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

A Purrfect Costume: Masking a Cat (Part 4)

The mask was one of the easier parts of this outfit. There are a lot of side and front images for Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. They used the same fabric for the mask as the catsuit, so I would have to do the same.

First, I sketched out a mask using screenshots for reference. I based the mask off my face & eye measurements as compared to photos of Eartha Kitt wearing the mask.

I made 5 different variations, trying each one on my face to see if I captured the look.

I took the winning candidate and transferred the pattern to some Worbla. I had a very good experience using Worbla for my Hawkeye mask and decided to use it again.

I took the mask, used my heat gun to warm it up, then used a bust of myself to mold it to my face.

My intent was to use a spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the Worbla mask. I got out my silicon mat (as glue doesn't stick to it), opened the side door next to the table for ventilation (glue stinks and is not healthy to breath), and started the slow process. I did this a little bit at a time so that I woudn't get any air bubbles in the fabric.

The fabric covered mask isn't much to look at at this stage. However, I want all that excess fabric so I can carefully pull it over the edge of the mask.

At this stage, I've cut off the excess fabric and clipped curves so that I get a nice even finish.

Here's how it looks from the outside. I'm taking it nice and slow.

I forgot to take other photos of the underside, but this is what it looks like. I'm using a fast set super glue to stick the excess fabric to the underside and then trim it down. In addition, I cut out a felt mask from the template and glued it to the underside, starting at the nose then working out towards the tips. (Note: I attached the ties for the mask before finish glue'ing the felt down.)

This is the partially finished mask. At this point, I need to attach the ties.

I used flat elastic cord for the ties. The ties are going to be sandwiched between the Worbla and felt. Here's what I did:

1. Added a scrap piece of Worbla to the inside where I would attach the ties. This extra piece is just a bit of added strength.
2. I cut a small slit in the felt where I wanted the elastic.
3. I super glued to elastic to the Worbla and slipped the rest through the slit.
4. Sew'd down the elastic to the felt for added strength.

Here's the finished mask.

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

A Purrfect Costume: Accessorizing (Part 3)

After being frustrated with Catwoman's catsuit collar, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the belt I ordered with Etsy was delivered pretty promptly and is a near exact replica of the original. The belt was commercially available during that era. I did a search for gold scale belt on Etsy and eBay and found a number of similar looking versions and a few of the original ones too...for a fairly reasonable price!

With one less thing to worry about, I set about making the necklace for Catwoman. As I mentioned before, the original pendant was round and looked like it had a "cat" or "lion" as the center piece. There are also 3 other flat oblong pieces on either side of the center piece. From looking at the photos, it appears there are various hammered dimples on each flat oblong piece.

In other shots, you can see reflections, but I'm assuming those came from the dimples catching the light..

As much as I want to be screen accurate, there has to be some give in recreating the outfit. I couldn't find anything remotely close to "flat oblong disks with dimples" and I have no access to metal working tools. I *did* consider looking for one of those machines that flattens out coins to get the right look, but I decided to just go with pieces I could find at local crafting stores. Plus, I AM on a time crunch to get this done by October! I found inspiration from another cosplayer's work.

Consequently, I decided that I would make something that I thought the real Catwoman might appreciate and add some shiny BLING to it.

I had a lion's head pin from many years ago that I never really wore, but merely kept because I liked it. I also had a filigree pin that broke that I thought was a good size. I went to the local Joann's to find a centerpiece pendant that would work with both the lion head pin and the filigree piece.

First, I set about making the main pendant. I took apart the pendant I found at Joanns

And used jewelry wire to lash the lion in the center.

By the way, if you don't have one of these handy-dandy third hand, you really need to get one! They are so useful, especially if the arms are segmented. They are normally used for soldering purposes but are great for whenever you need that "third-hand"!

 

After making the centerpiece, I went to Michael's and  selected several different options that I thought would work for this necklace. It didn't matter the color as I was planning on painting them to match. I needed the "look".

I used rub-n-buff to paint over the pieces I had purchased.

( I didn't take the pendant off its card. It was actually easier to paint it this way using the third-hand.)

Painting took a little bit of time and care, but very much worth it.

These bigger pendants didn't have enough bling, so I glued some Swarovski crystals to it.

I liked how the necklace looked. It evoked the style of Catwoman, at least to me. The original Catwoman necklace is attached at the 10:00 and 2:00 locations of each oblong piece. Luckily, the smaller oblongs already had attachments in those locations. I cut off the main loop of the centerpiece, so I could build appropriate hooks at the 10 & 2 locations.

Because all of the pieces were of varying sizes, I needed to make some custom jump rings to hook everything together at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions. The commercial jump rings that I had (lower left) were either too big or too small.

I wire-wrapped eye pins to the larger side pendants so they could attach to the smaller ones, which luckily had them (as they are parts of a bracelet.)

It took a while for me to get the jump rings to look and hang correctly. I made several different sized rings to get the right look. I still need to attach a counterweight to the back portion so it hangs correctly on the costume, but I won't do that until I've got everything put together and it can be done during the final fitting.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

Read the other parts of this Catwoman Dress Diary!

• Part 1: Reference Photos 
• Part 2: The Catsuit
• Part 3: Accessories