A Purrfect Costume: Finishing Touches to the Catsuit (Part 8)

The last part of a costume...the final finishing is often making sure little things that make or break the costume or help make the costume easier to handle. In this costume, there are two small unseen finishing techniques.

The Necklace

Julie Newmar and Lee Meriweather both wear the necklace around the neck. However, Eartha Kitt wears it on her shoulders. This is physically impossible unless you have a little help because the weight of the main pendant drags the chain to around your neck.

I had no photo proof that they had some attachment to keep it in place, but Julie Newmar used eyes & hooks to keep the belt firmly in place around her hips.

(Side note: Now, I did not add eyehooks to my belt or the catsuit. I had found a belt that was pretty form fitting and sits right at my hipline without moving while I was wandering the house wearing the outfit for a test run. I might change my mind later, but for now, it's unnecessary.)

I'm sure that the costume designer did similar for the necklace, but I wasn't sure how they did it. I took the simplest route and added hooks to the shoulder seams so I could hook the necklace around it.

(I reduced the contrast on the photo so you can see the black hook on the black fabric.)

Now, the necklace stays IN place!

And then I found photo evidence with this image. If you enlarge it, you see that there is a "strap" or something along the back of the shoulder seam keeping the necklace in place. This is akin to the "bra strap holder" on dresses that keep bra straps from creeping out.

 

I don't know if I'll actually add this little bit of detail in this costume. The eye hooks work for now and are less visible from all angles. 

The Zipper

Now, getting in and out of a costume with the minimal amount of  help is one of the things that I try to build into every costume, especially when you have to go to the bathroom.

• Cosplay Problem #20 -- Getting in & out of your costume by yourself or with minimal help.
• Cosplay Problem #20a Corollary -- Being able to go to the bathroom while wearing your cosplay.

I think being able to go to the bathroom is a very important thing to build into ANY costume. I don't know about other cosplayers, but I do not have a camel's bladder.

With catsuits, the most important thing is to be able to unzip yourself out of it any any given moment. For that, I like to add long zip pulls to my zipper so I can easily get in/out of them.

Here's what I did:

1.  Added a jump ring to the zipper head. As hair is going to be covering my back, I decided on gold to match the necklace.
2. Add a bead so that it slides over the gap.
3. Get some cording/shoe lace and tie a bowline knot which won't slip.

And that's it! The entire cosplay is basically complete. Now, it's on to the Convention! I'll be posting photos of our finished group cosplay next week.

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Read the other parts of this Catwoman Dress Diary!

• Part 1: Reference Photos 
• Part 2: The Catsuit
• Part 3: Accessories - Belt & Necklace
• Part 4: Cat Mask
• Part 5: Cat Claws & Gloves
• Part 6:  Cat Ears & Hair Pieces
• Part 7: The bodysuit collar.
• Part 8: Finishing Touches

A Purrfect Costume: Collaring a Cat (Part 7)

This was the part of the costume that I had been procrastinating on for several weeks -- and making all the Catwoman accessories instead!

When I first started the catsuit, I drafted several different collars to try and get that "ruffled" look worn by Eartha Kitt. The other Catwomen had fairly straight forward collars, which would have been easy for me to replicate.

I drafted out at least 4 collars and tried basting them onto the catsuit with little success at recreating the look. Lets just say that there was plenty of frustration and swear words being thrown around. I was pretty sure that there was a super simple solution that I was totally missing, because collars aren't normally this hard!

I tried no interfacing and I tried using  various types of interfacing, from muslin to this one that is specifically for stretch knits -- the interfacing stretches as well. (I eventually used this one)

My Viking pointed out to me that the look was probably achieved by cutting the collar on the bias of the 2-way stretch material used. I was using 4-way stretch --- no bias --- so this was going prove a bit difficult to do. However, I was still convinced that the solution was easy and I was being obvlivious.

He also pointed out to me that the Con was fast approaching. I could get "close", but not screen accurate, but be FINISHED or I could go for perfection and not finish. (cosplay problem #22 --- Finish in time or get it perfect?!????)

Perfection is the enemy of the Done.

I went ahead and opted for close enough. My collar does have a ruffle to it, BUT, it's not quite the same as the screen version.

There was also some very interesting finishing work in the collar. It looked like piping  had been added to the collar, along with some stitching to secure the piping in place.

I'm guessing here, but from many of the photos, there is a distinctive line between the collar and the catsuit. So, I took some cord and sandwiched it between the catsuit and collar.

And then, I stitched it into place.

I'm still not 100% happy with the collar, but it looks fairly decent and with only a few days left until the Convention, I shall call it done, and perhaps re-make it at a later time.

If I had more time, I would re-do the collar. For now, you'll have to trust me that it looks okay. I'll post photos from the convention, as the collar doesn't look all that good unless I'm wearing the outfit.

Read the other parts of this Catwoman Dress Diary!

• Part 1: Reference Photos 
• Part 2: The Catsuit
• Part 3: Accessories - Belt & Necklace
• Part 4: Cat Mask
• Part 5: Cat Claws & Gloves
• Part 6:  Cat Ears & Hair Pieces
• Part 7: The collar...finally!
• Part 8: Finishing Touches

A Purrfect Costume: Clawing Gloves (Part 5)

I'm still procrastinating on getting that collar done on the costume, so I'm making use of my time to create more of Catwoman's accessories!

