Movellan Breakdown!
Hey Gang,
So onward with another villain breakdown from the late 70s Classic era of Doctor Who: The Movellans! I suggested this as a costume for my GF teri and flibertyjibbetz to do for Gallifrey 2011 and they took the pepsi challenge. We got inspirae dby a recent viewing of Destiny of the Daleks as well as penwiper's rather fab rendition of the costume at last year's Dragon Con (who was nice enough to swap some tips with us :)
Anyway here's how we handled their robotic disco savvy goodness...
THE WHITE DANCE UNITARD:
The easiest part of the costume. This is a plain white spandex unitard with long sleeves and a mock turtle neck. We purchased ours through discount dance supply store. The only real difference that we can see between it and the one on the show is the lack of a center seam. Otherwise this was an inexpensive find and an easy start to the project.
Getting Ready to Movellenate!
THE TUNIC:
The originals were made using a white synthetic knit fabric that had been pre-shirred with elastic. flibertyjibbetz was super lucky enough to find a bolt of white knit fabric that was already shirred at Mood Fabrics in L.A. (sorry she did indeed purchase all they had). This was the first major find for the costume a good 5 months prior to Gallifrey. This also saved her all the hard work of having to do the shirring herself (doable but time consuming).
Shirred fabric from Mood
She used Kwik Sew pattern #2204 as a starting point and modified the pattern as needed. Due to the V neck, flibbertyjibbetz decided to use a white lightweight swimsuit lining for the front and back panels of the tunic.
The green glow sticks for the arms were purchased cheaply at Party City. (always good to have back ups of these!). The glow stick are attached with circlets of elastic and mylar on each arm and allow for the sticks to be changed in and out when new ones are required.
test fit
THE BELT & COLLAR:
flibertyjibbitz had originally intended to make the belts and silver neck pieces out of the mylar used for the boots but had a lot of difficulties getting it to look like how she wanted so that idea was abandoned. She was very lucky though to have just enough of a silver mirror finish vinyl, purchased years ago for another project, to complete both sets of belts/collars and this material worked great. The silver vinyl was glued to strips of saddle leather using leather weld and Velcro was used for the neck piece closure.
A 2 ½ inch square found-item silver buckle was attached to the belts using Chicago screws. Now, the buckle should have been a silver trapezoidal shape, and there was an attempt using molding clay to make them but this proved unsuccessful. So we're living with the square ones for now but, as always, still working on finding or getting a custom buckle made in the correct shape.
Recruiting some Cyber back up to take down the pepperpots.
THE POWER PACK:
A fairly simple modificaton by scott_sebring. This was a $1.99 cheap flashlight with the top reflector flipped the other way and spray painted grey.
THE BOOTS & SPATS:
Both pairs of the actual boots were purchased dirt cheap from a local swap meet. They are just white ankle boots with a flat heel. The originals looked to have a heal of about 1” or so but the best boots we found were either the flats or a pair with a 3” heel. Due to the amount of time spent standing or walking on the convention floor the flats are way easier on the feet & the clear winner for us.
For the spats, flilbertyjibbitz used modifications of a Batman boot spat she had previously modified from similar spats in the Butterick #5725 Xena pattern. Once happy with the shape she used a fairly stiffish upholstery vinyl underneath the shirred fabric to help it hold shape and stand straight up. A white separating zipper up the back is used for the closure.
An elastic strap runs under the boot like a stirrup from the bottom of one side to the other to lock it in place on the foot. She added Velcro patches just under the knee and on either side of the top of the zipper and on the bottom of the spats just above where the elastic strap was sewn. The Velcro was used to attach specially cut mirror mylar strips for the top and ankle silver pieces on the boots.
THE GUN:
The Gun proved pretty challenging. scott_sebring put these together and he sourced components for the base from tubing supply and hardware stores. The base is a hodge-podge of shortened 5"" diameter tubes with seperate plastic domes attached, cut to match the originals and painted grey.
