Harley Quinn and Late but Lucky Photoshoot

Yesterday, some of us local cosplayers got together for a photoshoot. Its rare that we have a chance to meet up for photos, because we tend to have conflicting schedules, so whenever we have a chance to meet like this, we jump on it.

We got very lucky, because a friend of mine volunteered to do makeup. I was very grateful, because both of my looks needed a lot of makeup. 

 I finally have decent pictures of the Late but Lucky dress. 

 It looks gorgeous-I am so pleased with it. The jacket sleeves are a little narrow, but it looks good on, and isn't uncomfortable.

 These knife shots took forever. I threw that knife about twenty times. There are some shots of me looking very derpy as I fail to catch the knife.

 This is just a field in Swatar-you would never expect to find it there. Swatar is just this big suburb, very built up, but you can stumble upon fields in the middle of the development.

 The only mistake we made with these photos was not orientating ourselves correctly with the sun, so there's a bit of glare in the pictures.

 More knife throwing,

We then returned to our SECRET BASE and got changed for the urban themed shoot. Took a while, because Alice's outfit has about ten different items. 

 The mask is stuck on to my face with eyelash glue. DO NOT DO THIS. It works, and isn't dangerous, but I then got glue in my eyebrows, and quite a bit of hair got pulled out when I removed the mask. Ouch.

 The skate park is a great place for photos, even if we did get some weird looks (to be fair, we were dressed as the Cookie Monster, harley Quinn, and Rocket from Sucker Punch). 

 The graffiti is amazing.

 And there are parts of the park that are quiet enough to hold a photoshoot without skaters and bikers sliding into shot.

I messed around with XiuXiu Meitu online and made this comic page edit. I love XiuXiu: it is so much fun to use.

Late but Lucky: Completed

 The second to last step was the bunny paws that hang down from the bow at the back of her dress.

 The bunny paws are made by drawing a paw shape, cutting out two of them, sewing them to make a tube, turning them right side out, stuffing them, creating the toes, gluing on claws, and sewing it all up.

The tail is a circle that I gathered, stuffed with scrap fur, and sewed up.

The final step was to sew the velvet 'apron' at the back of the costume. 

I will try and get some good photos of the costume. Carnival is coming up soon, so I should have a chance to get photos.

Late but Lucky: Ears and Paws

The Hat is done. It was made using the Threadbanger Mad Hatter tutorial. The brim is wired, to give it some panache. The ears are a little smaller than in the reference pictures, but I don't have that much fake fur available, and wanted to keep most of it for the foot paws.

 The base shoes are canvas lace up shoes. They were too battered to wear, and leaked a lot, so they were perfect for this project. I hot glued foam pieces to the shoes, glue the tongue of the shoe to the inside of shoes, and cut a little of the tongue off so that I could fit my feet into the shoes.

 I used scissors to shape the toes, cut a little foam away at a time to get the right shape.

 Trimming, trimming, trimming.

 I then began to cover the paws in fur. I glued in the claws first. There are small holes in the fur so that the claws could fit through.

 Furring, furring, furring. 

The completed foot paws. Not bad for my first go. 

Next is the bunny bow paws and tail. I hope i have enough fur left over.

Late but Lucky Jacket

The Late but Lucky jacket is done - finally.

 The collar took the longest to make. Burda 121's instructions for making it are difficult to follow, particularly if you've never made this kind of jacket. I ended up winging it, but the result doesn't look too bad.

It closes with two hooks in the front. 

All in all, I'm pleased with this jacket. I've never made anything like this before, apart from the leopard jacket, but I think I've progressed a lot since then.

Next are the fuzzy shoes, paws, and ears.

Late but Lucky Top Hat

 The top hat is done: just needs the ears.

I used Threadbanger's Mad Hatter tutorial to make this. It's very simple: you make a cylinder with an open end, glue cloth on to it, stretch the cloth down to the open end, tuck it under and glue it down. Then you make a big doughnut shape from the cloth, glue that to the body of the hat, then stretch it around a wire rim, and sew it down.

Late but Lucky: Spats

The spats are done!

 These were much easier than I anticipated. I traced them from the gaiters I made for Ling. 

The spats have two layers: the outer layer, made of white satin, and the lining, made of furnishing fabric, to make the spats stiffer.

They were sewn, right sides together, and turned right way out. Then I topstitched everything, and added a placket. I don't know if this is the proper way to do a placket, but I made a tube of fabric, then topstitched it on all sides, then sewed it on to the side of the spats. The buttons are from an old shirt.

These were fiddly to make, but look brilliant.

Late but Lucky: skirt and waistcoat completed

 The skirt is finally done. What a marathon, and a surprising amount of hand sewing. The back of the waistband in blind stitched by hand. Takes a while.

 The pleated hem look good too. I opted for large pleats over ruffles because my ruffles tend to end up messy and uneven.

The waistcoat also had to be altered, because it was too long and actually covered half of the pockets. This looks much better, and more accurate.

The shirt is not the one I will be using. I'm just using it to get an idea of what the finished product will look like.

The next step is the jacket. I'm going to use a Burda style pattern (as usual XD) Peplum Jacket 120 , without the peplum. 

Ascot and Skirt

 I found a really good tutorial  on making a pre-tied Ascot on Deviantart. It was quick and easy to make. I used some polyester taffeta that I found in my fabric collection, and added snaps to the back.

The skirt still isn't finished, but all the details are done. I decided to use a gathered skirt pattern for simplicity's sake. The skirt is basically a long rectangle with strips of bias tape sewn to it. I made all the bias tape myself: the red took a while to make because the satin wouldn't lie properly, even after I ironed it and ironed it.

The red is stretch satin, and the green is apparently silk. I bought it at a charity shop, and i'm not convinced that it's actually silk, but it does look pretty.

I'm not crazy about the pockets. They seem a little small, and not well placed, but I'm not remaking them. The gold in just a strip of satin.

There's a petticoat under the skirt on the form, just to see what it looks like.

The buttons are also finished. They were quite easy: normal buttons covered with red satin material.