Sometimes I really crack myself up. By "leg work" I not only mean that I was doing foundational or preliminary work for the body suit, but as luck would have it, I'm actually working... on the legs! BOOM!
The background on this is that the mesh material that is used for the suit is not very stretchy. It has SOME stretch to it, but nothing like lycra, spandex, or milliskin. I want to make a pattern that can be used for the mesh. So basically a well fitting coverall type thing. Not quite as precise as a unitard, but still pretty well fitting.
Tonight I worked on the legs. One interesting thing about this suit Vs the superman suit is that there is more freedom with the pattern. I'm not as concerned with hiding the seams, and I'm also not as concerned with it being a PERFECT fit. I also only need to go half way down my lower legs, as I will be wearing boots. I will probably just make elastic stirrups to go around the feet.
So tonight, I took my existing pattern for my Superman Returns costume leg and tweaked it so that I could use it for Batman. I went through five iterations, but finally got it right.
You will notice that I'm using the material that I originally ordered as test material for the cape. Good job, recycler Munson! The fabric is actually ideal, as it has almost ZERO stretch. This serves as a good baseline for my pattern. If anything, I will need to just take it in a quarter of an inch when I do the final product, and it will be perfect. As it stands, I'm feeling very good about the leg pattern.
Because the mesh fabric is extremely expensive, and I only have a finite amount of the stuff, I want to make sure the pattern is really perfect before I cut into the stuff. Hence all the leg work.
Next step is to build out the whole lower body. Now that I've got the legs working, it's really just a matter of getting the crotch and butt seam working. I'm going to build in a cod piece so I can do bathroom breaks. Having worn full batman armor before, I can tell you that going to the bathroom essentially involves taking off the ENTIRE costume. That's pretty hard to do when you're walking the streets of Manhattan.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress tonight. I stayed up a little later than I had hoped, but it was worth it, as the pattern is coming together.
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