The BSG Flight Suit
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bsg_flightsuit's LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 | | 7:13 pm |
| | Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 | | 5:33 am |
I'll try to do one more update about the suit construction this week, but in the meantime, I didn't want to let Halloween go by without at least sharing some more pictures of the (almost) finished product - this is what I'll be wearing in to the office today: http://gallery.bloodredrose.com/main.php?g2_itemId=4785(the first six pictures were taken last night, with the full suit hanging off the back of my door) I'm still missing all the cartridge cases for the belt, and I'd like to fabricate my own helmet eventually, but I have between now and WonderCon next spring to finish adding all the little accoutrements. | | Monday, October 9th, 2006 | | 10:42 am |
| | Monday, September 25th, 2006 | | 8:55 pm |
Heh, I realized today that it's been a while since I posted an entry. :) Sorry 'bout that. I have been doing some more work, just that my free time has been limited as always. I finished the suit, as you probably know, but I've still got the vest left to make. I had targeted October 6th to have the whole costume done - not that I planned to wear it for the season premier or anything, I just wanted to make sure I had an end date in mind ... otherwise, it would languish forever. Well, I'm not gonna make it for October 6th, but I will have it done by Halloween. I've spent some time the last few weekends doing sketches and drafting a pattern for the vest. This image has been my main photo reference: http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/BSG04EP6_0048CS.jpg... but I also have a lot of screen captures showing the back and sides (to get the shape of the vents and the shaping at the waist) - take a look at the ones labelled "HandofGod*.jpg": http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/The toughest part for me, actually, has been coming up with fabrics that I could use ... the vest is clearly made from leather and suede ... but, uhm, I'm vegan. So I did a lot of swatching through Denver Fabrics, and actually managed to come up with some close matches. I got most of the fabrics in over the weekend, and I'm really happy with them. The base of the vest is going to be this faux leather - it's a dark olive gray, just slightly darker than the color of the suit: http://www.denverfabrics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=23285Then for the suede panels on the front, I'm using this vinyl, in " weathered grey": http://www.denverfabrics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=22995The shoulder panels will be made from this textured vinyl, in silver: http://www.denverfabrics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=23042I was going to do the back vents out of something light and strong, like Tencel, but it turns out the olive-gray faux leather is light enough to work with. So that's it - this weekend, I'll whip up a quick mockup and start cutting. With any luck, there won't be anything else going on, and I can sew through the weekend ... although, I do need to head out to the military surplus store and see if I can pick up a belt, and some cartridge cases ... | | Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 | | 9:39 pm |
| | Monday, September 4th, 2006 | | 9:46 pm |
a first look at the finished suit
( Read more... )That's the suit that's finished, nothing else. I'm still working on a pattern for the vest, and trying to assemble the belt and all the assorted cartridge cases that go with it, along with gloves, boots, etc. I'm shooting for the first week of October to be done, done, done (not that I plan to wear the suit to sit around and watch the season premier, it just seems like a good target date). | | Sunday, August 27th, 2006 | | 9:21 am |
| | Saturday, August 26th, 2006 | | 8:50 am |
Just a quick update - it's officially a garment now! Yes, that's right, the suit itself is finally assembled. Technically, I could put it on right now and walk down the street, and I would be considered fully clothed. I'm not going to do that. But I could. :) I have pictures, just haven't had time to clean them up and post, but hopefully I'll get that done before the end of the weekend. I sat up last night doing finishing work - tacking down cuffs, handstitching snap closures. OMFG it looks so good, and the fit is perfect - I'm so glad I did a muslin first. I made one more concession, which I'll explain in detail once I have the photos up. The left sleeve, with the oxygen gauge, has that panel on the forearm that's supposed to light up - eventually I want to replace that with LEDs, but I need to figure out the best place to hide a switch (probably somewhere in the cuff, or underneath the actual pressure gauge). In the meantime, I'm using a strip of red reflective tape (there's a pocket sewn to the underside of the sleeve that's open on one end, so I can slide it out when it's time to replace with the acrylic/LEDs). | | Monday, August 14th, 2006 | | 9:21 pm |
