Cosplay Throwbacks . . . Arwen

When? 
I made this in 2012 for Medieval Mdina. I wanted a Medieval-themed dress to wear, and I'd always loved Arwen's beautiful Blood Red dress. 


How? 
This was made in my early sewing years. I didn't know much about materials and was on a tight budget. I got lucky at a charity shop and found a blue stretch velvet dress to use as the base. THe upper sleeves are made from cotton that I hand-painted to create a paisley pattern. The lower sleeves are made from crushed velvet. The trouble with having non-stretch sleeves and a stretchy bodice is that the arm-scye was incredibly tight, so I had to add gussets to make it fit.

Has it aged well?
I don't have this costume any more; I ended up cutting it up for other projects. Based on the pictures, the dress looks fine, but not very accurate. 

Would I remake it? 
I still love the design, so if I had the opportunity I would love to remake this. At the moment, though, it isn't a priority. There are some other costumes from Lord of the Rings that I would like to make, such as Eowyn's Shieldmaiden dress.

What would I change?
I would use better quality materials. I might also try to be more accurate to the original design; for example, I would avoid using a princess seam pattern. I would also wear a wig or curl my hair.  

Medieval Mdina

Finally posted the pictures from Medieval Mdina (which was last Sunday).
First of all, my cosplay pictures:

 I love this costume. It is comfortable, apart from being tight on the arm scye. The handpainted paisley turned out beautifully, and I am in love with the long circular sleeves.

 Mdina used to be Malta's capital city. I think it was built by the Arabs. It used to be part of Rabat, a nearby town, but the Arabs separated it from Rabat to make it easier to defend. Most of the buildings standing are palazzos and townhouses, probably sixteenth century.

 The reenactors we met near the bastions were nice enough to let my friends and I play around with the weapons and armour on display, provided that we were careful not to touch the metal, because apparently they rust very easily. This is a hand and a half sword, and it is extremely heavy. I would need to do some serious weight lifting before I could handle it easily. I had better luck with the smaller swords: one of the reenactors taught me a neat little tricks where you rotate your wrist, and kind of spin the sword (hard to explain, but if you've ever seen Lord of the Rings special features, you see Orlando Bloom doing it a few times and might know what I'm talking about)

In this picture you can see the bastions behind me, and beyond them fields and Mtarfa. These bastions are very tall and thick, and damn imposing: no wonder the Turks didn't attack the city during the Great SIege in 1565. The bastions allowed the people who remained in Malta during the siege some protection from the Ottoman army, with the people in the Great Harbour taking the brunt of the attack.

And here are pictures of the actual event:

Reenactors in very cool leggings (I think the correct Medieval term is hose). I saw some gorgeous reenactment costumes. One of my favourites was a this one girl's gorgeous velvet doublet with principle boy style boots: black and gold trim, and so cool.

These reenactors were doing a flag display, along the lines of the flag display/flag tossing done in Sienna, usually just before the Palio (the Palio is a slightly mad horse race around the main piazza of Sienna. It lasts about 90 seconds on average.)

 Men at arms. FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC

 My friend and her gorgeous dress. I know satin isn't historically accurate, but whatever. I think she looks a bit like Princess Fiona in Shrek, before she went green.

 My other friend, gazing out over the Maltese countryside. She was extremely patient with our constant begging for her to take photos of us prancing around :)

Tell me that this does not make you think of Shrek and Fiona in Shrek 2. We found this adorable cat snoozing outside a house. He was a very willing model.

 We found a German bagpipe band playing near the main gate of Mdina, and had to get a photo with them. Here we are looking slightly shy.

The band in action.

Arwen Update

Draping the neckline

The sleeves and neckline of the blood red dress are painted. The neckline has been handsewn to the dress.


Why does blogger always rotate my images?

Sleeve detail. This is the part of the sleeve that wraps around the elbow.

This material is plain red cotton, painted with acrylic and fabric paint, with details in permanent marker.

I also found time to make a new sketchbook. I sometimes recycle the scraps of paper I have lying around by binding them into a book. It involves sewing them together with dental floss, lots of glue, and decorating them. Decorating is one of the best parts of the process. I've been reading A Song of Ice and FIre, and decided to do a Stark themed cover.

The paper is an old painting from my A'levels. THe material on the spine is cotton, painted with acrylic to match the dire wolf's head. I'm considering offering custom sketchbooks/notebooks.

Medieval Malta

The Medieval Malta event is coming up soon. I have no clue what it will be like. I'm hoping for a Ren Faire sort of atmosphere. Anyway, Pilot, a comic anthology group that i am involved in, will be there, trying to get publicity for the next volume of Pilot, which is Medieval themed.
This means that I have an insanely short amount of time to come up with a costume.

LUCKILY, I can cheat a little bit, thanks to a blue faux velvet dress I bought in a charity shop a few months ago.

The dress is the perfect colour, and close to the shape I need.

 Arwen: perfect Medieval costume. The dress I have is too tight and doesn't has the drape or train of her dress, but it will do just fine for a costume. If the costume doesn't look so good, in the future I can make an overdress from nice velvet. This would be closer to how the original dress was constructed: the sleeves are part of an underdress. the blue velvet dress lies on top: I've heard it described as a jumper.

Oh, random sketch from my sketch book.