I've got a crush on me

My trusty trained assistant delivered my corset today.. she attended a course on corset making a while back, and has proven that she's more than remembered enough to create items of awesomeness.

So we took a basic underbust corset pattern, messed around the the lengths a little here & there, to make it a little more comfortable for my frame, and agreed on materials. In this case, it's built from coutil panels, with lycra on top to give it the same look as the rest of the bat outfit. (Bat-thing requires coordination!)

Didnt need the stretch from the lycra for this part, so the lycra was just glued to the coutil using 3M spray glue, to allow the cutting & sewing to go ahead as if there were only the 1 material to work with. The boning is a mix of spiral boned, flat steel boned, and some plastic boning.. all edged with satin binding tape stuff.. At least I hope I got all that right, since I didn't make this bit, I can't say for certain.

Anyway, it looks awesome, so now I just need to ruin it, and attach my armor panels ;-) (all of which have had a dip coat of paint since last photographed, to minimise brush strokes, wood grain effect ;-) etc. They did all look a bit odd hanging from the airer, but I think they look nicer for it.)

I end up grabbing an old duvet rolling it up, and bagging it in a pile of those "super free never quite sure if its really a charity" bags that helpful people keep putting through my letter box. Then I put the corset over that lot & laced it down as tight as I could get.

My reasoning here is that I need to attach all the panels while the corset is under tension, otherwise they'll just pop right off when it's laced back up.

Not that many interesting photos here of the process, that involved much duct tape, careful painting, drying, painting, drying, and then finally, unmasking, more painting, and then the comedy bit where I had to maintain pressure between the armor & the corset while the painty-glue set. Cue comedy use of a few old pairs of tights.. pretty awesome since they can be made to stretch wide as they passed over the armor, and yet stretched & pulled tight & knotted to provide the pressure. This all had to be repeated 4 times, once for each quarter worth of armor to attach.

A week or so later, here's what I'd ended up with =)

It can't actually sit flat anymore, as the armor panels are holding it to it's curved shape!

And the legs? well, I recut the pattern using something less evil than lilac lycra, the black stuff seems nicer to work with. And I'd made up these panels to attach them...

But once I'd painted them up.. they looked a bit more like this..

Which just didnt have the look I was trying for, the splotchy paint effect wasnt even enough. I could improve it massively if I could dip them, but the parts are so large, I wouldnt have enough paint unless I bought insane amounts..  so I thought I'd change plan, and try using just the same cloth effect Im using for the gauntlets & shoulders..

More duct tape masking, careful painting, and I ended up with this..

Sadly, the paint did bleed out quite substantially under the duct tape this time.. so the edges aren't as neat as I'd like

And the placement of the panels isn't 100% identical, but then given they are mounted on stretch fabric, they'll be moving about a bit anyways.

I definitely prefer this effect to the overshiny panels though.

The waist on the leggings is made deliberately high, and the legs deliberately long, that way the waist should be held up by the corset, and the legs long enough to use as a stirrup type ending to stop the legs drifting too far up/down.


Next up all the other sewy bits I've done, but failed to mention so far!