Asajj Ventress Bad Batch Season 3 Episode 9 "The Harbinger"

barryhicks · May 22, 2024

Soooooo, figured I'd give it a go with trying to make the outfit for Ventress from the Bad Batch episode. I wanted to do some research first and try out a few things before moving forward with this on here (FE forum) as a thread. I'm going to post things that I have already played around with, along with moving forward for stuff I will be doing in future.

A thank you to folks who have posted pictures on the Facebook group. It has helped immensely and I will be including some of them in this build.

Please keep in mind I am having a hard time with getting my phone to take pictures of the colors so I did invest in two Pantone booklets Pantone GP1601B 2022 Edition Coated and Uncoated Guide. I have been making notes of the colors of the fabric to compare to what I have seen on the different screen from the show. I will be pointing them out in the photos so people can check the colors and whatnot.

I'm currently working on the prints for the tunic and the two outer collars and short sleeves. I worked on the patterns in a program called Creative Space that is used with the xTool Laser machines. They have a silk screen printing machine which "sort of" works with what I am trying to accomplish.

The fabric for the tunic and the outer collars I am choosing to use Scuba knit fabric. Partly due to it laying down smoothly on a human body, two it has stretch, which shows up on the upper sleeves of the lighter fabric (see following image of upper arm) and it's in tribute to the fact that this episode deals with water and an island (this particular part will continue with some other parts of my build that I will share when I get to them).

So, I guess I'll start with the pattern for the collars and short sleeves. I looked online and in some of my books to see if I could find a woven pattern that could be bought or even hand woven on a loom (I have a loom). But there is no actual weave for this pattern. There is something close, but it was definitely different. And physically it wouldn't present itself well for a fabric as it would be too loose of a weave and not look like what is in the cartoon. But this is just my personal judgement call. I have decided to go ahead and make a print of the pattern and silk screen it onto the fabric. My first attempt I felt was too uniform and didn't have the same feel as the cartoon. So I went back and reworked the edges of the lines and reshaped as well as resized the pattern. I worked on the counting of the height of the repeat of the print to the collars and to the cartoons neck and my real neck. I sized the print accordingly to "hopefully" work for myself. I'm still working on alignment for repeating the pattern on fabric, but I have pictures to show what I have so far.

When I am done with printing it, I will be going back over the fabric with another layer of transparent paint with more of a light coffee stain color to match the color in the show. There are areas around the seams and edges of the collar where the material is lighter, closer to ivory. I am working with the ivory colored fabric to see if I can keep some of that coloring in and around the collars edges. For now I am just working on the printed part. I have been hand mixing my colors. I am using a mixture of Speedball water based inks.

After making the changes to make the pattern feel more organic

The following section deals with the blue printed fabric on her tunic. Boy this is an oddball fabric but I think I have it pretty much figured out. Though I do have questions about pattern repeats, but I will continue with that at the end of this post. The main part of the issue is finding a way to have the pattern show up in light but not as much in darker shadowy areas. After studying different images of her outfit in the light and dark (and even when it is wet and in the light) I came to the conclusion that the print itself is a semi gloss coating on the surface of the fabric. BUT, when you put a coating of say acrylic clear coat it turns darker when printed on. I also noted that even with the "clear" print on top some areas of the fabric had a "painterly" feel to it. I ended up getting a teal colored scuba fabric and then painted it in long strokes with a sponge and a translucent paint mixture (of transparent, white, blue and a dash of yellow) that soaked up mostly into the fabric, giving it a ghostly painterly look as the base and making the color a bit lighter than the original fabric which I found to be too intense for the base color. I also decided to try out a oil based paint for the clear coat on top of the fabric. This seems to do the trick on a synthetic material (natural cotton did seem to absorb some of the ink and make it darker).

As with the collar and sleeve pattern I had made an initial pattern but felt it to be too angular and modified it to look more organic with slight curves and I also resized the pattern to match the size of myself. Being a bit larger than Ventress I opted to go with a few rows more in the sizing to keep in ratio with what is in the cartoon.

So far I have some of the fabric painted with the translucent white mixture along with trying to print a repeat pattern on the fabric with the oil based transparent paint. I'm having a bit of an issue with getting the pattern exactly aligned up. Which is where I am at the moment. My question so far is how close does the pattern have to match? I have pictures included for folks to look at. I might be able to stabilize some of the printed pattern and wash out part of the other sections and try again when the fabric is dry. But if I don't have to do it, I'd rather not as it is already a massive undertaking.

showing the best copy of the neoprene fabric that I have (on the right). The fabric on the left is a stretch cotton wool blend that didn't work out in my testing. But I have found that between the paint and the clear coat it lightens up and has an overall feel/look of the fabric on the left.