The long interior portion that lights up is a cheap 7 inch flashlight wand in red that is sold at most Home Depot/Hardware stores.
The wedge shapes were cut from a bunch of clear plastic clipboards to spec. The flat circles were clear plastic as well which were custom cut by a plastics company he was referred to who had done some similar work for a friend of ours. This took a lot of trial and error to get just right as the diagram in the Doctor Who Technical Manual on the size of these shapes is WRONG. Using the size of the base tubing at the hand, Scott re-worked out the dimensions on his own and recut his pieces which then fit together fine.
Finally a small flat silver clip was superglued on the side in order to hold these to the belts but it proved too unstable and these often popped off so we only got a couple of pictures showing this feature before abandoning it for the rest of the con until it can be improved.
As it looked clipped
THE WIG:
After a failed experiment to jury rig the cheap cornrow wigs available on Amazon.com (by buying two and attempting to take one apart as a door to augment the other and make 1 full wig)... another approach was needed. So like most of our other wigs, both of these Cornrows were purchased at Outfitter Wigs in Hollywood. They were blond with clear facetted beads on the end of the braids and very long. Teri and flibertyjibbitz removed the clear beads and replaced them with silver pony beads as well as also cutting about 6 to 8 inches off the length of each. Though they still read a bit long and may get a further trim down the line. After the trim each of these new silver beads had to be tediously applied one-by-one with a hot glue gun.
The wigs were then sprayed with silver colored hair spray (purchased at 4 different Party City stores). It took roughly 30 cans to get good coverage and we're still finding spots that need touching up!
And of course don't forget the heavy black eyeliner!
And that's it- 2 Movellans ready to go kick some Dalek derriere. After all the hard work I think the final result came out rather well! Nice and retro, 70's android fun!
I'll be working on updating the various Doctor breakdowns where necessary this week, (especially Eleven and Eight) and hopefully put together a Brigadier breakdown soon as well.
-Honorarydoctor
So onward with another villain breakdown from the late 70s Classic era of Doctor Who: The Movellans! I suggested this as a costume for my GF teri and flibertyjibbetz to do for Gallifrey 2011 and they took the pepsi challenge. We got inspirae dby a recent viewing of Destiny of the Daleks as well as penwiper's rather fab rendition of the costume at last year's Dragon Con (who was nice enough to swap some tips with us :)
Anyway here's how we handled their robotic disco savvy goodness...
THE WHITE DANCE UNITARD:
The easiest part of the costume. This is a plain white spandex unitard with long sleeves and a mock turtle neck. We purchased ours through discount dance supply store. The only real difference that we can see between it and the one on the show is the lack of a center seam. Otherwise this was an inexpensive find and an easy start to the project.
Getting Ready to Movellenate!
THE TUNIC:
The originals were made using a white synthetic knit fabric that had been pre-shirred with elastic. flibertyjibbetz was super lucky enough to find a bolt of white knit fabric that was already shirred at Mood Fabrics in L.A. (sorry she did indeed purchase all they had). This was the first major find for the costume a good 5 months prior to Gallifrey. This also saved her all the hard work of having to do the shirring herself (doable but time consuming).
Shirred fabric from Mood
She used Kwik Sew pattern #2204 as a starting point and modified the pattern as needed. Due to the V neck, flibbertyjibbetz decided to use a white lightweight swimsuit lining for the front and back panels of the tunic.
The green glow sticks for the arms were purchased cheaply at Party City. (always good to have back ups of these!). The glow stick are attached with circlets of elastic and mylar on each arm and allow for the sticks to be changed in and out when new ones are required.
test fit
THE BELT & COLLAR:
flibertyjibbitz had originally intended to make the belts and silver neck pieces out of the mylar used for the boots but had a lot of difficulties getting it to look like how she wanted so that idea was abandoned. She was very lucky though to have just enough of a silver mirror finish vinyl, purchased years ago for another project, to complete both sets of belts/collars and this material worked great. The silver vinyl was glued to strips of saddle leather using leather weld and Velcro was used for the neck piece closure.
