A little costuming update. I know, it’s been ages. Lots of book stuff going on (yay)…
Over the weekend I finished my pants for Twilight Princess Link and got some work done on his undershirt. For the pants, I modified this free leggings pattern here - took out the crotch insert and made the pattern a lot bigger, since I used stretch twill that actually doesn’t stretch a whole lot. I decided to go with good old fashioned elastic for the waistband, since the tunic will hide it anyways, but I used a zigzag stitch for the waistband just because I feel like it gives it a little extra detail.
Same thing for the undershirt, which is made out of raw silk, MY LOVE. Raw silk is super light, airy, and soft, but has a weathered, nubby appearance. I did the seams with a messier zigzag to kind of fake a handsewn look. Still need to cuff the sleeves and finish the collar. Other than that…done and done!
Tauriel screencaps
This costume is officially happening. I knew I’d love it, but this sold me. The leather armor. The auburn wig. The gauntlets.
disappears with a cackle into costuming cave
Sometimes you end up cosplaying a character with a really crazy hairline, and you think “How am I going to make THAT?”
Maybe you’ve already learned about lace-front wigs and how they appear more natural-looking. Maybe you’ve even heard of wig ventilation, which is the method for individually adding hairs into the lace of a lace-front wig. If you’ve gotten that far, you’ve probably noticed you need special tools, called ventilating hooks/needles, and they can be costly and hard to acquire. Fear not! I am here to show you a few methods to ventilate hair with just normal supplies you can find at your craft and sewing store!
That’s right, you can ventilate hair with just a normal sewing needle!!!
Reblog for future reference, I’ve read about this before. Ahhhh I love lacefronts!
Now this is cool
The annual FIDM Art of Motion Picture Costume Design event opened last night and runs till April 27th and ohhhh dear do I want to go like you wouldn’t believe. That aside, you should check out Frocktalk’s awesome galleries from the event. Below the cut are a few pics from the flickr stream that have me frothing at the mouth (all credit to frocktalk, check their galleries for more).
LoTR has long been my first costuming love and fandom. So this year, I resolved to recreate at least one dress from the movies (though truth be told, I have a mighty need to cosplay Merry at the moment if only I could get Lopti to be my Pippin)…and I just cannot pick one. I originally wanted to do Arwen’s chase scene gown because I’m partial to slightly more warrior-y outfits; that’s why Tauriel’s yet-to-be-seen costume made the cut. I’d love to do the leather work. So you guys should help me out and tell me WHAT THE HECK TO MAKE.
More WIPs for the Prince of Persia armor I’m working on. I’m waiting to continue work on the chest armor until a piece I ordered comes in, so I worked on the gauntlets this weekend. Steps:
-Eyeballed required proportions to make them look right on my boyfriend
-cut leather (checked size around boyfriend’s arm), beveled and smoothed edges, dyed leather, applied wax/sealant (which makes it feel really nice)
-used sculpty to make little antique gold doodads, used a combo of rub ‘n buff and acrylic to make them gold with some weathering
-punched eyelets into leather, attached gold thingies
Next I will be making the elbow piece and attaching the needs straps. Once that’s done, the whole thing will get a good layer of dirt and dust for more weathering. All of this is just for the right arm piece. The left one is totally different.
New experiences with this- rub n’ buff (totally awesome stuff), punching eyelets (I need more practice, but for these pieces they will barely be seen), dying and waxing leather (not that hard, with really satisfying results).
Final thought- in the PoP movie, the armor looks darker, a nearly black brown. However, between all the reference picks I used (both movie and video game pics), I decided to go with a lighter brown. And I think it looks really lovely so far- can’t wait to see how the chest armor looks!
More WIPs for the Prince of Persia armor I am making. Today I went to my local Tandy Leather Factory to purchase the leather and some supplies- but also got some amazing advice and tips from the guy who ran it. He was extremely helpful and walked me through a lot of things that I was going to try to figure out by trial and error- much better to talk to an expert.
I got a HUGE vegetable tanned hide- plenty big enough for the main chest piece, all its accent pieces, the back pieces, and maybe the belts too. So first I just played around with some scraps for practice- beveled and smoothed the edges, scratched some designs into it, dyed it, punched and put in a rivet… none of it was too difficult, but time consuming getting started.
Next I took apart the pattern I made with craft foam, traced it onto the back of my leather, and cut it out. That was the hardest part so far- just physically hard on the hands, even though the leather was damp and flexible, that was a lot of stuff to cut. Then beveled and smoothed the edges. That’s all my progress for now. Next I’ll be cutting the accents and hand carving the designs onto the leather. This is all time consuming, but really a really fun first leather experience. Hopefully the end product is freaking sweet!
If you guys aren’t following Thordogofthunder, you really should. She’s constantly teaching herself new things and walking step by step through the process (doing all the hard work for me so when I want to do something new I can just ask her about it).
So I’m a dummy and totally didn’t take any legit pics of this before I gifted it to my brother for Christmas…but here’s the saiyan scouter I made him. I still owe him a new lens - this old one did NOT turn out the way I wanted (I was curing it myself at 1 in the morning on Christmas Day), but for a first experiment with a lot of this materials, it wasn’t so bad. I learned stuff. Always good.
Made with styrene, sintra, model magic, some craft foam, and plexiglass for the lens.
