I attended Rose CIty Comic Con in 2013, which was my first foray into cosplay. Since I’m not a pro at sewing I picked an easier costume to make. One that wouldn’t be expensive to make or very time consuming since I have toddler as well. I finally settled on making a 1950’s Batman costume, consisting of a poodle skirt, petticoat, utility belt, and a shirt. In this series of posts I will explain just how I made my costume and how you can use these steps to make one yourself in whatever design you like. Today I will start with the simplest part, the shirt.
I already had a black t-shirt to use so I didn’t have to go out and buy one, but plain colored shirts are available almost anywhere. My personal preference is to buy them at Joann Fabrics since they are typically cheapest there and I always have a 40% off coupon for there. Just make sure you wash the shirt before hand. Cut a piece of cardboard (or buy one already sized for your t-shirt, many craft stores carry them) the correct size to place inside your shirt and tape the sleeves back and out of the way. Double check that everything is straight before you proceed any further, I’d hate for you to do all of this work only to end up with a wonky design.
Find the design you want to place on your shirt, choose something simple like a silhouette (I used the bat symbol for mine, the Flash’s lightning bolt or the Green Lantern’s symbol are also great and easy designs) and something that uses only one color. You can do a complex one with several colors if you want, but that’s a little more involved than this tutorial will be getting. Cut the design out and trace it onto your shirt. Because my shirt was black, I used white chalk, but if you have a light colored shirt you should use a washable fabric pencil, which are available at most fabric stores.
You need fabric paint in order to paint on fabric, any brand will work, I used some by Tulip that I already had. For my bat symbol I layered my colors to get a good solid coverage. I started with yellow, then laid a non-metallic gold over that, then finally a metallic gold was laid down. Give each layer plenty of time to dry so you don’t smudge your work. If you make a mistake use a wet q-tip to quickly wipe away the excess paint, but depending on the color of your shirt you may have some staining so go slowly and carefully. Once you’ve finished the final layer let it dry for at least a few hours, I let mine sit overnight.
Now this is the most important part, you need to set the paint so it won’t crack and come off when you wash it. This is achieved several different ways, but my personal favorite (and also the easiest) is to heat set it with an iron. Some people suggest ironing straight over the painted section, but I always worry about melting the paint or burning it so I highly recommend using a thin towel or piece of cloth over the painted area to protect it. Alternatively you could turn the shirt inside out and iron on the wrong side of the fabric. All you do is set your iron to medium/hot with NO steam and iron over it for 3-5 minutes, being careful to keep the iron moving so you don’t burn your fabric.
And voila! You have a custom t-shirt for half the price of buying it online, perfect for whatever event you need it for. While setting it makes it machine washable, I recommend against running it through the dryer to prolong the life of your item. I actually hand wash and then lay flat to dry my Batman shirt just to insure that it stays looking nice for a very long time. In the event it does become damaged just use your leftover paint to correct the damage and reheat set it.
Stay tuned for part two in the series, how to make a Batman poodle skirt.
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