Spock's Pickled Brain

Admittedly, I am not half the comic-book scholar Starbat is. I have a working knowledge of Marvel and DC, but most of what I know is from watching the blockbuster movies and then asking Starbat to fill in the gaps. Sometimes that backfires: I now have the order of Batman's Robins indelibly imprinted upon my brain. Anyway, there are two main draws of the superhero genre. One, practically anyone can become a superhero or a supervillain. Maybe you need the billions to be Batman or an alien to be Superman, but basically in comic world if you really wanted to, anybody could fight crime. And two, that means there's thousands of different shades of superhero and supervillain, a lot of them with incredibly wacky backgrounds and themes. In creating my own custom superhero, I wanted to put together something awesome but also ridiculous. Inspirations Common loon Doctor Strange Mysterio Overkill The Tick Squirrel Girl 1. Chest armor Always on ...

Hey, as previously mentioned, I decided to go to Orlando's 2019 MegaCon as Arsenal (AKA Roy Harper). However, if you've followed this blog at all (or...not), you may know that the Loonatic is the person to go to for detailed, picture perfect cosplays. For better or worse, I'm more inclined to make costumes inspired by a character or idea. So yeah, think of this less as a roadmap to becoming Roy Harper from Red Hood and the Outlaws-volume 2-page 6, and more as a Roy Harper outfit inspired by his costumes in Outlaws. Items: Top Most of Roy's costumes involve a more traditional spandex suit, which I decided to nix pretty much out of the gate. Instead, I went for a more casual look that I thought might still evoke Roy's character. To that end, I wore a loose muscle tank and a bandeau in what will become a familiar eye-searing shade of red. Pants After trawling through a couple thrift stores, I found an appropriately red pair of pants that I thought...

  Okay, so for an upcoming costume, I'm going to appear as Arsenal. Arsenal is the current alias of Roy Harper, a staple of the DC universe since the 1940s. However, Roy has more often been than the bridesmaid than the bride, and he's gone through some drastic changes over his lifetime. In the beginning, Roy was Speedy, Green Arrow's sidekick who was also founding member of the original Teen Titans along with Dick Grayson (the first Robin), Donna Troy (the first Wonder Girl), Wally West (the first Kid Flash), and Garth (the first Aqualad). However, his story took a hard turn in the early 70s when it was revealed that Roy had become addicted to heroin. Despite that, Roy has beaten his addiction (with the occasional relapse), and has gone on to join and even lead various superhero teams under the name of Arsenal and Red Arrow at various times. Backstory aside, this post is about building part of Roy's costume (although quivers are a part of many costumes, so ...

So for this superhero run, I've been building two different costumes, one based on an existing superhero and one invented. For the existing one I chose to do the Red Hood, one of Batman's former Robins turned anti-hero. If you've never heard of the Red Hood read Batman: Under the Red Hood and forget I just spoiled it in the previous sentence. Allow me to draw on Professor X/Jedi mind tricks. *You know nothing about the Red Hood* And now feel free to read more about how I built this costume's elements and combined them to make a Red Hood through thrift store finds, simple crafts, and some imagination. Reference Images 1. Shirt One of the more iconic pieces of the Red Hood's costume in the Red Hood and the Outlaws series is what appears to be black body armor with a stylized red bat symbol. Although Jason Todd is at odds with Batman in the legendary Batman: Under the Red Hood , by the time the Outlaws he's somewhat reconciled with the Ba...