Black Widow
(Comic book outfit)
Heyya Everyone!
This page will be walking through the various stages of how I went about creating my Black Widow (comic book) cosplay.
Suit:-
I started off with the main bulk of the costume, her suit. I used my usual bodysuit pattern; McCall's M7217 - the Ultimate Bodysuit by Yaya Han. I've used this pattern so many times that I can put the whole thing together in less than a few hours, plus I have it all lengthened so that it is a perfect fit for my body.
I love how her suit is so shiny, so to replicate this I used a faux leather stretch fabric, which had a shiny look to it.
I made the suit up as normal, however I removed the pull tab from the zip and replaced it with a spare jump ring I had laying around the workroom. This left me with a round pull ring which closely resembled the one on her suit.
Belt:-
There are been quite a few variations in Natasha's belts over the years, from gold circles, to a tactical belt with her logo on. However, the two that I love most are these:-
They look very similar, but there's subtle differences between the two;-
- The left belt is mostly made up of large, plain gold circles, with the front circle having a red background and her widow logo.
- The right belt is mostly made up of large black circles with a thin gold outline, with the front circle having her widow logo in red, right in the centre.
I can never decide which I prefer, so I decided to make both!
Gold medallion belt:-
I wanted to make sure that I could make each of the belt sections exactly the same size and shape, and the best way to do this was to make one of them, and then cast the rest from it.
In my workroom I have a bunch of plastic bowls in various sizes, which I use to mix paints, silicone and other such materials. One of them has a deep round bottom, which would be a good size for my belt pieces.
I gave the bottom of the bowl a light coating of mould release spray, then mixed up a small batch of clear resin. I poured this into the bottom of the bowl until it was as wide as I wanted the circles to be, then left it to cure overnight.
Once I was sure it had cured, I put a small mark on the inside of the bowl, so I knew how much resin to pour in for future casts. It popped out easily the next morning, thanks to the release spray, and this left me with a neat dome of resin, perfect as a base for her belt pieces.
My domes ended up being inches across, as that was perfect for my body size. The bigger your body, the bigger the domes should be, in order for it to look in proportion. I did this over and over again until I had of them, as this was how many I needed for the belt to fit around my hips.
To turn these domes into a belt, I grabbed some 25mm black webbing (always keep some around, it comes in useful for everything!), a small buckle, and some contact adhesive. The brand of contact adhesive isn't really important, it's all pretty much the same stuff and works the same way, but just in case any of you were curious, I use Evo-Stik instant contact adhesive, as it's the only one that's easily available in my town.
I measured the webbing to the width of my hips, then added an extra inch on each side as a seam allowance. I folded the first extra inch over one end of the buckle, so the extra piece was hidden underneath. Then I covered half of it in contact adhesive and pressed it onto the rest of the webbing, using a heavy book as a weight on top of it whilst it dried.
Once this had dried, I took some black thread and a thin needle, and did a double row of stitches along the edge of the buckle, next to the glued section. This was just to add a bit of extra security, in case the glue started to come apart after lots of uses. Then I just had to repeat this for the other end of the buckle and that was the base for my belt done!
Next step was to get the domes painted!
I wanted to make sure that there were no brush strokes or any visible lines on my circles, so I used spray paint instead of acrylic.
My go-to gold spray paint is . I gave them a two light layers of the gold spray paint, making sure they were dry before doing the next layer.
I picked one of the domes out, as this would be my centre one. I used masking tape to cover about 1cm round the edge, as I wanted this bit to stay gold.
Remember not to push down too much on the masking tape , otherwise you risk peeling the gold paint off with it!!
I used some red spray paint over the centre of this dome, as again, I didn't want any streaks to show. For this I used an old can of red spray paint, most of the label is covered in paint but I believe it was called,
Once I was sure this was dry, I very gently peeled of the masking tape. In the centre of the dome, I used a pencil to lightly sketch on her widow logo, then I painted it on with a very fine brush and some black acrylic paint. I find that brush marks don't show up as much with black paint.
Last step for painting was to give all of the domes a light spray with some clear gloss spray paint.
The final step was to attach the finished domes to the belt.
I started with the dome which had the logo on, this would be attached to the buckle. A thin layer of contact adhesive was put on the top of the buckle, and another thin layer was put on the back of the dome; once both layers were tacky, I pushed them together and kept pressure on then until they were set.
Once the centre one was set, the rest was easy. I just had to lay the belt flat, then add a blob of contact adhesive to both the belt webbing, and the back centre width of the circles. This was repeated all the way round the belt, so that all the circles were attached, and edge to edge with each other.
