Old school cowl maker

Costume making, prop building and other '66 Bat-related arts and crafts.

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Randy
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Old school cowl maker

Post by Randy »

I know Wally was one of the first cowl makers but who was the other guy that Mede had hem? I believe CY offered them.
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Larry A.
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Larry A. »

Mark Puette, perhaps?
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Scott Sebring
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Scott Sebring »

Wally, CY farmed out people to make cowls and never had his own make of one as product, Mark Puette, Brett Vasey, Ken Davis, Prop Department and then quite a few South American costuming places. There was one out of Orlando I believe (Southern Wing perhaps was the name?). And let's not forget the folks that simply tried to make their own for themselves. I searched high and low checking them all out and was very happy with my Wally one and wore it for years (still have it) but when Chuck and Lynne teamed up on it, nothing else compared since.

Here's some pics
batfriend.jpg
Fist picture ever of me in my Wally around this time in 2004. Didn't have a suit yet. Just fabric for a cape.

brett_cowl.jpg
brett_cowl.jpg (110.78 KiB) Viewed 4265 times
A Brett cowl


Member Mauled Vader modeling a few back in the day:
Mauled with a Brett.jpg
Mauled with a Brett

Mauled with Prop Department.jpg
Mauled with Prop Department

ken cowl.jpg
Ken with a Ken Cowl

puette_1.jpg
puette_1.jpg (81.05 KiB) Viewed 4261 times
Mark Puette

ww_02.jpg
From the first Live Forum Party in Novi 2006.
Wally, Chuck v1.0, Brett, Mark Racop's homemade deluxe and a Ken
Image
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AndyFish
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by AndyFish »

Let's not forget Will Reeb too.
I had a Wally cowl and loved it to death-- I regret everyday that I didn't hang on to it but it went to a good home. At the time I had it on a display in a hallway that lead to my studio so people would pass a fleet of cowls coming in, and almost always I'd have someone beg me to sell them one. Over the years I've had several Chuck cowls for this reason too. Since moving I've been able to hang on to the one I have.

I remember the 2006 gathering very well, and it was so cool seeing all the cowls lined up together. Was it there that someone had brought in the Hardeman cowl? Wherever that was THAT was eye opening, because all of the repro cowls were so much better than the real thing. It always makes me chuckle when someone says they want a 'screen accurate' one-- no you don't-- many of those were really thrown together.
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Lou Szabo
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Lou Szabo »

I had a Prop Dept, the Ken Davis, them Wally, and Chuck. Each one was an improvement over the previous. My head is 24 3/8, so near Adam’s head. Will made a great cowl for larger domes!
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Scott Sebring
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Scott Sebring »

AndyFish wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 7:44 am Let's not forget Will Reeb too.
Of course not. Just didn't have a pic handy when posting this.
AndyFish wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 7:44 am I remember the 2006 gathering very well, and it was so cool seeing all the cowls lined up together. Was it there that someone had brought in the Hardeman cowl?
He brought it to Wizard Anaheim 2010 and would put it on people's heads.
Image
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Ben Bentley
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Ben Bentley »

Holy throwbacks! This stuff was all cutting edge at some point in its own right.

Here is my first cowl which was made by our pal Will Reeb, a really solid construction and I was overjoyed to finally own a cowl of my own but it was always too big for me from the get go. That being said, I made some fantastic memories in this cowl during my first ever trip to the US in 2009.

From San Diego Comic Con...
Image

My second cowl below was a Ken cowl, but during the time when Ken was using the Wally shells that were pulled from a 3D scan of Adam's head in the mid 1990's.

