Due to having just been though a pandemic, the Costume Design & Technology program had to rent or pull from stock most of the costumes for fall semester shows. As I wanted to show my expertise in patterning and construction, this lead to my capstone being an independently designed project. I initially wanted to work on a project that played with proportions. I decided to build the lower half of Bumblebee from the Transformers franchise, going so far as to make several design sketches and buy a pair of drywall stilts. Also during this time, I became involved with a project creating costumes for kids in wheelchairs. One kid wanted a UPS truck for a costume, and I ended up making sketches for that and building the support frame out of plastic piping. Eventually, I had to hand off the wheelchair project and abandon the Bumblebee build due to time constrains. I also felt the Bumblebee build did not show an array of construction techniques.

After abandoning the stilts idea, I took inspiration from a video game. I was inspired by the Nezha character from the game Warframe. I decided to focus on the upper torso, breaking it down into three layers. The bottom layer I created as a tight spandex vest with only a collar and lower design plate visible. The middle layer I concluded was made out of quilted faux leather with invisible closures down the front. The top layer would be a faux leather small cape reinforced by EVA foam and with foam, worbla, and fabric paint elements. So far I have successfully created my design in half scale in fabric and paper pattern. Recently, I have created full-scale paper patterns for creation of my full-scale mock-up. By the end of the school year, my goal is to have constructed the full three pieces in the desired materials and to work on including a lighting element.