Monday, August 16, 2010

Black Widow Diary: Part 1


As promised: here's part 1 of the Black Widow Dress Diary. I thought the convention was this past Saturday so I rushed to get things done, but now it turns out I have an extra week! Yay! More time for procrastination!

Anyway, I started, as I always do, with analyzing the actual costume. While some pictures make the bodysuit look black (as the original comic book costume is), watching the film and seeing the costume brightly lit reveals that it is actually navy blue. So, I picked up a navy blue spandex zentai suit as my base garment, and cut the gloves off:



Pretty non-descript and boring, right? Well, here's where it gets interesting: Scarlett's costume has grey princess-seamed piping down the front and back. I had a perplexing problem to solve: how do I put piping, which is generally a stabilizer, down something that stretches? If I'd had a little more time and money to solve the issue, I probably would have sought out stretch grey lycra binding and a thicker rope-elastic to serve as piping, but instead I gave myself a challenge, and used rattail and grey grosgrain. I just love a challenge. 


While the bodysuit was on, I marked points at my shoulders, center bust, natural waist, knee, and ankle, and then connected the dots, so to speak. My assistant (thanks, Tegan!) did quite a bit of this, since I couldn't reach everything myself!


Then, still wearing the suit and standing straight, we pinned the grosgrain and marked the same notches, so I could match the bodysuit to the piping once the bodysuit was no longer stretched to my body shape. I unpinned the rbbon and sewed it over the rattail to create the piping, and then sliced the bodysuit up the lines I had drawn and sanwiched the piping into the seams, stretching and pinning the suit to match up the notches I had drawn earlier, and sewing the piped princess seams into the suit.

 It looked very wrinkly until I put it on, and then everything stretched out perfectly! Yay!

 However, given the chance to do this again, I would definitely make the extra effort to use stretchy piping. The non-stretch ribbon pulls tight and doesn't really allow me to sit down in the suit; it's sewn to give a smooth appearance when I'm standing, but stretches too tight when I bend! Oh well. Who wants to see Black Widow sitting down, anyway? ;)

Everything is very nearly done. I'm not wearing the bullet bracelets yet; a post is coming about them soon. I need to attach the S.H.I.E.L.D. patch and the drop thigh holster too. But, otherwise, Black Widow is ready to kick some ass next Saturday!

What do you think, dear readers?

1 comment:

Jessica said...

wow! you look amazing. sitting is over rated. :) i look forward to the next section to see the whole ensemble.