DIY: DC Bombshells Nightwing (Batwoman variant)

I was always going to do a build of DCs Bombshells Batwoman ()aka kate Kane), but as my sister was also keen on the characters outfit and it would be her first time cosplaying it was decided that she would stay canon in the signature red and I would opt for a colour variant. In this instance Blue/ Turquoise.

We also have another friend with us who was keen to get into on the group number so she was doing the same thing but in yellow.

Now the complicated part. I live in Canberra and I can sew a little, My sister lives in Adelaide and she cannon sew at all, Our friend Lynda lives in Sydney and her sewing skills are decent. So as Lynda had the better sewing skill so she’d be making the dress part for Kareena. (We had patterns for the larger sizes and my sister is a 10-12AU, while both Lynda and myself are 14-16AU. Lynda had experience resizing patterns, while I cannot draw freehand to save my life)

I started by buying the pattern from spotlight (Simplicity 8432) and then breaking down what I would need to actually create the build.

Step One: Planning

As always break it down to it's key components and wok out what I need to make, What I need to buy and what can be modified.

1. Baseball Cap

2. Wig

3. Dress

4. Gloves

5. Belt

6. Socks

7. Sneakers/ Cleets

8. Baseball bat Prop

9. Mask/ makeup?

Step 2: Gathering

>> So First off I recalled seeing foam baseball bats at the store where I was working (Zing), they’d been there for ages and no one really knew why we were selling them. They had two so I bought both and texted Lynda to pick one up in Sydney as there were a half dozen stores there that should have them. Figuring out how to modify them would come later.

>> Next to work out the baseball cap. Menswear section at Kmart, thankfully it’s still full blown summer here in Australia so that was easy to find for $3. Again will work out how to mod later.

Step 3: Sewing

So I selected Black and turquoise homespun fabric as it was reasonably priced and would hopefully be warm when June rolled around as that was going to be the start of Winter and Sydney weather can be unpredictable at times (still not as bad as Melbourne).

Finding a buckle for the belt was proving difficult to find, until we spotted a $3 mens belt in Kmart, (big fan of Kmart) could easily remove the buckle from the belt and use that for the Batwoman uniform. Save the rest of the belt for a future cosplay maybe for a harness or something later down the track? (I’ve been considering an attack on titan cosplay)

The DC bombshells Batwoman pattern used for the then modified to use Blue in place of red. Printed off the different logos and then traced onto material before cutting out with scissors and a scalpel. we decided on different numbers to represent each different character. The 52 on Batwoman was the original design. The 42 on Nightwing was a reference to Hitchikers Guide.

Getting the lettering to sit right was a challenge and took a few trials runs with scrap material before I was confident enough to attach to the actual dress. The trick was to cut out around everything but leave the space between "Gotham" and "Knights" still attached. Iron the top half of the letters on "Gotham" and the bottom half of the letters on "Knights" then cut that center bit out and iron the rest of the lettering down.

Step 4: Accessories

Bat hats. black caps purchased from Kmart. Cut out the symbols from some Material from the quilting section of Spotlight (Fat square). Then added a layer of white interfacing underneath before then ironing on with Applique paper (basically iron on glue). the layer of interfacing was just to help the coloured material stand out if the coloured material was to thin. Once cooled apply black fabric paint (the puffy kind) to the edge of the design to prevent fraying and to also act as a secondary way to ensure that the applique stayed attached.

(took a bit of finesse with the iron and stuffing a towel inside the hat to get the iron into the right places)

Socks: Finding socks in the right colours was a little tricky. Original plan was to buy white knee high socks that had red stripes and then dye them the colours we needed. Unfortunately the Red came out pink and the yellow was very unflattering. But the blue socks were fine.

The new plan buy knee high red sock and yellow socks then paint on the black stripes with fabric paint. this was a last minute decision (like the night before we were due to debut the characters) and if you look closely you'll see that the Stripes on the yellow socks are a little messy and the Red socks. Well one sock has the stripes pained in the right spot but the other has the about 4 inches lower then they needed to be. I was tired and didn't line it up on the right place when I put the sock on the pool noodle.

*Fun fact* you can cut down a pool noodle to keep in your boots an it stops them drooping over or getting too crushed in transit. Also good for if you need to paint a design on sock (just remember to line the up right)

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Bats: A recent trip to Rebel Sport to chase up tennis rackets (for the Mario tennis cosplays) had me passing the sports medicine isle. Here I came across the Physio tape (rock tape) and the fact that it came in a number of bright colours wasn't lost on me. I purchased a 6 pack of colours because I knew I'd have use for them. (I have some back issues so the tape comes in handy). This tape is perfect for wrapping around the handles of the bat so that we could have coloured handles that matched our uniforms. The only trick was that the end can have a tendency to fray. A little craft glue rubbed into the edges made sure it wouldn't come off. So now we've got some pretty bats.

Gloves: Bought some evening length gloves from a dollar store at around $2.50 each. Then had to cut them down to make them wrist length hemmed the edges with a zigzag stitch as the fabric they're made of is a bit stretchy. Decided to make them finger-less as it'd make it easier to use phones and things. Cut fingers down to length. I hemmed each finger while Lynda Used clear nail polish on the edges to seal them and prevent them fraying. Both methods worked well. I feel the clear polish method had a cleaner look to it as you could see my stitching.