The New 52 Mera

With all the reinventions of Mera's outfit over the years, it was hard to choose just one to recreate! I like them all. Maybe one day I will make more, but with Supanova exactly one month away now I need to focus!

I like the more modern style of Mera's suit, all one colour with the long sleeves, so I decided to go with the brand new version of her suit in DC's New 52!

Since the relaunch has only just happened, and Aquaman #1 came out just last week, this makes it super hard for me as the #2 comes out one week before Supanova! In the first issue, Mera was in it [yey!], but she was wearing a green dressing gown for the panels she was in.

I squealed when I saw her

The only reference pictures I have are the upcoming covers of Aquaman #3...

 and Aquaman #4

The cover for #4 gives me a pretty clear view of her crown and her wrist cuffs, and the #3 cover shows me how the crown sits against her head, it curves around to the sides. Her cuffs look different between both covers though, so I think I'll stick with the clearer view of them.

I think I will make the crown and most of the detail, leaving the more intricate stuff for before the convention in case clearer reference pictures come up. It depends on how easy the crown is whether I'll leave the cuffs last minute too!

I really want to do Mera justice, I want to make this costume mine so I want everything to be perfect. I was originally going to do a paper mache crown painted gold with the little details on it, but I've decided I'd like to do it out of brass sheeting or some sort of similar metal. It's going to be quite interesting because this is something I have NEVER attempted before so hmmm... see how I go!

When I was researching Sailor Moon costumes + tutorials for my main blog, I found this video tutorial of how to make a Sailor Moon tiara from brass sheets. Obviously the Mera crown is a bit more complicated, but I think it's a good starting point. I'll make the cuffs out of the same stuff too.

An AWESOME place for all my Mera research has been The Aquaman Shrine. I seriously go there about 5 or 6 times a day just to look at stuff, not even just specifically Mera. The other day I nearly had an aneurysm when I saw this sketch by Ivan Reis of Mera's new suit! It features several styles of crown [although I can't seem to see that any of them match the one on the cover of Aquaman #4]. I'm excited to see her barb/fins on her calves like Aquaman has. It's cool she's barefoot also, but I'm not sure if I'm going to enjoy walking around barefoot at Supanova! I'll just have to suck it up!

[Source: Aquaman Shrine]

So that's my game plan for the accessories. I'm going to buy some gold hoop earrings somewhere. Tossing up whether to make a trident for her as well. She has one in previous versions of her, but nothing in this version so far!

I really wish there was a better fabric I could use, but I seriously cannot find any scale fabric in green! I COULD buy that Zentai suit I referred to last post and cut it to the style I want, but at the same time I think the effect of the laser cut metallic spandex over the teal would look really rad. Do me a favour, check out the previous Mera post and let me know what you think! Also buying the suit and cutting it to what I want is like half the price of buying and shipping the other fabrics :/

Tomorrow is $$ day so I'll be able to start buying things! I've already bought the wig a few weeks ago, it should turn up some time this week fingers crossed!