comics, I thought that Garrick would have way more fun being D.Pool and we would be able to make a really good-looking suit in that short amount of time.
So we rushed to ebay, bought the generic catsuits (this is a time and life-saver btw. Bless you seamstresses in China who always send my suits balled into tiny envelopes sent through the world's various postal systems in a week only to arrive at my door delivered by my cantankerous mail lady who continuously has something snarky to say about my husband's super hero pajama pants I always seem to be wearing when I open the door with waiting arms for my um-teenth black catsuit only to slam the door in her suspicious face,after signing for it of cousre, run up the stairs to try on my blank canvas of a suit and start to map out the possibilities.) When I post the build thread a will continue my profession of love for these pre-made beauties and the actual functionality and flexibility they provide.
This is not to say that we actually got our stuff done on time.Oh no. We were still gluing, stitching, cutting, and fitting our suits an hour before we had to be there...we like to live life on the edge! Or I like to take lots of nap breaks...

Deadpool ended up being perfect for Garrick because he could trade handing kids batarangs for poses and throwing in the "stay in school" one liners he used as Batman to hanging kids a (hollowed out non- functional)grenade with a deadpool smiley face on it to pose with and telling them to "remember school is for suckers." Needless to say he was good at it he had a blast. I hope We get a picture back of his handing one little kid the smiley grenade and then walking away plugging his ears, it was hysterical.

It was a lot of fun and quite successful (especially since I had to suit up, put a wig on straight, tape myself into the fickle, stretchy mistress that is low cut black catsuit, all in a mirror-less crowded store room!) Plus we only sent a few terrified children screaming back to their parent this time... that's a good day in my book.

We also met a really nice couple who dressed as Captain America and Black Widow, they're in one of the preview pics, hope to possible do some stuff in the future with them!