I am a Kelly Sue DeConnick fangirl and I don’t give a damn who knows. I love Captain Marvel, Pretty Deadly is weird and awesome, but Bitch Planet is f’ing EPIC. This cosplay is my love letter to Kelly Sue and artist Valentine De Landro.

The best part of the Bitch Planet cosplay is that you can literally start it on Monday and be ready to cosplay for the weekend. It’s that easy.

Start with pajama pants; McCall’s 2476 is perfect (and has sizes that run up to XXL, with 48-50 inch hips). Buy enough fabric to make the bib and straps of your coveralls; I erred on the side of caution and twice as much as I needed — I figured if I messed up with my experimentation on the bib, I’d have plenty left over. Since I was using inexpensive broadcloth, that wasn’t a budget-burden. Make the pants but leave out the elastic; the straps will hold up the pants, you don’t need elastic.

The prison uniform in Bitch Planet shows a center seam up the thigh. The pajama pants don’t, but after I made mine, they were enormously too large. I wanted them to be a little shapeless and oversized, but this was ridiculous. I was able to solve the center seam issue and take them in a quarter inch at the same time, just by stitching straight up the leg.

Making the bib will vary depending on your height and waist, so I can’t give you numbers, only show you what I sketched for mine. It’s a sort of wonky “L” shape, that tapers on the vertical and horizontal sides. The skinny side piece that wraps around the waist is where the straps will attach in the back; it wraps around the waist, but not all the way around. (For mine, they ended up being about where my Latissimus dorsi muscle was in my back, because that’s what was comfortable for the strap placement was for me.) I cut four of the pattern piece, so I could have a very sturdy bib with no exposed raw edges. I could have done that with two pieces, but then it wouldn’t have had the center seam that De Landro’s design has.

After I stitched the bib together along the top edges and turned it right side out, I pressed it, and zigzagged the bottom edge and trimmed it with pinking sheers. Then I folded over the top of the pants twice, essentially forming a casing that would have held elastic, but all I wanted was to enclose the exposed raw edge and shorten the top of the pants. I basted that, then pinned the bib to the inside (so the raw edge was not visible). I double-stitched the bib to the waist of the pants; better safe than sorry.

The straps are another thing that you’re going to have to measure for yourself. It will depend on how tall you are, how broad your shoulders are, etc. Mine are permanently sewn in place, front and back. The coveralls, as far as I can see in De Landro’s illustrations, have no fasteners like buttons or buckles, but do what you need to to be comfortable. My straps are 1 1/2″ wide with a 1/2″ seam allowance. I started with 38 inches, because I didn’t want to run short. I box-stitched those to the corners of the bib from the back, so I’d have a nice solid attachment. Then I took safety pins and asked my husband to pin the other end of the straps in place on the back “tabs”, snug but not tight — I wanted to see if I could get out of the coveralls without too much trouble, and it was really no problem.

Pockets. What a pain those turned out to be. The back pockets are smaller than they should be, especially since I really didn’t leave enough for the “cuff” at the top. I hemmed the pockets, back and side pockets, all the way around before I sewed them on the coveralls, just so they’d be a little easier to manage. The size of them will be dictated in part by the size of your coveralls and personal preference — just use the comic as your reference. One thing to consider: if you are using thinner material, like broadcloth, these pockets are not going to hold up to keys and wallets like blue jeans will unless you reinforce them, and the material they’re sewn to, with interfacing. I didn’t do that, and I don’t plan on stuffing anything heavy in my prison uniform, although I did reinforce the corners with the V-shaped stitching often seen on pockets.

When I sewed on the side pockets, I tried to get them as close to the seam as possible. Truthfully, those should have been sewn into the seam when the pants were constructed; that would have made a lot more sense. But I didn’t know how big I’d need them to be, so I didn’t do it that way. It still worked out.

The hem of the pants ended up very bunchy. I think I should have cut them off and hemmed them, rather than try to double-roll the cuff (enclosing the raw edges again). But they’re still a little too long, and still ill-fitting, and look just like they do in the comic, so you can’t really even see the hem.

To make the non-compliant “NC” stamps for the uniform, I used a Plaid® stencil blank that I had on hand. It’s a thin sheet of plastic that you can easily cut with a craft knife; Michael’s and Joann’s should carry them. I printed out the logo (found online), 3 1/2″ high, used double-stick tape to stick it to the plastic, and used my knife and a straight edge to make my stencil.

Here’s a tip: Mark where you need to put all the stamps before you start painting. It’s a lot easier than trying to do it later, believe me! I was pinning aluminum to the fabric so I could gingerly climb into the coveralls and mark where my knee was. Don’t do that. Mark first! Use a safety pin to mark where your knee and back-of-the-knee is on one leg, then you can measure the other side. You will need stencils on the bib, the knees, behind the knees, the side pockets, and the side calves — nine in all.

From there, I had white fabric paint and a stiff brush designed for painting on fabric. I used painter’s tape to attach the stencil to the coveralls, put aluminum foil under the fabric and/or between the layers, and carefully painted my stencil out from the edges (never into the edges). The first layer didn’t have a lot of coverage, so I did touch it up. Even being careful in the corners and on the edges, I still have  some errors. I’m calling it a feature, not a bug — hell, maybe on Bitch Planet, one of the things they make the women do is paint NC on their own coveralls. (How messed up would that be? Painting “non-compliant” on clothes you had to wear, every day, forever after?)

The paint does dry fairly quickly, but you’re still going to have to wait a while before you can get to all of it, since there’s paint on the front and back and the sides of the coveralls. Clean the back of the stencil of any stray paint before you move it to another area. A little bit of painter’s tape works really well for that, just use it like you’re removing lint off a shirt. Once the paint’s completely dry, follow the directions on the paint bottle. Mine says to let it dry for 24 hours then heat-set it with an iron. I’m debating whether or not I want to try to “age” the paint with a light sanding in a few places — carefully! — and not all the way down to the fabric.

The shirt I got to wear underneath is an oatmeal-colored pocket-tee (with the pocket removed) I got at Goodwill for $2. I’m wearing beat-up black sneakers that don’t really show because the pants are so long, and my cosplay is complete. From beginning to end, in less than a week.

Things I would change: I would take the bolt of fabric to the window at the store, because in sunlight it starts to look a little pinkish. I should have gone with a darker red. The pants are HUGE; I should have gone down a size. The stencil is a little big; 3″ would have been better than 3 1/2″, I think. But even with those things, I am enormously pleased with the way this turned out. I feel it looks very much like De Landro’s design, and I’m really happy with it.

So… are YOU woman enough to survive Bitch Planet?