Daredevil season 1 cosplay - Boots & Elbow Pads!

Here we have more progress on my Daredevil season 1 cosplay!

I needed new boots for work, so once payday rolled around I bought these tactical boots that I could also use for my Daredevil suits. The originals used in the show were Bates Ultra-Lites, but those are crazy expensive so I went for these close-enough alts instead (and saved myself £50 in the process!) Technically, I bought these months ago, but I felt like an entire post dedicated to the boots was just a tad overkill, so I waited until I had everything else in possession.

This next item - the last piece that I needed for buy for my Daredevil cosplay - is pretty much impossible to find online, in my size and for a reasonable price. For some reason, the McDavid 6515 Eblow/Knee Pads are much rarer and more expensive than the forearm pads. Even though I've been searching for months now, I've never been able to find any for less than £35/£40. And as much as I love this costume, my wallet can only stretch so far!) Then, a couple of days ago I had a sudden light bulb moment - I could just make my own!!

I already have all of the materials that I'll need (craft foam for the hexagon padding, spandex for the fabric parts) as well as the McDavid forearm guards that I can use as a guide for figuring out how to put these things together. And so... I set to work!

Using McDavid's measurement chart, I knew that the elbow pads in my size (medium) would fit a circumference of 11-12 inches so I made mine 11 inches wide - I'm guessing the 12-inch upper bound comes from the spandex stretching? The hexagons on my forearm pads are 1.5 centimetres from corner to corner, so I extrapolated the height of the elbow pads to be roughly 15 cm (including 1 cm above and below the hexagons.) Then, using a picture of the pads laid flat, I noticed that the hexagons make up half of the overall circumference.

Therefore, to start with, I cut out a piece of spandex measuring 14 x 15 cm including the curved edges across the top and bottom - plus a 1 cm border marked with masking tape - for each elbow pad. To give me a template for the foam hexagons, I found this really cool website which generates graph paper in any shape or size you choose. I simply selected the hexagon option, set the width to 1.5 cm and printed out the results!

The fastest way to transfer the templates onto craft foam was to glue them on with some slightly-diluted PVA glue (it's sticky enough to hold the paper while I cut out the hexagons, but also really easy to peel off once I'm done.) All I had to do then was follow the lines with a pair of scissors - giving me 200 tiny foam hexagons!

To attach the foam hexagons to the spandex base, I simply used hot glue. For both elbow pads, this took about 2 hours to do.

Next, I cut out a large piece of spandex measuring 25 x 50 cm (i.e. larger than the elbow pads need to be, just to give me some wiggle room) for each elbow pad. I placed the centre of the spandex on top of the foam pads, applied some hot glue into the grooves between each hexagon then used my cardboard spacing tool to press the spandex into place. Once this was done, I used my sewing machine with its zipper foot to sew around the edges of the foam pad, like so:

To finish the top and bottom of each elbow pads, I marked 1 centmetre from where the foam hexagons ended, folded back the remaining fabric and sewed it into place (using the "stretch" setting on my sewing machine!) I followed the same procedure for the sides, only this time measuring 8 centimetres away from the foam - this includes a 1 cm seam allowance on either side.

Finally, I lined up the seams on either side of the elbow pads and sewed them together.

And there you have it, a replica of Daredevil's season 1 elbow pads!! I'll be honest, these were really frustrating at times, but when combined with the rest of the costume I think they look pretty good (even if I do say so myself!😅)