You can see the brush strokes of lighter colored paint on the fabric.

printed clear coat on top of fabric so far.

How it interacts with light and shadow. Highlights on left are from inside light and outside light on the right.

in slight motion (blurred like in many screen shots from her movement)

same angle but not in motion and shows how it blends into the fabric when in neutral lighting.

Couple of reference shots

I'll leave it here for now and hope to get feed back sooner than later.

Edited May 22, 2024 by barryhicks
duplicate photo

HaringJr · May 25, 2024

Excellent work! Great research and effort figuring out the details.

barryhicks · June 3, 2024

Hey everyone. I re-printed the teal blue tunic fabric. I also found fabric for making the pants/leggings. I'm including pantone swatches for those of you who have the Pantone Formula Solid Coated. I will be trying to get the other tan/cream fabric painted over the next week or so and then start making markup patterns for the tunic and leggings.

Apparently the other color for the pantone was not in the picture... it's 303-C

7700-C is the closest to the darker color of the striated fabric for the lighter part of the two colored pants/leggings.

4451-C is the color for the lightest part of the striated fabric for the leggings...

Somewhere between 7707-C and 7708-C for the base color of the blue/teal fabric

Fabric under an overcast day and fabric under my awning and fabric in the dark room with a light on from the outside...

barryhicks · June 21, 2024

Hey, so I'm back with some updates. I've been working on the pattern for the tunic and leggings. I have some of the tunic sewn together. The vest pattern (the grey fabric) I have to fine tune and then cut out of the good black fabric. I also have a pattern for the upper sleeve and am ready to cut that out of the good printed fabric. I have the pattern pieces for the legging cut and partially sewn together as well. I'm also in progress of working on a pattern for the collars as well. I've been making a pattern for the boots. The blaster I'm going to have to make that in Blender (3D program) and print it on my 3D printer I've started drawing up the design for it. It's all starting to congeal together. Once I'm done with the tunic, vest and leggings I'll start patterning for the leather goods .

My mannequin and I are not quite the same size and she's a little bit lumpier than I am, but I'm gonna wait for modeling the outfit when the tunic and leggings are done. Hopefully sooner than later. So here's some of what I have so far.

Naasad Tal · June 24, 2024

That looks incredible!!

barryhicks · June 29, 2024

Posting a few pictures of how it's going. I'm almost done with the main tunic. I'm working on finalizing the shape for the black vest. Also, I tossed in a beginning of a boot to show the direction I'm going with it. I'll be using a zipper and hook and eye closure for the back of the collar. I'm also planning on raising the inner black collar about 1/4". Leggings are pretty much done. I have to hem the bottoms, but I won't do that part until I have the boots on the go. I'm very happy with it so far. I have black gloves. I'm still thinking which is the best way to make the gauntlets (I have a few ideas in mind and have a couple of different kinds of materials to play with).

I'm pretty excited about how this is turning out.

AphraCat · July 5, 2024

Your work is always so stunning! I'm so excited for this build and thank you for sharing all this information too. ❤️

barryhicks · July 31, 2024

Hey guys! Man it has been a hot minute. I have been trying to work on stuff over this month. A lot of chaos has been going on (myself and my family) which has kept me from working on this more than I would have liked to. Though, I do have updates on things like the start of the boots and I'm finishing up the tunic and such. I also plan on starting on the pattern for the backpack hopefully next week. (crossing fingers) I will also hope to get some photos of me in the tunic and pants today. If I have time I'll update this post with them as well.

I'm just going to toss most of the images on here for now and I will finish updating the description either this week or next week.

Just as a heads up, the shins will be made up of both the neoprene fabric and rubber. When I get a little further I will post images (which will make sense when you see it)

barryhicks · September 25, 2024

Hey! So, I'm finally able to get back to working on the boots. My husband has been dealing with health issues over this past summer (still is) and I have been focusing on him. Also, my teenager is back at school, which means I have more time on my hands to focus on the build! Yay!

I have the upper boots currently "dry" fitted. I have had some time to play around with some materials to see what would work best. So far I have found Flex Seal to be the best option for certain things. I still need to finish up the bottom shoe part of the boots. When I am completely done with this kit, I will be putting up templates for the boots for anyone who would like to used them.

