Harley Quinn slippers

I have bragged about my addiction to etsy.com before. I'm sure I'm not the only one either. Etsy is such a wonderful place that I opened my own shop there (elizabethamber.etsy.com). Well, I'm so excited that I'm practically jumping out of my chair about the new Harley Quinn slippers I just ordered.

Designer Laura was sweet enough to work with me to get one black and one red slipper from her collection (mommayaya.etsy.com) and make them a custom order just for me. She got them done so quickly that it makes me feel a huge amount of relief as I am scheduled to appear in my Harley Quinn suit on October 25th at Comic Fusion's Superhero Weekend. It will be my suit's debut and after having a lot of trouble with the ruffled cuffs and diamonds, I was worried that I'd look just terrible. I didn't want to invest any more money in the suit and my two attempts at booties were a disaster. Laura's prices were great, especially for it being a special order. Thankfully I didn't have to resort to buying a pair of ankle boots and painting one or worse, buying two pairs of boots to get the two colors I need.

Rogue's yellow boots

I get asked about X-Men's Rogue a lot. The reason I love her is because her vast wardrobe reflects different periods of her life and therefore personality. Her classic yellow & green suit is by far the most popular of her collection.

Making the bodysuit and jacket are easy enough. With Rogue there are also a decent amount of accessories to consider too. To get the perfect "double" belt where one is thin and one is thick, you can either buy two brown belts and create an X-logo buckle to hold them together or have one custom made.

Boots can be tricky to have custom created because if you're like me and spend all day in your costume, you really want them to be as comfortable as possible. That means going shopping for yourself. Having someone who is not a boot-maker or cobbler create your footwear can be a hit or miss situation. Many people will just refer you to a tutorial on how to make your own but not everyone who enjoys wearing costumes wants to go through all the trouble involved in making one.

With the yellow & green suit, Rogue wears over-the-knee (OTK) yellow boots with green straps. They flare open at the top around the knee and thigh. If you don't care about being dead on accurate there are a lot of go-go boots that come up the knee but not over it; still, it's not a bad place to start because they only cost about $40 and have a variety of heels to choose from. You can always try to create the flared top yourself out of yellow vinyl which takes a lot of the daunting construction out of the equation.

Yesterday I scoured the internet again looking for yellow OTK boots and found these options:
- White boots (expensive; might mean better quality but I don't know; for cheaper and in US dollars check here) that you can try spray painting with a shoe paint like Magix.
- Yellow suede, currently out of stock, but maybe they'll get them in again.
- Spandex boots/leggings are common from Chinese costumer designers and can be found easily on ebay. The thing is the prices are cheap but shipping is costly. One Chinese designer that I've heard good things about is Maggie at Cosfun. She'll also do customizations so if you need a bootie in a color not shown, you can always ask about it. Booties though are very slippery and offer no protection for your feet! You can get some leather, foam or even an old yoga mat to cut out some soles for yourself and glue it onto the stockings.

Dr. Horrible / Captain Hammer

With the interwebs exploding and crashing due to the heavy traffic of the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, costumers & cosplayers around the country are scampering to be the first to appear as Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible, Penny and even the Groupies for SDCC and Dragon*Con. The questions are buzzing about where to get the gear to make a decent representation of the characters. As I discover suppliers & designers, I'll just keep editing this post.

Dr. Horrible
Lab Coat - other than having one custom designed you can get away with something that's pretty close. Check out this dental supplier. Their T001 and A001 styles are your best bet. Apparently the lab coat worn by Neil Patrick Harris is actually a recycled costume from a Firefly episode; it was later dyed red for Act III.

Goggles - a friend of mine clued me into the fact that Horrible's accessories are welding supplies. I had no idea! And luckily, they are not expensive. Look for flip-up goggles with dark lenses. To help with your search look up keywords like "cutting & brazing." Here are a couple of choices from Global Sources:
Pan Taiwan
Doris Industrial & (http://doris-ind.com/02-SafetyGoggles.htm)
Amazon - these seem to have the best shading of the lenses but are currently unavailable.
Grobet seems to have another set.
These Sellstrom goggles are rather cheap and have a #5 shade to them as well. The green part would need some distressing to look worn and darker.

Up for debate is the color of the goggles so if you believe they are not green with shaded lenses and prefer to be in the silver with green lenses camp, then check out these at Morton Safety. I took a couple screen caps from Act I and they do look silver with green lenses.

Gloves - these are also welding supplies; for most of the show, he wears white but in Act III changes to black gloves and boots which are very easy to find. The white ones are harder so here are some links:
They are Tillman brand gloves with the logo on the cuff which is what makes perfect replicas harder to find.
These Black Stallion ones are close too; I would recommend using some white paint to cover up the logo enough so that it doesn't stand out as much but you can still see it.

Boots
(White)
Dr. Horrible wears your basic white rain boot or "wellies" as they say across the pond. You can find inexpensive commercial grade white rain boots on Amazon for around $23.
Another tall pair at QC goes for close to $20. They have two different pairs in white for steel toe or standard.
ACE Hardware also carries a pair.

(Black)
For a huge selection of black men's rubber boots, try QC.

Captain Hammer
Jinx.com has the T-shirt worn by Captain Hammer; some people are willing to go the extra mile and make their own with fabric paint or craft foamie cutouts for the logo. The cargo pants are easy enough to find at places like Old Navy. The black gloves can be simply black pirate gloves from your local Party City/Halloween store or even Darth Vader ones if you have them lying around. I firmly believe in interchanging costume parts so that you cut down on how much you need to spend.

Groupies
Jinx.com sells the T-Shirts worn by the groupies but apparently they sold out immediately; unfortunately it's the only place I know that carries them. For the cool green & black tights wore by the one groupie girl, check out We Love Colors' black striped thigh highs.

Penny - her wardrobe is pretty normal and casual. The key is to get the hair right and then I would suggest a floral dress with bloody shrapnel.