I've made a little progress in the last week, and taken a few more pictures ( http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/ - IMG_1372 through IMG_1380). Most of the pockets are stitched on to their respective pieces now. I switched over to a leather needle (from the stretch needle) to do all the topstitching, and that seemed to work pretty well through so many thicknesses of PVC. The double topstitching I'm doing really makes a difference. I stitched around the edges of each pocket - about 1/2" in - before gluing it down, then stitched again at 1/4" to fasten each pocket to the suit. On the first go round, the edges of every piece were all pulling and a little uneven, but the second row of stitching really smoothes everything out. It's still not perfect - there are some seams that aren't perfectly straight, and the stitch lengths sure the hell aren't consistent. But I realized today that this is the point where I have to stop being such a perfectionist. I'm not doing anything over, and I probably wouldn't get any better results if I did - PVC is just a bitch to work with, period. But once the suit is on, and I'm moving in it, no one is going to notice the slight imperfections in those seams. So tonight I started glueing some of the large pieces together, and I set the zipper in on the center front. Hopefully, this weekend I can actually assemble the whole suit, then I'll have something to model. :) | | Saturday, August 5th, 2006 | | 11:45 pm |
I have been making a lot of progress, btw, I just haven't had time to post about it. (I'd rather sew than write about sewing, if you know what I mean.) What seemed like it would be a pretty easy, straightforward process - assembling the body suit - has turned out to be a little more complex than I anticipated. I knew PVC was a bitch to work with - I've made fetish outfits with it before. So I fully expected it to be a pain in the ass to work with. And it's more than met my expectations. PVC is so stretchy - when you try to stitch through it, even with needles meant for the job, it wants to pull and bunch and catch on the feed dogs of the machine. There are some tricks I know for stabilizing PVC when you're just sewing flat seams - baby powder between layers, notebook paper, tissue. But in this case, I'm doing a lot of topstitching - making all the various pockets and flaps that go all over the outside of the suit, then attaching those before the main body of the suit can be assembled. Topstitching those pocket pieces before attaching them to the suit is a bitch - not that hard, but taking forever. I couldn't pin the edges over - pins would leave a mark in the PVC. And even with pins, the seams were bunching because of the aforementioned stretchiness. Here's what I came up with - I took every pocket piece, flap, and pouch, marked the seam allowance, folded over the edges and cemented them down with a clear silicon glue. There are probably better adhesives for the job, but the one I have on hand that seems to work the best is Aleene's Platinum Bond Glass & Bead Slick Surfaces Adhesive. (I use it for jewelry making - I love it when my hobbies cross pollinate.) So I've been gluing down edges, letting them dry overnight, topstitching, then gluing the pieces into place on the suit, waiting for them to dry again, then topstitching to the suit. It's painstaking, but worth it, as it stabilizes everything so well that actually stitching through the PVC is a breeze. And no pin marks. I've been taking pictures as often as I can, but I'm not quite caught up. What I do have is all on my photo reference page, under "work in progress". The most recent ones (IMG_1345-1357.jpg) are of the pockets and flaps - the seams are still slightly crooked on some of them, but I'm hoping it won't be too noticeable once I've got the suit on. The suit pieces are all spread out on my bedroom floor right now, with pockets in place and glue still drying on some of them. I'll finish stitching everything down tomorrow, and take some more pictures then. When I actually go to assemble the suit, I'll most likely cement those main pieces together, too, just to make sure assembly goes smoothly. | | Saturday, July 29th, 2006 | | 3:53 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 | | 11:31 am |
| | Sunday, July 16th, 2006 | | 7:52 am |
