Yesterday was the last day in my long holiday weekend sewing extravaganza, so I had to dig the living room floor out from under the pile of fabric scraps and pattern pieces and get ready to head back to work. But before I did that, I wanted to do at least a bit to get started on the new–and hopefully improved–version of the seven piece practice costume.
I found a relatively cheap, large roll of drawing paper at Jerry’s Artarama–having grown a bit weary of the hassle involved with taping several pieces of printer paper together–and drafted a modified leggings pattern. I increased the rise quite a bit, and added panels of fabric at the top of the front and back:
I think I must have been basing this on a similar seam setup apparent on the costumes in the Amazing Spider-Man movies:
We’ll see how this goes. There’s a slight fear that it draws more attention (I did not notice on the movie Spidey after all) but my leggings will be black instead of blue and I think the seams will blend more.
The increased rise will help the most, I believe. There’s no real concern about how high they are on my waist (I measure almost up to my belly button for the rise on this pattern) as the tunic will overlap it (and connect to it, so a high rise is ideal for that purpose).
The similar panel on the butt is not present in the movie Spidey costume, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, so we’ll see how it goes.
On the digital design front, I have finished up the details on the design for the final-final non-practice costume in the full-size Photoshop version of the file (having gotten my computer processing/RAM issues worked out). I am now playing with the colors and opacity levels, the latter affecting how much–if at all–the underlying muscle pattern will show through on the final screen-printed design.
Here I’ve got a very muted color palette, as I experiment with maybe doing some blue after all (especially if my 7 piece costume is black and red). But this looks a bit washed out. I have the muscle design showing through just a smidge, and that lowered opacity of the color layers is what makes it hard to get the blue and red right. Seeing as I’m not totally sold on the “fake muscle” look anyway, I might simplify my life and cover it over with “pure” colors, which will make it a lot easier to choose the colors I want.
That’s about it for now. I ordered some more fabric (it was a good bit cheaper that way) and will be continuing to re-draft my patterns while I wait for the fabric–and while I wait to have more time to spend sewing! It was an unusually quiet weekend.
I might even make mini-versions of the patterns and sew mini-versions of some of the costume pieces from my remaining scraps of spandex. I am going to be getting a bit creative with the pants (adding the panels) and the shirt design–while okay–needs some modification as well. I might try a shirt pattern with shoulder seams that angle from under the arms to the base of the collar:
Just gotta figure out the measurements and layout and such.
But for today…back to work!
UP NEXT: Lots of Drawing and Designing
Spider-Man Mashup Cosplay Costume: 