Artwork by Zach Fischer Designs

Light Fury Transformation

Post #5: Sewing the Bodysuit & Skirt

Hi Everyone!
This week I worked on some of the sewing section of the Light Fury Costume. I started this week by creating the bodysuit, but once I started to get into patterning the skirt, I realized that I wanted to redesign some of Zach Fischer’s original design. Since I am trying to portray a different gender in this costume, I want to create a skirt that puts more emphasis on silhouette, so that I can give the illusion that I have more curvature. Looking at reference photos from when Jessica Nigri created this costume, the skirt that she created seems to lay flatter than the one in Zach Fischer’s design. In order to create a skirt that flares out so much, it would need some sort of wire in the seams in order to keep it flared out. Unfortunately, I do not think this will look too great without making the skirt out of really thick fabric nor will it be very mobile at a convention. Therefore, I have come to the decision to just redesign some of the sewing portions of this costume. So, throughout the week I was thinking about different types of skirts that would go well with the rest of the costume design. Additionally, I think I may be creating some matching gloves and thigh highs later on if I have enough time.

BODYSUIT

Here is how I started out the bodysuit/leotard:

(I am using a scuba knit material that has 2-way stretch)

I started out by flat patterning my measurements onto paper. The piece on the left is for the back of the leotard and the piece on the right is for the front of the leotard. I only patterned half of these patterns because I planned to cut these pieces of the fold (I found out later that I need to add a center front and center back seam in order to fit my body better). Now, for this bodysuit I decided to change the design of the top portion because I do not have a female bust; therefore, I added a deep V-cut that will meet the middle my armored breastplate. Not only will this allow me to hide padding for my bust under the bodysuit, but the deep V-cut will allow me to contour on some fake cleavage.

Before sewing the bodysuit together, you must first add on the details to the fabric pieces. This is important, because if you try and add details later, it will be extremely difficult to finagle the bodysuit through the sewing machine. Additionally, you won’t be able to have your details flow into the shoulder seams. I added blue stripes with the same scuba knit material and top-stitched them to the front and back pieces.

After all the details were added, I sewed the shoulder seams and side seams together and proceeded to do a fitting to see if everything fit properly. Once I put on all my pads and corset I was able to see how the garment fit. In this fitting there was loose material in the center front and center back, therefore I needed to add curved seams in the center front and back to make the bodysuit fit properly. After that, I re-fitted and it fit perfectly! Then, I was able to finish the bodysuit by adding hems everywhere and snap attachments to the bottom.

Next, I moved onto designing the skirt. I noticed many wing-type motif icons in Zach Fischer’s design, so I wanted to accentuate those more in the fabric rather than just the armor details. I wanted a small skirt that only goes ¾ of the way around my body, attaches the the belt, and opens up in the front. So, I patterned this design that kind of looks like bat wings for the skirt that will hopefully look folded up dragon wings when worn!

Next, I cut the fabric on the fold out, using the white and blue fabric. I cut it out of both fabrics because I want the lining of the skirt (on the inside) to be blue, where the outside is white. I proceeded to add stripes onto the white piece of fabric before sewing everything together. Lastly, I sewed the white and blue “bat” shaped pieces together and flipped them inside-out and closed everything up with a top stitch.

Here is the finished bodysuit and skirt, and I think the new skirt design is SUPER cute and will look really fun with all the armor around it as well! Later on, I think I want to add a pair of matching opera length gloves, and matching thigh high boot covers that all have these stripes on them as well. Also, Light Fury has these small little circular scales just like Night Fury does, so I may try and add those into the design somewhere as well.

Sorry if the end here is a little scatter-brained! I am super excited to design new portions of the costume and the design part of my brain is just going crazy with ideas. Hopefully, I can get enough done to where I can do an entire fitting test soon and show everyone how all of the pieces of the costume go together!!!

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