So all the supplies are pretty much in. The zippers, rivets and thread I still needed came in yesterday, so I can finally start assembling everything. That'll go quickly and be accompanied by tons of pictures, I'm sure - I'll probably start one of these weeknights, instead of waiting until the weekend. I'm pretty anxious to get this finished, what with the vest design still looming ahead of me and all. I did make a few more small purchases. I wasn't sure I'd be able to find any of this stuff, but eBay came to my rescue. I love it when little details like this come together. I picked these up on Friday: Battlestar Galactica Captain Rank Pins Prop ReplicaBATTLESTAR GALACTICA NEW SERIES FLIGHT WINGS PIN PROPNow we're getting into insane levels of detail here: Battlestar Galactica New Season 1 Sidearm Prop ReplicaDo I really want to pay that much just to have a realistic-looking sidearm to tuck into my belt (something I still need to buy, incidentally, along with all the cartridge cases)? Then again, haven't I paid that much for regular clothes and accessories before? Is $50 really that much of a stretch? We'll see, we'll see ... it's in a store, not an auction, so I've got a bit of time to decide. And even more insane ... yes, now I'm actually considering either buying a replica helmet, or learning how to do the molding so I can make my own. | | Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 | | 9:40 pm |
I made so much headway over this long holiday. Granted, not as much as I could have - if I'd spent more time at home and less time at H&M, I might be finished by now. Okay, not really - I got about as far as I could, only to realize that I still need more supplies before I can continue. Today: 1) fitted the muslin (adjusted arm/leg lengths, took in the waist a bit, and took a little bagginess out at the center back seam) 2) marked the placement of all the assorted pockets and pouches attached to the front torso, legs, and sleeves 3) pinned and cut all the pieces out of the vinyl (including all thosee little pockets, flaps, and pouches) while watching Italy pull out a stunning last-minute upset against Germany in the World Cup semi-finals I got to that point and realized that I couldn't actually start assembling anything because I forgot to order all the little zippers for all those pockets. (Zippered pockets have to be assembled first, so that they can be stitched down to the main part of the suit while the big pieces are still flat.) I can't even topstitch the flaps and pockets that are zipper-less, because I didn't get thread. (This week or next weekend, I'll make a trip over to Britex, to look for a good gunmetal or putty match.) The most I could do was stitch the patches - Viper and BSG insignia - to the tops of the sleeves. I did order zippers, plus all the assorted snaps and grommets I think I'll need for the vest. So while I'm waiting for those to come in, I'll spend the next week or two tinkering around with drafting a vest pattern. I'm glad I have so much muslin left - I can tell that piece is going to have to be reshaped a few times before I get a pattern I'm happy with. ........................................ ..... One other thing I ordered this weekend - side-release buckles (brass) for the vest closure. Now I need to find a good pressure gauge - something like this - that I can disassemble and insert into the left sleeve (like this, this, and this). Heh heh, I think it's a little funny - unless I'm seriously mistaken, that oxygen gauge dial thing in the sleeve was not added until season 2. The first time I ever noticed it is in that scene where Apollo is floating out in space, in the "Resurrection Ship" episodes. But I went back and looked at some of the still shots I have that I know are from season 1, to try and get a better idea about the size/placement. And the upper pocket is there - http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/Capricavalerii2.jpg, http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/BSG04EP6_0048CS.jpg - but the flap covering where the gauge should be isn't. Yep, yougottit, I'm incredibly anal about these little details. Blame it on my background in historical costuming, where thorough research rules. But that means that when this flight suit is finally done, it's going to be really fracking good. | | Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 | | 11:11 pm |
W00t! I have a muslin.Thank goodness for long holiday weekends, otherwise this project could have languished for a few more months. But this afternoon I finally spent a few hours cutting pattern pieces and stitching the muslin mockup of the jumpsuit. I want to adjust the fit a little more - I'm not happy with how loose it still is under the arms - but it's basically done. One thing to note about this pattern I'm using is that the sizing is really weird. It's the Women's Black Butte Jumpsuit from Green Pepper. It's a multi-size pattern, but apparently it runs pretty small - when I got it and actually read the measurements, I realized that I would need to cut it to the absolute largest size, what they're calling an 18. But I am an 8, normally. If I were any larger, I'm not sure I'd be able to use this pattern. And this is for a ski suit, something that's presumably supposed to be worn over other clothes? Hummm. Anyway, I've got some other pictures up, of the patterning and details of the muslin - they're dull as dishwater, but if you're interested, here they are, under "work in progress": http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/Tomorrow, I'll spend some time working out the placement of all the little pockets and flaps, then I may go ahead and start cutting the vinyl. Or I may start working on the pattern