Wonder Woman Corset Part II

My Wonder Woman corset combines the flexibility and strength of leather and the comfort of fabric with some additional support built in.  Similar to the WW gladiator skirt, the corset features two layers- a soft interior and a leather exterior.   Part I showed how to create the interior and now Part II describes how to construct and attach the leather outer portion of the corset.  I recommend reading Part I carefully before starting on Part II. 

The exterior of the corset will have four leather sections, similar to the fabric interior.  First, I put on the under corset from Part I and used masking tape to mark where I wanted the seam to fall.

To keep the shape of the breast armor, I created cups out of EVA foam.  The cups will go between the fabric under corset and leather outer portion.  To shape the cups, I bought a half sphere made out of hard foam and covered it in foil.  I heated 6mm EVA foam with a heat gun and molded it to the half sphere while it was hot.

I molded a total of four pieces, two pieces for each cup.  Below you can see the shapes I cut on the left and the actual positioning of the pieces on the right.

I taped the foam to the corset temporarily as I was stitching, as pictured on one side.  (Obviously, the photo below was taken further along in the process.)

Next, I cut a piece of leather for the front left side (left side of the person wearing the corset.)  I cut more leather than necessary, as I can trim it down later but can't add more material.  You can see the general shape below.

Then I pinned it to the fabric (the pinned areas will be cut off- generally you don't want to put a lot of pinholes in leather.)  I used the ruler and a marker to sketch the lines of the costume design.

Then, I stitched along the lines as much as I was able using the sewing machine.  I used a thin, flexible leather that worked well with my machine, but you will have to determine if your materials and machine will work together or if you will have to hand stitch.  I had to hand stitch part of the lines near the bottom of the breast.  I also stitched by hand underneath the foam cup.  You should not stitch over the foam.

I ended up needing to cut a small slit in the leather in order to stretch it correctly on the outside of the ribcage area next to the seam.  I cut out a small piece of leather to slide in underneath and stitched it down as shown in the finished piece below.

Using leather cement, I glued the leather to the foam cup and smoothed the leather out as much as possible.  If there are any blemishes/wrinkles left in the leather, make sure they are at the top so you can hide them later with the golden eagle design.  I then folded the leather under at the top and stitched it onto the bra on the underside so the stitches were not visible on the front. 

I cut off the excess leather and repeated the process for the right front panel of the costume.  Below, you can see one completed side and one side still in progress.

Next, I traced and cut the left and right back pieces.  I cut a slit in the center near the seam, as seen below, and sewed a piece of leather underneath just like I did on the front.  I also sewed  coarse Velcro to the ends for later use.  Read on to Part III- you may decide to omit the Velcro here.

I repeated the same process for the back of the corset as I did for the front- drawing lines and stitching over top.

For the front of the outfit, I created a pattern for the golden eagle design at the top of the corset. (Each square = 0.25" for scale.)

Based on your measurements, you will want to add enough length to the left and right sides of the eagle to wrap around the top of the corset until it meets the end of the seam, as shown on the finished piece below.

I traced my sketch onto both the leather and a piece of 2mm EVA foam.  Originally I was going to use the heat gun on the foam, but it wasn't needed on such a thin piece.  I used leather cement to glue the leather and foam together to reinforce the leather.

I attached the eagle to the front of the corset top, being careful to cover the few wrinkles at the top of the corset. I used leather cement to glue the pieces together and also used needle and thread to stitch.  In the front, I sewed as shown below, in the section that will later be covered with an additional piece of leather (hence, the stitching will not show.) 

I also stitched the ends of the eagle to the corset top (seen in next photo.)  I also created a 'tail' for the eagle and glued it onto the corset (seen further down in this tutorial.)

I cut strips of leather for the back of the corset to align with the eagle on the front.  For the left side, I cut two identical shorter pieces of leather and stitched one strip to the corset.   On the second piece, I sewed Velcro onto the top (both pieces are shown below.)  Lastly, I glued the second piece onto the first piece so the stitching does not show.

I repeated the process for the right side except I used longer pieces of leather (length will be based on your measurements) and sewed soft Velcro on the bottom of the bottom strip.  The Velcro is designed to fasten so the back straps can align as shown below on the finished piece.

The next step was to create the belt.  First, I sketched a pattern for the belt center. 

The pattern I drew ended up being smaller than I expected so I magnified the image on my printer and reprinted.  I tried on both the corset and skirt to determine the exact angle and size that I wanted the belt strap to be.  I cut additional strips of paper to create the rest of the pattern.  Then I traced it onto two pieces of leather, as shown below.

The belt is designed to attach directly onto the corset.  Once the belt shape was complete, I stitched soft pieces of Velcro to the back of one of the belt pieces and corresponding pieces of coarse Velcro to the front of the  corset top.  (Photo below shows placement on top at a later point.) 

I also sewed Velcro to the back of the ends of the belt to fasten it in the back.  Then I glued the second piece of leather on top to hide the stitching.

This photo shows progress of the unfinished corset top up to this point. 

I added two small embellishments as well:

Using my golden eagle pattern, I cut a 'v' shaped strip of leather and cemented it onto the golden eagle to create more dimension and to hide the stitching underneath.

I also cut the 'v' strip from my belt pattern and glued it onto the front of the belt (which you will see in Part III.

This is the end of the major exterior construction.  Part III will include painting and finishing of the corset.