Squirrel Girl and Dr. Doom Reboot

https://www.mclennancostume.com/blog/squirrel-girl 

As you may recall two years ago I started these cosplays.  I finished mine but was never happy with the tail.  I got stuck on Dr. Doom's armor, because it got ruined when I tried to do all the spray painting when it was both too hot and too humid. The final straw was when I ruined the thermoplastic mask.  Luckily, all things eventually work out and I used the ruined Dr. Doom mask for Rob's Swamp Thing mask, for which it worked perfectly. You can click on the above link to read all about it.

Dr. Doom Process

Fast forward to the Pandemic. I tried making a pepakura mask of Dr. Doom because I found a pattern online.  I'd never done pepakura before and I ended up being very frustrated with the hundred tiny little pieces and got crazy glue all over my fingers. But it was good to figure out a pattern.  I cut the paper apart into just three pieces and then cut it out of foam. Rob used the dremmel and sanded it all down.

I took Darlisha's advice and had Rob sand all the old paint off of the armor pieces from two years ago.  I then repainted them in cooler weather.  Two coats of the hammered silver paint.  Then I went back in with flat black acrylic and did some antiquing. Once that dried, I did a clear coat of protective satin gloss.

I couldn't find the two shin pieces so I'm having to remake those with the new helmet. The shin pieces were easy to recreate.  The helmet gave me a lot of trouble. The foam I bought from Joanne's back in May was too thick, and didn't want to be heat formed nearly as well as the previous stuff. The pieces didn't fit together as well as I'd hoped either so there's quite of bit of hot glue showing on the face. It was really cold outside yesterday so I was doing the heat gun part inside the house and I was using a styrofoam head to form the EVA foam on top of.  And yes I was fully aware of how toxic styro is when melted.  However it didn't occur to me that I could melt styro that was underneath the foam.  I started smelling something so I picked up the top piece that I had been working on and underneath the head was all melted in on itself. YIKES!  I took the whole thing outside, put the styro head in the trash and then ran around opening all the doors and windows and googling inhaled poison info. We're fine.

I got the first coat of plastidip on at 6:00 and waited 30 minutes in between all the other coats of plastidip, grey primer, and hammered silver.  I brought the pieces in for the night at 9:30.  And yes, I did most of the painting in the dark under the porch light with a flashlight.  I had the brilliant idea to attach most of the pieces to each other with long brads but Office Depot closed at 7 and doesn't open again until 10 am today, so I'm doing the antiquing this morning and the clear coats before I send Rob out on that errand.

We started putting all the armor together at 11 and I worked on it till noon. We only got the upper body put together in time for the costume contest at Skellington.  That's OK because we won anyway.  There were only three entrants in the couples category, us, Sarah and Katryna, and another married couple who were Aragon type rangers.  They had bought their pieces from Pyramid Collection, I know because I get their catalogue and ordered that same belt for a show. Anyway, we won, and the girls came in second.

Squirrel Girl 

 So, I gained 35 pounds during the pandemic, so none of my Squirrel Girl costume pieces still fit, except the jacket.  Also, I found new boots that are better than the ones I had last time.  I ordered new things from Amazon because I just didn't have time to build things from scratch.  I bought grey leggings brown shorts, a brown corset, a new better looking wig, and a much smaller and lighter squirrel tail.

The shorts are really long, so I cut them down to a 1" inseam and then sewed fur trim around the hem. I washed the fur trim to make it match the fur around my jacket and the boots.