Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)
The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

Inspiration: I started watching this cartoon (also on Netflix) and really loved Wasp’s personality and look. I was wanting to do more comic related costumes, so I gave this one a try!

Materials/Construction Details: I had a lot of firsts with this costume, and I’m happy with some things and want to tweak some others. Wasp’s costume is very shiny in the show, so I went with a stretch vinyl, which proved to be difficult to work with, even if it was accurate. I made the black bust part first, using boning to help the points stay up. I then attached it to the rest of the yellow dress. The black zig-zag at the waist and stinger in the back were top stitched on. Even though I was using a stretch fabric, I still installed a zipper in the back so the dress could be form fitting without stressing any of the top-stitching. I put a ring of boning at the base of the dress so that it stayed flared out. The inside had a layer of fusible interfacing starting with where it flared out, and it was all lined in a black knit. Next time I wear this costume, I would like to better construct the dress with more support at the bottom so that it doesn’t pucker when I move.

I made the bootcovers out of my same yellow stretch vinyl. The base shoes were just black flats. I sewed the vinyl in a boot shape, stretched them over the shoes, and glued the excess to the bottom of the shoe. I cut out a piece of black felt to cover the base of the shoe for both traction and to cover up where the ends of the fabric were glued down. The vinyl continues past the base of the shoes and was able to stay up on its own thanks to its stretchy nature. I just had to make sure they were tight so they wouldn’t slouch. The top part of the boot was made with heavy-duty interfacing, covered in the stretch vinyl, and sewn to the tops of the boot covers.

My gloves were the first pair of gloves I have ever made. Thought they weren’t necessarily difficult (I followed a pattern for the hand part), they were very time consuming and the fact that this fabric likes to stick to itself made it even more so. I am happy with my first attempt though. The arm part of the gloves stay flared out because of a layer of thin interfacing.

The leggings were bought and I made the arm sleeves and choker out of my black stretch vinyl. The headphones were made out of mini taplights and chop sticks. I removed the insides of the taplights and just used the frame so that it would be lighter. A small hole was cut into the side to insert the chopsticks and then it was all painted yellow with black accents. I then attached them to a headband.

Wig: The wig is a magnum in dark copper red from Arda Wigs. I used brown Rit dye to make it a slightly darker reddish brown and then started the long styling process. I rigged up a wig stand that I could use so that the wig head could sit on it’s side and let the hair hang down and then spiked it using Got2B Glued hair spray. Once it was dry I rolled any parts that looked too hard between my fingers until it softened up again. I tweaked it a little each day for about a week until I was happy with how it looked. I also had to cut the bangs shorter and hairspray them to the side.