And my gold medallion belt was done!
Black circle belt:
I wanted to make some small differences between the two belts, so I decided to make the circles on this belt be spaced further apart, just so there was a bigger difference between the two finished belts.
I made another circle from clear resin, using the same method as before, this would be my base.
The circles on this belt aren't plain like on the previous belt, it has a thinner ring around the outside, so I had to add on an extra piece around the outside.
Fimo and Sculpey would have been my usual choices for something like this, however they need to be baked at 130oC in order for them to harden, and the resin I used doesn't have a high heat tolerance. This left me with only one material, Worbla.
The worbla sheet wouldn't be of any use, but my bag of scrap pieces would be perfect. I picked out a few of the longer pieces, and heated them up with my heat gun.
Once they were all heated, I pressed them all together and rolled them into a long, thin sausage shape; making sure there were no cracks or lines in it.
Before starting on this next part, your going to need some 'eye pins'. These are mainly used in jewellery making, they're those little metal loops that attach your pendant to your necklace chain. These can be a pain to find, so don't worry if you can't find them, small jump rings (6-8mm) will work just as well.
If, like myself, you are using a resin that isn't very heat resistant, you will need to work carefully, yet quickly on this part. This is because you won't be able to use your heat gun to reheat the worbla, as the heat will damage the resin circle. If you do need to reheat the worbla, try to only blast the edges from the side, whilst holding the resin part.
This long piece was then carefully pushed around the outer edge of the resin circle, and the ends were gently pressed together to hide the seam. Whilst the worbla was still sticky and warm, I gently pushed the eye pins into the edges, 2 on each side. These little circles will be what hold the belt together.
When the worbla has cooled and hardened, if the eye pins feel very loose or fall out, simply cover the pin part in contact adhesive, along with the hole they fell from, and push them back in. Wipe away any excess glue before it dries, otherwise this will show when you paint them later.
Repeat this until you have enough circles to cover the distance around your hips. BUT, on two of those circles, have a single eye pin; one which has a single eye pin on the left hand side, and one with a single eye pin on the right hand side. This will be where you attach the clasp to attach and remove the belt. I always have these two circles at the back, so the clasp isn't visible from the front, and won't show in pictures.
Next step is always my favourite, painting.
I covered the eye pins in masking tape, so they wouldn't get covered in paint, then I gave all of the circles a few light coats of black spray paint.
Once this was completely dry, I covered the centre of each circle in masking tape, leaving only the outer ring ready to be sprayed. This was given a spray with gold spray paint.
If you don't like spray paint, you can use acrylic paint and a fine bush to paint them, however this tends to leave brush marks so be very careful.
I picked up one of the circles and put it aside, this would be my front centre circle. This one needed to have her widow logo in red, in the centre of the circle. I sketched the widow logo onto a piece of masking tape, and cut it out with a craft knife. This stencil was put in the centre of the circle and sprayed with white spray paint first, to make sure the colour was nice and bright. Once this was completely dry, I sprayed it again with red spray paint, and left it to dry. Once it was dry, the stencil was very slowly peeled off, and the logo was in place! If you have any wonky edges, fix them with a fine brush and black acrylics.
Final step with the paint job is to seal them with a layer of clear gloss spray paint.
Now that you have all your pieces painted and protected, the last step is to assemble them.
As I wanted this one to look noticeably different from the previous one, I made sure to space them further apart, and I did this using 20mm jump rings.
I placed the circles side by side, in the order I wanted them to be in; with the two single pin ones at the back, and one with the logo at the front. I opened the jump rings using a pair of flat headed pliers, placed the opening through the jump rings on two circles, then closed it. This held them together, with a gap of about 24mm between each circle.
I repeated this around the belt, until only the two single pins were left.
To make sure this belt is easy to take on and off, I needed a clasp. You can use a buckle if you wish, but these are usually chunky and will be very noticable. I chose to use a lobster clasp.
I used a small 10mm jump ring to attach it to the left hand single eye pin. This meant I could attach the lobster clasp to the right hand eye pin, to easily open and close the belt.
And that's it completed!
If you find it easier to learn by watching, head on over to my Patreon to see the video walk-throughs for both belts, and the widow's bite wristbands!
All of my tutorials are accessible in the $20 tier!
If you think making these is a bit out of your skill range, or you simply don't have the time to make them, head on over to my Store, where they are available to order <3