Jen Bartel did a Hellfire Gala version of Captain Marvel several months ago and was then tasked with designing her new full-time costume (debuting in October) which is a more everyday version of her Hellfire Gala costume. We fell in love with this design the moment we saw it!
The very first step was trying to figure out how best to adapt the pieces and lines and shapes to a very differently shaped body – obviously Will is not a superheroic female 🙂 Using a male body template, we sketched out how it would translate a few times, before settling on our “final” design.
The next step was patterning out and mocking up the costume pieces. Not only was this step critical for getting the costume proportioned and pieced properly, but it also informed the sizes of the stars that we’d need to model and make. Everything from shirt to pants to jacket to belt to shoe covers to gloves (yes, the hated making custom gloves), were all custom drafted and mockups made before making the final pieces.
Because there are so many stars of various sizes and shapes and because they serve various functions (decoration like the shirt and back of jacket, buttons on the front of the jacket, etc), we knew we’d be using various materials to get the right flexibility (or lack thereof) as needed. We modeled the various stars for and then molded and cast them – urethane rubber for the big chest and back stars so they could be sewn to the costume, and semi-rigid resin for the remainder since they needed to stand alone and have shape without being sewn down over the gold trim (which would’ve gave them have a weird shape when we tested one made out of urethane rubber). And if you’re looking for any of these to use in your own costumes, we have them available in our shop!
We used almost 20 yards of gold metallic soutache braid. Because of its delicate nature, all of it had to be handsewn on, and because the braid we wanted to use only came in one thickness, we had to handsew multiple pieces together to make different widths (double for the front of the jacket and quadruple for the back of the jacket!)
Finding a proper pair of red men’s boots to match the costume was not only difficult, but impossible. So instead we opted to use a boot that was a good red base that would be comfortable to wear for long periods, and made boot covers (which ended up almost completely hiding the original boots anyway!)
The final touch was deciding on hair – we really didn’t want to go with a wig, so instead opted for gold hair wax and a call-back to Carol’s famous mohawk!
We were so proud of this build that we decided to take a chance and enter it into the Rose City Comic Con costuming contest, and we took second place in the Advanced Craftsmanship Category! But even more rewarding than the contest win, was not only getting to meet Kelly Sue Deconnick wearing it, but having her climb over her table to get a photo with me.
And, of course, we had to have matching outfits! And my final form just before the contest stage. Photo by Aleks Vu Photography.
Not sure what our next big build will be, but from here it’s just Higher, Further, Faster!