My upgraded suit that followed featuring my Ken cowl...
Image
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Jimmy L. 66
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Jimmy L. 66 »

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cosplay.
Thanks for sharing the great pics lads.
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Chuck Williams
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Chuck Williams »

Yep, Mark Puette was a legend back in the day. Super nice guy.
Ages ago we made two for Clint Young. I think he kept one and sold the other. It was supposed to be three but the third never happened.
I think the cowl at Novi was the first blue cowl we ever sold!
The first cowl we ever sold was pink! pictured here. Sorry for the early digital image!
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AndyFish
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by AndyFish »

Purple Cowl.jpg
Purple Cowl.jpg (38.41 KiB) Viewed 4077 times
Dug this one out of an old thread, it's a Ken Davis Cowl done using the original fabric with face paint possibly by Clint Young. It was advertised originally as a screen worn cowl, and then later on as a BTTB Cowl but that's some dishonesty there, no slight to Ken or Clint who were not the ones making the claims.

I love the purple fabric, I've got to convince Chuck to make me a purple version to go with my other Chuck cowl. Purple is the way I remember it from back in the days of bad color TV.

Meanwhile, I love seeing all the various cowl attempts out there.
NOVACK BATMAN COWL.jpeg

Another cowl in my collection was the Ben Novack Jr set shown here, I was the Heritage winner. Ben was tragically murdered and his million dollar collection was auctioned off piece by piece. I'm pretty sure this was a Ken cowl too, but I don't have the eye to whittle down the makers. I can recognize a Chuck and a Wally but that's about it.

There was also a cowl maker named Batman-Joe who made a sort of hybrid Will and Brett cowl.
Will_Batman_Cowl_.jpg
Now this one is labeled 'Will' but I think this is my photo from many years ago, and I remember the Joe cowl being very stretchy material.

COWLS.jpeg

Now this one is definitely my photo, it's my old studio in the old building, a rare case of some of the cowls being out of their covered display cases as we were moving things. There's a Chuck in there, an Ogawa studios from Japan and I think the one in the extreme foreground is the Joe Cowl. The Mattel cowl photographs pretty nicely.
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Larry A.
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Larry A. »

Back in the 80s when I was deep into Original Battlestar Galactica, I was lucky enough to make friends with people in the costume and prop department. I was loaned some props, mainly the Colonial Pistols and Rifle. I wqas SHOCKED ro see what they looked like up close. When I asked my Friend in the Prop department, H told me something that I've NEVER forgotten: He said,"Larry, we have to make props and costumes so that they look good for as long as they are on screen, they hold up only so long as they are on screen and we have to make them as cheap as possible!". I'm sure that the same thing held true for the cowls as well.
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Lou Szabo
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Lou Szabo »

I’m quite sure any of these would not hold up to nightly patrols around Gotham very long. Let# just say that’s why Batma’s look changes every so often ;)
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Chuck Williams
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Chuck Williams »

It's one of the things I love about the blu-ray DVDs. You see all the chipped paint, tape and wires holding stuff in place!
Lynne says that one of her older Hollywood costuming gals would say, "It's going to be seen on a galloping horse for two seconds."

The original cowls were made with what I would call a "brittle" resin and fiberglass. The pink cowl has brass collar stays glued on the sideburns under the fabric to strengthen them. I got to glue one back in place for the owner!

The original fabric was pretty tough. Tougher than any satin I've seen since but of course it faded quickly.

I just want to say that if it weren't for Wally Wingert and his conversations with Jan Kemp, we would all still be trying to find out what the heck the fabric they used was!!
Both of those gentlemen's kindness to Bat-Fans , Jan's to Wally and Wally to me, changed my life and made more accurate cowls possible.
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Lou Szabo
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Lou Szabo »

I made a pdf of Wally’s website going through the cowl mfg process. If I can find it, I’ll let you all know. I don’t know if that website is still active.

***admin edit***
Dead Link. It may have still worked in a cache of some sort. The pages for that part of his site were pulled some time ago during the site's re-design. I know because I'm the webmaster there. lol
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Chuck Williams
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Re: Old school cowl maker

Post by Chuck Williams »

I know those pages by heart Lou!! LOL!
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