Costume Notes: Bombshell Wonder Woman 2.0

When I first started Bombshell Wondie, I had no idea so many people would like her! It’s been one of my most popular and most worn costumes this con season (yay comfort :P). I’ve steadily made improvements for each con, so I thought I’d share some of those with you today!

Wig: My friend Mia recently told me about Gothic Lolita Wigs, which sells wigs with a pre-installed bump. Perfect for Bombshell Wondie! The company is based out of Houston and ships super fast. I ordered  the wig Tuesday before A-Kon and it was in on Friday. Mia was kind enough to trim my bangs before hitting the con floor on Saturday at A-Kon and she did a phenomenal job! I am absolutely in love with this wig.

Belt: I mentioned in the original post that I got my belting at Jo-Ann’s. It was an okay solution, but didn’t hold up well and it was too skinny for my liking. I picked up some vinyl and drafted a wider belt to more accurately reflect the figure.

I took my waist measurement and added 6″ in length. For reference, that’s 35″ + 6″ for overlap in the back, leaving me with 41″. The belt itself is 3″ wide, so I added a 1/2″ on the top and bottom to fold over and topstitch using my teflon foot and a leather needle. Wondie has a small loop on her right side for her lasso, so I cut out a small chunk of vinyl (app. 3″x6″). I folded over the ends and topstitched the edges down. Once that was done, I sewed one edge of the lasso flap to the bottom of my belt. I used a small square of sticky-back Velcro to attach the other end of the vinyl flap.

I secured the belt buckle to the the middle of the belt with more Velcro. The only place the sticky-back Velcro didn’t work out is in the back. It worked temporarily, but kept wanting to roll in on itself and fall off. I plan to swap the Velcro out for snaps for the next con.

Bracelets: I made my new bracelets out of Worbla (tutorial here). To get the engraved look, I sketched out the design I wanted on to sticky-back craft foam and placed the pieces on to another piece of foam cut to the size I wanted. From there, I sandwiched the foam bracelets with Worbla and molded them to the shape of my arm. After 10 layers of Gesso and more sanding than I ever want to do again, I sprayed the bracelets with a metalic silver spray paint. Once that was dry, I used a watered-down acrylic grey paint to make the “engraved” sections pop. When I was happy with my paint job, I sprayed it with a glossy sealer.

Boots: My final improvement to Wondie was painting the boots (tutorial here). These boots are a faux leather, and after much research, I picked up a few products from Angelus, which works great with both leather and faux leather. Shoes typically have a factory finish to protect them from wear, so you’ll need acetone or some other deglazer to strip that finish off before painting. I just used painter’s tape to keep the front and top stripes mostly neat. I printed off a star template and used a pencil to sketch it out on the boot before painting it in. Once my paint was dry, I rubbed a finisher all over the boots to seal them.

I still have a few other touch-ups I’d like to make to this costume (like re-making the shorts and hair tie), but I’m finally happy with how it looks. I’m going to try to get a proper shoot set up at my next con!