Prisoner Loki : the shirts.

I'm at a bit of a stopping place for Thor and Jane until I have some crafting/sewing time over the holidays, and can drag my man around to fit pants and boots onto, so I've been concentrating on fabrics and props that I need to buy instead.

Today I've been thinking about shirts.

First, pictures!

Loki has three outfits in his cell, and I'm doing two of them: the casual look, and the raggedy look.  I'm not fussing about pants and shoes and that complex overvest yet - I'm on a shirt kick.

Loki reading is a good visual of the casual shirt:

Notes:  it's a crossover at the neck, and we can't really see the hem that well, but it is long (see it under his wrist) so I'm thinking it's shaped like a martial arts gi (or a short bathrobe), made of really light and drapey fabric.  How do I know?  Partly by how it falls or stands out over the body parts (that's the drape) and partly by how easily you can see his arms through the fabric.
 

Loki on the floor - shots of the raggedy look:

Notes: this is easier to see in the close-up image, but this shirt looks to be waffle-knit (thermal-knit) fabric, which is stained/painted to look distressed.  The collar is likewise distressed, but it still has the typical Asgardian zipper-trim around it.  It looks thicker, warmer, more comfortable - like an old worn-out hoodie or security blanket.  But, it also looks like it's been stained and abused.  Hard to tell whether those are old or new stains, but the shirt itself looks faded and worn.  


So, how am I going to recreate these two very different shirts?

The casual shirt is a pretty easy pattern to make, but not an easy one to find lying around for sale.  No one really wears crossover tunics for anything but martial arts and sleepwear, and those fabrics aren't suited for what I want to do.  Also, the color needed is so rich and pure, and the fabric so thin, that if I bought a pre-made shirt, it would have to be an exact match in color as well as shape, in order to work.  That's a tall order, so I'm going to just bite the bullet and make this one from scratch.

The fabric was ordered yesterday from www.fabric.com, where I searched for "crinkle cotton" and bought the last four yards of a discontinued run of perfectly-colored forest green lightweight cotton shirting for about $2.50 a yard.  The pattern I already have, Simplicity 1946 (Learn to Sew Child's Teen's and Adult's Robe).  The pattern needs to be altered slightly: the robe is too long, the shoulder seams are too generous (they hang over the upper arm), and the sleeves will have to be hemmed tightly at the wrist instead of left loose.  One interesting note is that while I'm pretty certain that Loki's shirt does NOT have pockets, some portion of the shirt will be covered by his overvest, so pockets could be easily put onto the shirt along the sides under the arms for cosplayer convenience.  I'm planning to include two smallish pockets on the interior of the shirt, one under each arm.  Because it's that gi-style, they will be fairly easy to get to, and much less noticeable.

In contrast, the raggedy shirt is going to be a purchase and tear-down.  Knits in general aren't the easiest fabrics to work with from scratch, and if you look at the general shape of the original costume, it's just a long-sleeved shirt and an added shawl collar.  So I went to Target this evening, and bought two forest-green waffle-weave boy's long-sleeved t-shirts (the last two there, actually) for $19 total.  There was one XS and one XL, which should work out perfectly.  The XL fits me nicely (remember this is a child's XL) and the sleeves of the XS are going to be my shawl collar, while the front of it will be cut into swatches to practice fades, stains, and distressing, and the full back will be my final test once I get done working out methods on the swatches.  If I had purchased the fabric, I probably would have saved a few dollars, but not enough to make it worthwhile for me to sew the shirt from scratch, then still have to fade and distress and stain it.

On a fun note, the cuffs of the XL shirt look like they are going to be perfect for a re-purpose as Jane's gold wrist cuffs that she wears with her fancy dress.  Huzzah!