Black Widow Quest, Part 2

Having acquired the jumpsuit for my Black Widow costume, next came the bullet bracelets. I considered copper piping, doweling, or something along those lines, but in my heart I wanted real bullet casings. A friend suggested I try an Army surplus store. A quick Google search revealed one a few towns over, and I emailed them about it.

They said they had some stuff lying around, and to come by if I were local. I headed over there at lunch today. This is where I remember how life is full of adventures if you are enthusiastic about embracing them. One minute I was at my normal day job, doing normal day job things. Twenty minutes later, I was having an engaging conversation with two war veterans and the store proprietor about tactical evacuation planning. Life kicks ass if given half a chance. :)

But anyway, I walked in there, and said, "Hey, I'm here about the bullet casings!" Not surprising, they knew right away. They were a bit baffled about my purpose, but nonetheless, produced a box of spent casings that were a little shorter than the ones I was copying, but partly because the bullet tips were gone of course. However, they were real brass bullet casings, and I knew right away I had to have them.

"How much for the box?" I asked.

"Oh, say, $5?" the proprietor replied.

Done. We had some fun and lively discussion (where I distinctly wished I had my camcorder), and I was about to leave when another thought occurred to me. I asked them if they might be able to help me find shoulder patches with sort of an eagle on them. And that's when I was able to pull out my phone and show them this:



They had something pretty close right there in the store, but also a catalog of patches. It didn't take me long to find almost exactly what I needed in this catalog. I put in an order, and I'm looking forward to coming back there in a week or so again to pick those up. Two birds with one stone, as it were.

Halloween 2010: Black Widow Quest Part 1

For Halloween this year, I'm going for the Scarlett Johannson Black Widow from Iron Man 2. True, her part was minor, but the costume was cool, and probably not that hard to pull off. Famous last words, possibly.

First I have to say, the only pre-packaged version of this costume for sale at every Halloween outlet I can find, is, how shall I say this? CRAP. Tis trashy, and doesn't even look like the one in the movie. True, I've learned that there are different interpretations of this costume in the comic book world.

I'm mainly aiming to replicate the movie look. So my first order of business was to slow-frame through the fight scene and capture a bunch of shots on my iPhone. This came in really handy today, but more on that later.


So, what are the elements here?

1. Dark jumpsuit. Appears to be some kind of dark navy lycra fabric, with red piping up the sides.


2. Waves of curly red hair.


3. Black boots, low heel, with three strap and buckle sets on each boot.


4. Belt with an hourglass symbol on the front


5. Bullet bracelets


6. Fingerless gloves


7. Left thigh holster with utility pouches


8. Insignia shoulder patches

I think that about covers it. For the base suit, I decided I'm going with a black leather catsuit. This isn't exactly what they did, but I figure it's such a superhero costume staple, I can use it in the future. It's also a lot EASIER to come by than a navy lycra/spandex jumpsuit. I secured a custom black leather catsuit on Ebay. Only time will tell if it does the trick, but they asked for over 20 different body measurements, so that's pretty custom in my book.

iPad arcade

This may just force me to buy an iPad.