If the only thing that you have to wear under your elaborate foam cosplay armor is jeans and a tee shirt, then you probably need to get a bodysuit. Some people refer to it as an undersuit, but it doesn’t have to just be something that you wear under other costume elements. It could be the whole costume by itself, like a Spider-Man suit.
So how can you make your own cosplay bodysuit? One cheap and easy way is to buy a solid color spandex bodysuit and paint on the design elements that you need.
In this article I’ll explain the steps of how to do that in the simplest way that I know of. Keep in mind that I’m not an expert or professional cosplayer. I’m just a guy and this is what I would do if I was on a tight budget.
Step 1: Buy a Cheap, Solid Color Spandex Bodysuit
There are a few different options for where to buy the bodysuit from, but the cheapest is probably from Amazon. Just search for the color that best matches the costume you’re making. The prices can range from around 10 US dollars to 50 US dollars. If you buy the cheapest one possible, be aware that it might not be very high quality. The stitching might not be very strong, or the zippers might be low quality. This means it might not last more than one wear.
A well known brand that you might have heard of is Morphsuits. They make solid color stretchy bodysuits as well as more elaborate ones. The solid color suits run for 35 US dollars as of the date of this article, which is a pretty good price for the quality. The stitching and zippers are pretty good on these suits and they’ll definitely last more than one wear. They might even have a suit for the specific character you want to cosplay as, but it’ll be more expensive.
Step 2: Mark and Adjust the Bodysuit to Fit
Once you have your bodysuit, try it on and make sure that it fits you. It should not be so tight that you have trouble putting your arms and legs through it, or you feel like it’s constricting your blood flow. It should also not be so loose that parts of it are baggy. If it fits snugly on your body and you can move your arms and legs without restrictions, then it fits well.
There might be some areas where the fit isn’t quite right. Sometimes there can be too much fabric in the underarm area, around the waist, or in the crotch area. If this is the case, then first try using some strong clips to pinch the fabric in those areas, and then try moving around to see if you still have a good range of motion.
Once you find a good balance between the fit and mobility, you can mark a line for the new seams where your clips are. Try to match that line up with the other seams so that it flows evenly between them. To draw on your fabric without permanently marking it, you can use chalk or a pencil. If your fabric is dark, then a white or silver colored pencil should work.
To sew the seams of your bodysuit, you can use any sewing machine that can sew a stretch stitch. A normal stitch won’t work for stretchy fabric because the stitch won’t stretch with the fabric. The best way to sew stretchy cloth is actually with a serger, but if you don’t have one of those then you can just use the stretch stitch on a normal sewing machine.
Step 3: Draw On your Designs
Once your bodysuit is all adjusted and fits you nicely, you can start to draw on the patterns for your design. There are different methods to achieve different effects, but the main idea is to outline the areas where you’re going to paint. You can use whatever chalk or pencil you used in the last step, as long as it doesn’t permanently mark the fabric. Also, it helps a lot to have someone to assist you with this step.
If you do have someone who can help you, then you can put on the bodysuit and just stand there while they draw the pattern onto the suit. If you don’t have anyone to help, then you’ll have to draw them on yourself. Either way, you should draw the designs while wearing the bodysuit so that you can see that the designs are in the right place relative to your body.
Doing it by yourself can be quite difficult and will take longer, but it is doable. Make sure that if you need to bend over to draw on the leg parts of the suit, that you check how it looks when you stand back up. This is because the fabric will shift and move as you bend, so what you drew might end up in a different place when you straighten up. It’s okay if the lines are rough or uneven at first, because you can tidy them up later.
Some patterns, like small repeating or geometric patterns, can be drawn on with the bodysuit laying flat on a table. A lot of costumes have a hexagonal or square pattern that covers the whole suit, and that can be very hard to draw on if you’re wearing it. It helps to use a stencil if you can find or make one that matches your pattern.
Step 4: Paint
Once you have all of the patterns drawn or outlined on your bodysuit, the next step is to paint it. You can either use spray paint or an acrylic paint and brush it on. If you have large areas to cover then spray paint is probably best, but if you need to paint on thin lines then it’s better to paint it on by hand with a thin brush. Whatever paint you use, test out a small amount first in a spot that won’t show, like the bottom of the foot area, to see if your paint will work well and still stretch after it dries.
Before you paint, you should tape along the lines that you outlined with masking tape and block off everything that you don’t want to paint that color with paper. This is mainly for if you’re going to use spray paint, but it can help give you cleaner lines for hand painting too. Make sure that you use enough paper to protect the rest of the costume from the over-spray.
This might seem obvious, but you shouldn’t wear the suit while you paint it, or any paint that seeps through the fabric will get on you. If you’re spray painting, then you should go outside and lay it out flat on a big piece of paper or cardboard. You don’t want to spray paint indoors because of the fumes. If there’s any wind, make sure that you’re standing so that it won’t blow the paint right at you.
Step 5: Add details
Once you’ve painted the whole suit and it’s all dry, you can add any details that you might need. Some costumes have details like a raised texture, or buttons, or other things. Now you can glue them or sew them on as you need to.
If your costume has a raised texture or rubberized area, you can use puffy paint to simulate that. Puffy paint comes in bottles with a hole at the tip that you use to squeeze out the paint to draw the design onto your suit. It’ll dry into a raised, rubbery, flexible layer. Sometimes the bottles don’t have a small enough hole to do fine detailed work. If that’s the case then you can transfer the puffy paint into a plastic baggy with a smaller hole poked into it.
Final Thoughts
If you use a method like this to make your suit, then you’ll probably only have to spend about 50 dollars total. If you already have spray paint, which a lot of people do, then it’ll be even cheaper. In my opinion, this is a good alternative to getting a custom printed bodysuit because for that you’ll need to design the pattern yourself in something like Photoshop, which is pretty expensive if you don’t already have it. Plus there’s the cost of the printing and sewing service, and the chance that it might not look or fit right the first time. So all in all, if you’re on a budget, I think that this is a good way to go.