A lot of my time designing Robin's outfit was spent on trying to figure out ways to hide her curves and create a more believable cross-play. I learned that diagonals do a great job of hiding curves, so I wanted to incorporate them into the pants as well as the jacket.
I started with a basic pair of army green pants from the local thrift shop.
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| Pretty boring, right? |
I wanted to give them a more "cargo-esque" look, so I added three decorative horizontal seams. This served a dual purpose, as I also needed to shorten the pants. I slit the sides of the pants open because I knew I was just going to cover it up with a panel later.
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| With the sides cut out so I could sew the seams. |
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| Close-up of the top stitching. |
For the side panels, I didn't want to do just plain chevrons again, so I started looking for inspiration in Robin's other costumes. Well, the Nightwing logo is kind of like a chevron shape! I'll used that!
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| A decision I would come to regret. |
I created a pattern based on the logo, adjusting it slightly so that when the pieces were layered, the head of the bird was still visible.
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| Prototype pattern pieces |
Of course, the birds would need to get smaller as the leg tapered...
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| Final pattern pieces, various sizes. |
I cut out all the pieces... (Later I would realize that because of the knee-high boots, I would only need half the pieces I cut out).
I didn't have enough green from the jacket, so I cut half the birds out of black pleather and painted then with emerald green leather paint.
Then, in a fit of insanity, I top-stitched ALL the edges. Of ALL the birds.
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| Slooooow progress |
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| One bird down! |
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| More birds... |
The pleather liked to stick in my machine, and the leather paint only made the stickiness worse. It was a frustrating process, to be sure. Some birds were definitely destroyed in a fit of rage...
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| Alternating bird colors... |
I wanted the panels to be flexible, so I chose to only sew them together on the sides. I used some leftover fabric to make piping to go along the seam where the birds connected to the pants.
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| Adding piping |
I sewed each panel back into the pants, adjusting as I went along to improve the fit of the original pants.
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| Pants fitting! |
I did end up tacking down the birds in a handful of places so they didn't flap around so much, and then I was finally done!
