Trimmings

Well Bat-thing doesnt end at just having funky bits of latex glued to the costume.. apparently the modern Bat-thing just wouldn't be seen dead without their gauntlets with pointy spike things, and appropriate shoulder armor.

Yeah.. umm..  still, the gauntlets look fairly simple.. bit of craft foam.. wrap round lower arm, secure with some elastic, and shove the pointy bits thru a slit. Easy!

So.. I started with some paper.. wrapped it around my arm, secured it with some tape, then drew the rough pattern onto that.. unstuck the tape (remembering once again that sticky things are not compatible with hairy people).. hacked at the resulting bit of paper with some scissors and finally shoved what should have been pointy spike things, that ended up looking more like golf flags.

Still.. shape of the spikes aside, the basic concept was sound.. so I transferred the shapes over to craft foam, and then had the genius idea to try coating the foam in a textured fabric, then gluing the fabric to the foam using the infamous black latex paint.

 

The results looked pretty good.. I handstitched the edge to ensure it all holds together, and decided that pink should make a pretty good Bat-thing highlight color.. I'll try to work the color in without overdoing it. I've also decided that handstitching sucks, especially when pushing a needle thru 2 layers of rubberised cloth & craftfoam, when the needle repeatedly decides to go backwards into the thumb rather than forwards through through the fabric. Yes, thimbles, great, really helpful, now.

Once the arm bits were done.. I made up the little spikey bits using some pink vinyl fabric (ebay), padding out the center of each with a little craft foam, each spike was handstitched using black thread, that way it sorta feels like it balances out the black with pink thread.

These took a while to make up, but once done I think the final gauntlets look pretty good, although I had to hand overlock & stitch the elastic loops to stop them fraying into non existence before the first wearing.

Well.. that was the gauntlets sorted.. now.. what about those shoulders?

Again, start with a bit of paper, sketch the pattern, cut it out, transfer to craft foam, smother it with fabric & latex paint.. then for added trim, add more craft foam to edge the part (no more sewing the edges, poor thumb)... and generously coat in yet more paint.

Rinse & repeat for the other arm, remembering to flip the pattern (unless you happen to really have two left, or two right arms, then you might get away without flipping it, but then you might want to read the Alien-thing blog, rathert than this one.).

After that.. I've just got to figure out the elastic & the actual shoulder cap bit.. I'm still not liking the original design.. or the flat topped design.. keeping my eyes peeled for something to reuse.

Next time, an update on the progress of the corset & legs..