Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Dark Knight Suit - Because I Don't Have Enough On My Plate

I finally gave in and OFFICIALLY started work on the Batman costume as seen in "The Dark Knight". As usual, I'm not going to do it "half way". I'm going ALL the way. Well, actually, that's not true. There is one SIGNIFICANT corner I am cutting, but I'll post more on that later. For the most part, I expect this to be a pretty high quality suit, but not absolutely top of the line.

This really all started when my buddy Brad in Australia put up for sale some of the screen accurate mesh fabric that is used for the undersuit. I think he purchased a bolt of it at some really high price, and once it's gone, it is gone. Or so the advertising copy goes. I grabbed it.



Here's a close up. I really don't know anything about it other than the fact that it is really neat looking.



Brad was kind enough to also pass along some suggestions on sewing the whole thing together. You need a solid black undersuit, and then this goes on top of it. The armor plates are then glued to this mesh.

Also from Brad, I purchased a pair of gloves. These things fit like... well, they fit like a glove! Perfect fit! From what brad tells me, these are off the shelf gloves with custom CNC'd knuckles. Very nice looking, and the knuckles look great.



For reference, here is a picture of the gloves being offered commercially by UD Replicas.




There are obviously some differences, but the overall effect is very similar. In fact, I dare say I prefer the rigid knuckles over the shaped leather ones.

Anyhow, I also have a belt that I started working on a while ago that got put on hold. I suppose I'll need to pull that out again eventually and finish it off.

Other than the boots, I have everything either on order or on hand for the entire suit. I think the only real unknown at this point is if the cowl will fit me when it shows up.

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