for the best. I'll decide what I feel like doing when I get to that point. ....................................... What to do with the dog tags? I'm such a dork - I wear them every day, pretty much. That new brass shine has worn off, and they're starting to look like they've been through a few battles. I got a few new screen grabs today (which I haven't uploaded yet, sorry) that show closeups of the dog tags, and they really are dead on accurate. They came with the insignia and serial number already engraved - all that remains is for me to find a jeweller to engrave the name above the SN. But which name? Do I use my own first initial/last name? Or do I go with my favorite character, who I love more and more every time I re-watch an episode - "K. Thrace" - ? | | Thursday, June 29th, 2006 | | 8:48 pm |
I haven't yet cut into the vinyl, or sewn so much as a single stitch, but I still feel like I made a lot of headway this past weekend. And I don't have many plans for this coming long weekend (aside from watching the World Cup all day on Saturday) so I'll probably finish the muslin by Tuesday. 1) The vinyl I ordered from Distinctive Fabrics is *perfect*. On the site, it's labelled as "gunmetal", but it's got just the slightest cast of what could be bronze, or what could be olive, depending on the way the light hits it. So, yes, exactly perfect. 2) What I did this past weekend was plan, plan, plan. I spent almost the whole day Saturday just going back and skimming the last two seasons on my MacBook, so that I could get screen grabs of some of the better costume details. For example, there's a scene in one of the "Resurrection Ship" episodes that has Apollo floating in space ... I had never realized before that one of the flaps on the left sleeve is actually covering an oxygen meter. And the oval cutout at the cuff? That lights up red - I guess it's supposed to be some kind of life support warning. Anyway, I got screen shots of stuff like that, the gloves, shoes, pocket placements, wrist cuffs, other suit details. I took quite a few of the vest at different angles, too. 3) That vest is going to be a fracking pain in the a**. Never mind that I'm going to have to freehand the shapes that make up the front. I'm also having a hard time figuring out the back - it's been tough getting good images. But the worst part is that, no matter how I wish it weren't true, it looks like the whole thing (at least the front) is constructed out of suede. I'm vegan - no way I'm using leather in this costume. So I've got to find an acceptable substitute, something with the right weight *and* the right texture. 4) I also did a few sketches, not as many as I'd like but enough to make me comfortable with the placement of all the little pockets and zippered compartments around the body of the suit. The sketches and screen grabs are all here, btw: http://www.bloodredrose.com/lj/bsg/ | | Monday, June 19th, 2006 | | 9:23 pm |
w00t! Look what just arrived today: The other side of each tag is blank - I just need to find a place locally that can engrave a name and rank ... | | Thursday, June 15th, 2006 | | 6:37 am |
Starbuck and Starbuck at Starbucks
(from SciFi.com) | | Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 | | 5:52 pm |
| | Sunday, June 11th, 2006 | | 9:49 pm |
I still don't have any pictures to post, I'm afraid ... sometimes, costuming takes more planning than execution. :) Okay, that's not really it - I've just been really busy. So, yeah, I'm still in the supply ordering stage, but still forging ahead. The first vinyl order came in last week - it turned out to be a bright silver, not the olive-drabbish color I was expecting from the photo on the web site. I'll probably still keep the silver - I can use it for some other fetish or club outfit (although I don't know what I'm going to do with as much as five yards of it, my club outfits tend not to use that much fabric :) ). So I found a second site selling the stretch PVC, and this time I decided to order swatches first (!). The swatches arrived in about two days, and voila, one of the colors was as near-perfect as I think I'm going to get: http://www.distinctivefabric.com/fabric.php?product=PVC1 (in the gunmetal grey - in the color thumbnails, it's the bottom row, second square in) The patches came in from Patch Geek, so I do at least have the casual outfit together (that's the grey hoodie with the white logo patch, plus grey t-shirt and olive green tank top, for those of you keeping score at home). I actually wore it to work last week, with a pair of dark grey cargo pants. And I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find dog tags similar enough to the ones on the show, but I just came across (and ordered) these tonight: http://cgi.ebay.com/BATTLESTAR-GALACTICA-NEW-SERIES-BRASS-DOG-TAG-SET-PROP_W0QQitemZ6636770619QQcategoryZ37880QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItemNow if only I could find someone making the helmets ... or, hell, maybe I'll just mold my own. |
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