Another accessory that the 1960's Catwoman had were her clawed gloves. These were made of a completely different material than the actual catsuit, which would make it easy for me. I purchased some long gloves from a costume store with the intent of re-creating those gloves.

In addition to the gloves, I bought some long fake nails at the Halloween Spirit Store. One of the joys of cosplaying so close to Halloween is the amount of things you can currently purchase in-person. each pack comes with 10 nails. I bought two packs, just in case, as they were fairly inexpensive.

All 20 were spray painted gold. There were two coats of gold and two coats of a clear finishing lacquer. My Viking has a small paint spray booth that we used. This is set atop a lazy Susan so I don't have to touch the nails.

I took a page out of another cosplayer's dress diary and picked up brass finger picks. These are often used by banjo players and can be resized to your fingers. They cost about $15.00 for a 12 picks. I went to my local guitar store and tried a few. They have them in different thicknesses.

PRO TIP: Once you size all the picks to your fingers, make sure to mark which hand/finger each pick corresponds. It'll save you time and effort later!

The nails also came in different sizes, so I matched them up to the approximate size of my hand. The pinky (right most) gets the smallest fake nail. I used E6000 to glue the nails to the picks.

E6000 requires 24 hours to completely cure. The hardest part of costuming is waiting for paint or glue to dry! (Cosplay Problem #5)

Here are the final set of claws. I can move in them fairly well, although picking things up is a little tricky.

After the claws were fully cured, I carefully seam-ripped the tip of each glove so I could slide a claw through it. I didn't want to cut off the fingertips as I couldn't tell from the photos whether you can't see her actual fingers.

Addendum: I actually found a photo where you can see the actress' fingers through the gloves! Yes, it's not Eartha Kitt, but I see no reason why they would make the gloves different for each actress. My gloves do a similar look. It's near impossible to have the fingers not show unless you build custom gloves for this outfit with a special pocket that holds the nails.

Once I slid the claw through the slit, I sewed down the raw edges and seamed up the sides as much as I could. This process took a while as I worked on each finger separately.

As a side note, the gloves are a bit tight to wear, especially if they were going to be worn over the catsuit. I did some additional modification to the gloves --- mostly re-doing the side seam. The left glove had enough excess fabric to allow me to add some width to the forearms, but the right glove did not. Unfortunately, these gloves (along with many commercially made satin gloves) are "one-size fits-all" and they use somewhat stretch fabric to achieve that effect. If I had more time, I might have considered making custom gloves, but I highly doubt that the costume designers & wardrobe crew of the Batman show would have gone to the trouble of creating custom gloves on their budget.

Here are the final gloves! I'm very happy with how they turned out.

(Dean really liked getting scritches with the claws. 

Sam, however, attacked them when I tried petting him with them!)

I'd like to do one final modification on these gloves and use some conductive thread on the finger tips so I can use my phone while wearing said gloves, like I did for Shego!

The gloves are fairly comfortable to wear, but it's difficult to pick up anything "delicate" with them. I had trouble picking up my keys, but big things are easy. I could easily pick up the cat statue, but I had to grab my SDCC medal with the pads of my fingers.

Read the other parts of this Catwoman Dress Diary!

• Part 1: Reference Photos 
• Part 2: The Catsuit
• Part 3: Accessories - Belt & Necklace
• Part 4: Cat Mask
• Part 5:  Cat Claws & Gloves

Cosplay Problems: Part I

When getting ready for San Diego ComicCon, I realized that there were a bunch of (first world) cosplay problems that often occur. I decided to try and document a few of them as they happened.(Note: numbering is random)

Cosplay problem #122: when the accessories and props take up more room than the actual costume. 

Cosplay problem #123: when your makeup kit is its own piece of luggage. 

When packing outfits for a convention, I always run into the problem of "How much do I really want to pack?!?!" This problem depends on the mode of travel (plane or car), how far away is the convention, and how much I want to pay the luggage fees or sacrifice other packed things.

This conundrum leads to the two following issues:

Cosplay problems #10a: when you pack more outfits than number of days (and nights) attending the con. 

Cosplay problem #10b: when you decide to not pack a costume because, "eh, I won't wear that anyways/ Ive got enough costumes to wear!" 

Which leads to more problems...

Cosplay problem #11: when you are grateful that you packed Costume B because you just can't deal with Costume A for whatever reason. 

Cosplay problem #12: when you kick yourself for not packing Costume B because for whatever reason, Costume A, is not working out, not the right outfit, etc. 

Luckily, during SDCC, I was experiencing #11

The weather in San Diego was about 90 deg F with 100% humidity. In other words, it was too damn hot, which lead to the following problem.

Cosplay problem #124: trying to determine how much of your cosplay you want to wear in the goddamn heat.

I'm sure there's a part B to this one, which deals with cold weather & skimpy outfits. For SDCC, I was really glad to have packed a fairly comfortable and "light" costume.

(Worn at Gallifrey. I forgot to take photos during SDCC.)

Then it came time to go home and repack all of our cosplay outfits, props, and accessories back into the luggage. During this time, much of the accessories were spread around the room.

Cosplay problem #150: when you realize that you have to repack all of your costumes back up to go home.

Cosplay problem #150a; when you wonder just how the f*** did you Tetris-packed everything into the suitcases you brought.

I'm sure there are more cosplay problems. I'll continue documenting them as I run into them during conventions. Let me know some of your cosplay problems!