Costume Designs/Gloves

I am well aware there a numerous glove styles, but as I was essential at the 'fun' end of things, I'd not looked into the really clever glove-makers patterns of the past.

The stretchy.org site, suggested a trace around your hand approach to gloves, which in terms of 4-way stretch materials is probably the easiest. However this wouldn't necessarily be appropriate to a less flexible material. Some video tutorials from the creator of that site hinted that some degree of 'trial' glove construction in cheaper materials to get a definitive pattern may be required. There are some more traditional glove patterns around, but I've not yet found any notes on drafting patterns for them. Maybe these are an item that's they have to be made for the performer/cosplayer on a per person basis. I don't however have any thoughts on how you'd even start a pattern for these. (Note: Gloves in multi-stretch materials like latex rubber tend to be be made as directly moulded item, rather than being constructed.)

I hadn't yet looked into how commercial glove designs are made up, as most of the "party shop" style gloves suit most situations. These seem to be constructed in some kind of stretch knit, as a tube split into smaller tubes for the fingers with a separate thumb.

In pattern drafting terms this makes things simpler than for drafting a sleeve in terms of the arm portion of the glove as it's an effective trapezoid (or 2 trapezoids shape depending on the length.) Drafting the hand portion looks to be rather complicated, and thoughts in this area would be appreciated..

The Valentia pattern drafting tool supports some "known" hand measures. To these I would probably add the custom measures noted (If there are measures actually used by glovemakers that are more appropriate, then those should probably used) These were what I came up with on my own intuitive amatuer approach ( I've not read much on glove making.)


 * Finger circumference, - There is IIRC a measure like this used for determining ring size in jewellery making.


 * Finger spread distance -  Place your fingers outstretched. on a table and measure the arc between a pair of fingers. (  This is somewhat intuitive but I think this might help determine how much 'gusseting'? needs to be put in at the fingers between a nominal upper and lower 'palm' side of a glove.)


 * Thumb circumference. - The measure around a thumb at it's widest point


 * Thumb circle - This isn't the 'thumb circumference, but a circle/ellipse representing where the thumb joint meets the side of the palm.


 * Thumb angle - The angle the thumb joint makes with the palm of the hand, In most loose gloves this will be somewhere between 90 and 120 I think..  It's useful to allow for the calculation of some other distances.(Side note Valentina doesn't I think have an option for angle based 'known measures' in it's Tape application in the 0.4.4.5 build I have. In any event many of these angles can be determined by formulae with reference to ones that are known.)

(Side note, I am aware of various things that whilst grouped with gloves aren't strictly gloves, like character additions such as front paws, claws, etc. in respect of costume designs intended to be portrayals of non-humanoid entities.. I'm still thinking about how to best to describe some these, or how they may be implemented.   I will however comment that in respect of some large claw designs (especially those for intended for use in dramatic performance), it may be better to use techniques more like those used for large scale puppetry, and have the claw mounted on the end of a "control stick" held by a performer, (should probably draw a diagram to indicate) what I mean here.. Use of puppetry techniques (and the overlap between costumes/puppetry) has a long history, my examples being classic Dr Who, and Labyrinth among others.) )