Hawkgirl Costume

I would like to introduce you to Hawkgirl. She is a warrior from the DC Comics Universe and my costume inspiration for the longest time. I had been wanting to bring her to life several years but was very intimidated about the project since I knew it would be a challenge. This year, I decided it was finally time.
It was the best decision! Wearing the Hawkgirl costume brings me so much confidence and I hope to wear it to future events around my city to bring confidence and inspire little girls as well. The reason why it brings me so much confidence is because I actually made 95% from scratch. I hope to also inspire creativity in other people. Letting people know I made it when they asked me where I bought it left them dumbfounded. It motivated my friends to make their costumes next year and that left me really excited for them.
One thing I loved about Hawkgirl was her wings. I wanted to create something that would make people gasp when they saw my costume. That is exactly the reaction I got from most people when they saw my wings go from closed to fully open with the click of a remote control. I really wish I could have uploaded a video of my wings going from closed to open within a matter of two seconds. That was one of the things that stood out about my costume. I couldn’t find any tutorials on how to create wings with one single actuator at the base of my back, so I had many trial and error days just trying to figure out the mechanics of the base of my wings (which was made out of aluminum bars). Once I finally got my base for wings figured out, I had to create all the big wings from scratch. I used cotton fabric, 14-gauge wire, and construction adhesive to make all the really long wings. The shorter feathers were turkey and goose feathers that I spray painted. The hardest part of my costume was getting the mechanics to work with the feathers all on since this added weight and I had to sew all the feathers together so they closed appropriately and didn’t get tangled. The wings alone took more than 100 hours to make.
For the armor, I wanted to create my own version of Hawkgirl that you see in comics. The body piece was a design I had sketched and created with EVA foam and spray paint. The wings also aren’t exactly the design you see Hawkgirl wearing in the comics, but I wanted to make anatomically correct hawk wings. I researched what hawk feathers look like and created my own version for Hawkgirl.
One of my favorite things about the costume was the silver shoulder adornment I added to the body piece. It was a such a simple addition but, in my opinion, it added a lot. It pieced very well with the other parts of armor such as the head piece and my mace, which were both also handmade by me. The mace was made out of construction paper covered in glue and then spray painted. The head piece was made all out of EVA foam. I used spray paint for most of my costume and used black paint mixed with water to create an antique effect. The cuffs were also handmade with a material called sintra. This is a plastic that melts with a heat gun and can be manipulated however you like.
This Halloween was so much fun for me and one of the best experiences in my life. I am definitely looking forward to another creative Halloween next year.