I plan on painting the flex seal onto certain parts of the upper and lower boots for some of the patterning. I will have this in my next post hopefully by next week. For now, here's some pictures (including our star of the show "Crayola" our cat).

barryhicks · October 2, 2024

Got more done!!!!

So I continued on both the upper boot and the lower boot. I needed to fill out the lower boots. I ended up using Flex Paste as you can spackle it on in thick coats (takes around 24-48 hrs to fully cure). I've included a picture of the material I used in case anyone wants to go this route.

After I filled out the shoe bases I worked on the upper sections of the boots. I drew out the lines on the different sections of the boots and painted Flex Paint on them. I let it sit for around 2 1/2hrs and then rubbed the surface to dull the extreme shine it had. This gives the rubber sections a bit of a lighter color compared to the fabric. One part of the boot (the top section of the upper boot, I ended up painting the very top section then let that dry and then painted the next shape just below it, but overlapping so it would pop out just a little on top. This will get even more accentuated when I paint white sketchy lines along the edges like in the show. Hopefully when you look at the photos what I have said will make sense. When all of the sections were dry I glued them together with Flex Glue (there's a theme going on with the materials as you can see).

Once that was done, I worked on the raised edges that go around the boot base on the outer lower part (again, refer to images to understand what I am saying). I cut out the shapes from thin sheets of rubber and glued them together with the Flex glue. I traced the shape onto the boot so I had a reference for where the glue would be applied to the boot base. I applied the Flex Glue to the boot itself and roughly smoothed it out all over the area I had traced on the boot and then put the shapes into place. To keep the shapes pressed to the boot while the glue dries I used a trick I learned when putting my TK (Stormtrooper) kit together, magnets! It definitely helps when some areas are too hard to get a clamp in the area. At this point I am currently letting them dry.

Tomorrow I plan on continuing the process. Who knows? Maybe if I'm lucky I might actually get most of the boot done by the end of this coming weekend! *knocks on wood*

barryhicks · February 21

It’s been too long! After my last post a lot of health things happened again. And lots of just “Life”. So out of my crazy times I was able to get a couple of hours in today to start working on the backpack pattern (mostly getting the base sizing) along with the belt front and a pouch. I’ve got a lot on my plate but have been itching to get back to this. Maybe I’ll try and sneak in a few more hours for the patterns and then just get them cut out and prepped for assembly.

I know it’s just paper patterns but it’s something and I’m still chugging along. Wish I had more time on my hands.

K

barryhicks · March 30

Got some more done on our fabulous heroine! Looks like this week I will have some extra time to work on this outfit. I also have started working on the boots again (though, I didn't get photos this round).

The first two images were me drawing on top of the photos I took when I made the initial pack. It helps me to figure out what needs to be changed and I figured folks would like to see how I work on things. Her pack is curved a bit and I updated the pattern to reflect that. Obviously the drawings on the back of the pack will need to be adjusted because I changed the height size of the pack. I will also be making the extra pouches that go on the pack base.

I plan on gluing the shoulder strap layers to each other once I have everything the way I want it. So for now it might look a little wonky. There are a few pics you will see where I put a few blue marks down to remind myself I need to shift the shoulder straps forward.

I also started figuring out the two metal pins that go on the front of her straps. I'll be making a mockup and testing them out this week as well (crossing fingers). Anyhoo, here's some pics! Hope you all enjoy them!

barryhicks · April 14

So I've gotten some stuff done. I decided to try on what I have so far. I'm working on finishing the boots. Just got the backpack pinned to the shoulder straps and x straps along the back. I'm going to be adding some Sintra or thin metal to help the shoulder straps keep their shape and prevent the sagging in the back. Pouches are almost completely done. I had to blue tape the small additional pouches on the backpack, but they kept falling off. I'm happy with how they look so I plan on gluing them down. I also started on the belt. I have to make the second layer and fix up the side where her light saber hangs. and I also have to make a mount for the lightsaber. I also started working on the bracers. Played around with a concept which seems to have worked so I am moving forward with it. When I'm further along with them I'll post pictures. Once I have the boots finished, the backpack and straps finished, and the belt finished, I'll start modeling the blaster and the knife. Then make the holster and sheath. Either way, please excuse the untidiness of everything and that my husband took a few weird photos.

Oh and pinning through multiple layers of leather and neoprene sucks. And pliers are important!!