Blasting into the arena

When starting the Green Arrow costume I knew two distinct things..and was told these by my friends Steve and Becca.

1) The costume was aged now, so parts will be hard to find the right ones.

2) The Leather would be pricey.

Undaunted I began looking for parts, and I wanted to start with one of the harder peices to find, and thats the sunglasses.

Sunglasses for me lately have been interesting. I used to be fine with anything under $5. But Costuming has shown me some spectacular glasses that are better made and last a long while...plus I need them for costuming. So I now have so many different styles!

In Smallville, rather than go with masks and whatnot for Superhero alteregos, sunglasses were used to hide identities. With sunglasses being made in interesting styles now, the team at Smallville found and converted a pair of glasses to work with the character.

 

I never looked too closely at them, but I was told they were a brand called Zeal, and the style was Blast.

So I went looking around online and found them, at huge prices...Smallville didn't do anything cheap. I have seen them rangeing upwards to $150. These sunglasses are favoured by performace oriented consumers, like hikers, cyclists and whatnot.

The design is pretty sweet, and kind of futuristic looking, enough to really appeal to a 21st Century Vigilante.

The glasses pictured above are what was used by production, with brown lenses (other choices are available to those who want something different), and painted green.

I was not content with spending alot of the glasses, so I hunted around and found a great sports store online that has fantastic deals daily. Sierra Trading Post. They had the glasses and they were pretty cheap, $60 with shipping (Shipping to Canada was more than the item itself!)

But I think they look perfect! All that is left is to paint them green!