Shikari - Legion of Superheroes
I've been a fan of Shikari ever since she showed up in the Legion comics. Sadly she was short-lived, as the comic got rebooted and she got replaced by Dawnstar in the new version, so very few people recognize the character. I still say she's cooler than Dawnstar. XD
She's drawn slightly differently (higher or lower belt, number of wings, number of spiky shoulder things) depending on the artist, so I just went with what I liked.
The suit was altered from a Kwik-Sew pattern to have the proper seaming; the gloves were probably the most fiddly part. The armour is Fosshape covered in metallic spandex; for the shoulders I sculpted the right shape out of papier-maché pulp first in order to use it as a form. Legion ring, belt buckle and shoulder spikies are Sculpey. The wig was a bit small on me, so I bought another matching wig and took it apart, made judicious cuts in the first wig base and sewed in the new wefts. That took far longer than I'd expected but I'm happy with the results. Need to clean up the bangs a little; they were a rush job.
The wings are wire with cellophane and clear vinyl; I had help from a friend of mine with the opening mechanism, but it turned out to be just not strong enough for those big wings and it broke at the con. Will have to come up with something new for the future. I wish in retrospect I'd wrapped the wing veins with dark floral tape, as they don't show up as well as I'd like.
Shikari is supposed to have completely yellow eyes, and I was hoping to get regular yellow contacts. Unfortunately it turned out that nobody at the time made plain yellow contacts in prescription.
She's drawn slightly differently (higher or lower belt, number of wings, number of spiky shoulder things) depending on the artist, so I just went with what I liked.
The suit was altered from a Kwik-Sew pattern to have the proper seaming; the gloves were probably the most fiddly part. The armour is Fosshape covered in metallic spandex; for the shoulders I sculpted the right shape out of papier-maché pulp first in order to use it as a form. Legion ring, belt buckle and shoulder spikies are Sculpey. The wig was a bit small on me, so I bought another matching wig and took it apart, made judicious cuts in the first wig base and sewed in the new wefts. That took far longer than I'd expected but I'm happy with the results. Need to clean up the bangs a little; they were a rush job.
The wings are wire with cellophane and clear vinyl; I had help from a friend of mine with the opening mechanism, but it turned out to be just not strong enough for those big wings and it broke at the con. Will have to come up with something new for the future. I wish in retrospect I'd wrapped the wing veins with dark floral tape, as they don't show up as well as I'd like.
Shikari is supposed to have completely yellow eyes, and I was hoping to get regular yellow contacts. Unfortunately it turned out that nobody at the time made plain yellow contacts in prescription.
