Black Widow Cosplay
(Captain America: The Winter Soldier)
Heyya Everyone!
In this tutorial I will be walking through the various stages of how I went about creating my Black Widow suit, from the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Suit:-
I started off by using my usual bodysuit pattern; McCall's M7217 - the Ultimate Bodysuit by Yaya Han.
I bought this pattern when it was first released, and after lengthening the torso, sleeves and legs, it is now the perfect bodysuit for my shape.
I used a black 4 way stretch opaque black jersey fabric as the base, and layered a black mesh netting over the top of the jersey, so when the pattern pieces were cut, they would have the same texture as her suit in the film.
I made the suit as per the pattern, and added in my zip. The pattern says to use an invisible zipper, but I wanted to keep it as accurate as possible, so I used a reguar zip so the teeth would be visible.
Next came the tricky part, free-handing the leather panels. For the panels I used a 2-way stretch faux leather fabric, and kept the stretch on the width.
I used some scrap red lining fabric to plan the shape for the panels, and once I had the right shape, I cut those pieces from the faux leather and pinned them in place on the suit.
I had to try the suit on a few times whilst pinning on the panels, as I couldn't get them the right length on my torso. Once they were pinned in the perfect place, I realised I had an issue - my machine couldn't get a grip on the faux leather, and as such it couldn't be fed through. This meant I had to hand stitch all the panels on, not a big deal, it just meant it would take a lot longer to complete.
Before stitching down the panels which ran down the sides of my legs, I attached the knee pads I had made separately from the faux leather and the mesh fabric. Looking closely at the pictures, half of her knee pad is under the leather panel, with the other half on show - so I pinned half of the pad under the leather panel and stitched the visible half to the base suit. I also added some webbing at the waist, so I could attach the belt buckle later on.
Next step was to create the belt buckle and the S.H.I.E.L.D. patch for the upper right arm. I created both out of craft foam and covered them in black Worbla.
I primed the buckle with a spray primer, then gave it two light coats of silver spray paint, then hand painted the red widow symbol on the centre using acrylic paints. I gave this red section a thin outline using black acrylic paint, to make it pop.
The patch was left black, and I hand painted over the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo with silver acrylic paint.
Once finished, I glued a small clasp to the back of the belt buckle, and attached the clasp ends to the webbing.
The patch was glued onto the upper arm of my suit using contact adhesive, and once this was set, I did a small stitch at the top and bottom of the patch, to ensure it was extra secure. I did this with a curved needle, as it was thicker and easier to push through the patch than my normal thin needles.
And that was my suit finished!
Boots:-
The easiest part! I modified a pair of wedge boots I already owned, by cutting off the straps and buckles that were already on the boots, cutting a V shape out of the front centre, then gluing a black zip down the centre with contact adhesive. Next step was attaching some straps and panels of spare faux leather on the front at the top, and at the sides of the boots, finishing it off with a very light spray of black spray paint to cover any glue that was showing, and any pen marks on the leather.
Accesssories:-
For the gloves I used my old paintball gloves, as they looked very similar to the style of hers. They were tactical airsoft gloves from my local surplus store, but you can also get them here online.
My holsters were probably the most expensive part of the costume. The BB guns I used for the costume were my old Beretta's, and I wanted my holsters to be as accurate to hers as possible, whilst still holding my guns securely without damaging them. I ended up ordering the thigh holsters directly from Beretta, as that was the only place to get both right and left handed ones. These took a while to arrive as they were from America, but looked perfect! I attached these onto a thick black webbing belt I've had for years, and that was the holsters sorted!
I made the widows bite wristbands by breaking down an old bullet belt I'd had in my wardrobe for years (thanks to my old emo days!). I cut sections down to the size of my wrist and took off the individual bullets, then attached them together with thin elastic thread, so I can easily slip them on and off. I gave them a blast of matte black spray paint, to hide any of the thread that was showing, and to make sure they were all evenly coloured.
My wig was from my usual wig supplier: Wig is Fashion. Their wigs are very thick, look very realistic, and the fibres are very high quality - plus they are heat resistant, so can be easily maintained with straighteners or curling irons.
Final Look!
This was how my costume looked once all the pieces were put together. I'm incredibly happy with how this costume turned out, as it was extremely comfortable to wear, and very easy to move about in.
I made this outfit for MCM London October 2016, and was lucky enough to do a shoot there with ItsTheNerdyPhotographer.
