If the Shoe Fits...

Citizens,

Have you ever wondered what your favorite super heroes wear as footwear? Why, rain boots and women's cowboy boots.

Wait...that didn't come out right? Oh yeah, it did.

When Batman and I were building our costumes, one of the harder items to find was footwear. Thus, we had to (as with most things) customly make our own. Believe it or not, the base for both of our shoes were as listed above: Batman wore rain boots and Robin wore women's cowboy boots. We spray painted the shoes the right colors. Batman was lucky, regular spray paint worked fine for him. But, for me, I had to find a special kind of spray on shoe polish (kelly green...who wears shoes that are kelly green aside from Robin?!) that was very difficult to find. Acutally, my mom found it for me in a tiny junky shoe store in a mall in Frederick.

Next, we had to cut the boots to the right size. Batman mearly trimmed his to a point to add the bat effect. Mine were slightly more tricky. I had to watch the "Batman" movie several times before I finally understood the pattern for Robin's shoes and cut them with great care using a leatherman knife I had.

Finally, we sewed them up to add duribility. Batman added a zipper (which I helped install) to his boots of justice. Let's just say that until you have sewen through leather and rubber, you do not know the meaning of pain in your fingers. But, the end products were faboulse except for one overlooked detail...

Remember how I said my shoes were WOMEN'S cowboy boots? Well, I could fit into them. But, wearing them for longer than ten minutes almost reduced me to tears. And you can forget about that action hero stuff: running, jumping, and fighting. Therefore, we tried to shoot most of the action from the waist up. For the scenes I had to be in my death traps, I squished into them. But as soon as the camera stopped, I kicked them off and switched to my tennis shoes. This little habit ruined a few shots we had to re-take because, well, Robin just can't wear old nikes in a fight scene. So, the next time you see a picture of Robin, give him a salute. I bet those boots are more uncomfortable than you can imagine.

ZOW!,

Robin