A 2 ½ inch square found-item silver buckle was attached to the belts using Chicago screws. Now, the buckle should have been a silver trapezoidal shape, and there was an attempt using molding clay to make them but this proved unsuccessful. So we're living with the square ones for now but, as always, still working on finding or getting a custom buckle made in the correct shape.
Recruiting some Cyber back up to take down the pepperpots.
THE POWER PACK:
A fairly simple modificaton by scott_sebring. This was a $1.99 cheap flashlight with the top reflector flipped the other way and spray painted grey.
THE BOOTS & SPATS:
Both pairs of the actual boots were purchased dirt cheap from a local swap meet. They are just white ankle boots with a flat heel. The originals looked to have a heal of about 1” or so but the best boots we found were either the flats or a pair with a 3” heel. Due to the amount of time spent standing or walking on the convention floor the flats are way easier on the feet & the clear winner for us.
For the spats, flilbertyjibbitz used modifications of a Batman boot spat she had previously modified from similar spats in the Butterick #5725 Xena pattern. Once happy with the shape she used a fairly stiffish upholstery vinyl underneath the shirred fabric to help it hold shape and stand straight up. A white separating zipper up the back is used for the closure.
An elastic strap runs under the boot like a stirrup from the bottom of one side to the other to lock it in place on the foot. She added Velcro patches just under the knee and on either side of the top of the zipper and on the bottom of the spats just above where the elastic strap was sewn. The Velcro was used to attach specially cut mirror mylar strips for the top and ankle silver pieces on the boots.
THE GUN:
The Gun proved pretty challenging. scott_sebring put these together and he sourced components for the base from tubing supply and hardware stores. The base is a hodge-podge of shortened 5"" diameter tubes with seperate plastic domes attached, cut to match the originals and painted grey.
The long interior portion that lights up is a cheap 7 inch flashlight wand in red that is sold at most Home Depot/Hardware stores.
The wedge shapes were cut from a bunch of clear plastic clipboards to spec. The flat circles were clear plastic as well which were custom cut by a plastics company he was referred to who had done some similar work for a friend of ours. This took a lot of trial and error to get just right as the diagram in the Doctor Who Technical Manual on the size of these shapes is WRONG. Using the size of the base tubing at the hand, Scott re-worked out the dimensions on his own and recut his pieces which then fit together fine.
Finally a small flat silver clip was superglued on the side in order to hold these to the belts but it proved too unstable and these often popped off so we only got a couple of pictures showing this feature before abandoning it for the rest of the con until it can be improved.
As it looked clipped
THE WIG:
After a failed experiment to jury rig the cheap cornrow wigs available on Amazon.com (by buying two and attempting to take one apart as a door to augment the other and make 1 full wig)... another approach was needed. So like most of our other wigs, both of these Cornrows were purchased at Outfitter Wigs in Hollywood. They were blond with clear facetted beads on the end of the braids and very long. Teri and flibertyjibbitz removed the clear beads and replaced them with silver pony beads as well as also cutting about 6 to 8 inches off the length of each. Though they still read a bit long and may get a further trim down the line. After the trim each of these new silver beads had to be tediously applied one-by-one with a hot glue gun.
The wigs were then sprayed with silver colored hair spray (purchased at 4 different Party City stores). It took roughly 30 cans to get good coverage and we're still finding spots that need touching up!
And of course don't forget the heavy black eyeliner!
And that's it- 2 Movellans ready to go kick some Dalek derriere. After all the hard work I think the final result came out rather well! Nice and retro, 70's android fun!
I'll be working on updating the various Doctor breakdowns where necessary this week, (especially Eleven and Eight) and hopefully put together a Brigadier breakdown soon as well.
-Honorarydoctor