Cosplay Throwback: Dinah Wherever

When? This was completed by January 2012, but begun a few months before.

How? I bought a matching jacket and skirt from a charity shop, and removed all the trim and zips. The jacket was taken to pieces, and altered to make a bodice. This was sewn to the skirt to make a dress. I made the sleeves more puffy by adding elastic at the ends. The apron was made from a shirt. I took the shirt to pieces by cutting it under the arms to make the skirt of the apron, then used the other pieces to make the top of the apron and the straps and pockets. The skull was painted using acrylics mixed with fabric medium. I added a few eyelets in the top of the apron.

Has it aged well? Quite. It looks nice in photographs, if not entirely accurate: for example, I think the dress should be longer and the skirt wider. I'm very pleased with the apron, though.

Would I remake it? Probably not. Once was enough. I'm not passionate enough about it to remake it. If I ever want to cosplay Dinah again, I'll choose a different dress: probably one of the ones from book 6. 

Photos, photos everywhere: Rapunzel, ALice and Sweet Pea

Rapunzel is done!

For some reason, blogger thinks this image works better on its side. But you can tell that it's done. The last step was to finish all the grommet and the sleeves, and to lace the bodice up. Hopefully I will be able to organise a photoshoot with this dress, because it deserves some good pictures. 

I have also had the opportunity to update my Alice Liddell (American McGee) costume. This was my first ever cosplay, so I didn't sew it myself. Instead I asked a local seamstress to make it out of the materials that I bought, which consisted of a lovely blue linen, and an old white apron.

Here is what it originally looked like.  I had to remove the skull at the back because it was too heavy (I used polymer clay!)

Wanton cruelty to evil bunnies is not advisable

Not bad, but not entirely accurate either.

So I decided to make it more accurate. The dress is more or less perfect, but the apron needed alteration.

Once again, blogger messes with my images.

To get the apron the right shape, I place it on my dress form. On one side, I drew a diagonal line to get the shape of the apron. I unpicked the stitches that secured the skirt of the apron to the waistband, and cut the diagonal line. I did the same to the other side. The raw edges were sewn over with a zigzag stitch, then I folded them over and top stitched. This process was repeated for the top front and the back of the apron.

For the bow, i first altered the waistband so that it closed with snap, then I made a bow out of an old white shirt. The bow is attached to the waistband with a snap. The skull is paper mache: loo paper soaked in PVA glue and moulded into the right shape. I then painted it with acrylic paints, and added a coat of spray varnish.

I also made the pockets out of scraps of white material, painted on the symbols, and sewed them on.

The blood is watered down acrylic paint. I made it too runny, so I had to touch up the blood spots to make them darker red.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to get some good photos of two of my costumes at a local cosplay meet up. The one thing that irritated me about the meet up was the sheer lack of people in costume: is it really that hard to dig out a steampunk themed costume? To be fair, my costumes weren't exactly steampunk: Sweet Pea and Dinah Wherever; but at least I made an effort.

This is my Dinah Wherever (Bizenghast) costume. I've mentioned it before on this blog, but never had any good pictures of it. The dress is made of a skirt suit, and the apron is made from an old long sleeved shirt. The skull is painted on with acrylic paint.

These pictures were taken on the bastions of Mdina.

I also managed to get some good Sweet Pea pictures.

I added a gun belt, a leotard and new tights to the costume. I also borrowed a pellet gun. That darn gun weighs a ton. I am so glad my friends helped me carry it around, especially since I already had two costumes to carry around for the photoshoot.

Bizenghast Dress

Pictures will come soon

I somehow found time to make this dress in between studying. It is entirely made of recycled materials. The dress is made from a skirt suit. I managed to recycle most of it. i even managed to reuse the facing. The top half of the dress is the suit jacket: I used a basic sloper pattern to get it to the right shape: said sloper is not very good, so I won't reuse the pattern. I had to pinch and pin and dart it into shape. The skirt has minimal alterations: I just got rid of the ugly trim, took out the ruching, removed the zip and sewed it to the bodice. The sleeves had to be removed so that i could fit the bodice, then I sewed them back on, gathering them as I went. The bottoms of the sleeves are elasticated.

The apron is made from a shirt (I may have mentioned it before). I had to buy the ribbon I used to decorate the hem and pockets. For the bow, instead of interfacing, I used an old plastic table cloth: it works just as well as middle to heavy weight interfacing. I've also used felt in the past for bows: works quite well too. I sewed the bow on to the back of the apron, so that I wouldn't have to fiddle with it later.

So, how much did it cost?
I wish I'd taken notes at the time.
But . . . the skirt suit was roughly 8 Euro. The shirt was approximatley 5 Euro. The ribbon and zip cost somewhere in the region of 3 Euro.
Total: 16 Euro.

Not bad at all.

Can't wait to set up a photoshoot with this costume. There are actually three costumes that I really want photos of: Sally, Sweet Pea, and this.

Sailor Moon sewing marathon

Back in blog-land . . . with many updates. First of all, a charity shop haul. My favourite is this skirt-similar to J-rock style, and it cost only a few euro. I also got a plum acetate jacket and skirt, which I will probably use for my Dinah cosplay, a blue dress (Sailor Moon's costume) and an orange dress (Sailor Venus's costume) 

 Here's a photo of the work in progress. The shoulder pads were ridiculously easy, as was the tiara (mind, it damages easily, so I will have to figure out how to prevent that with future tiaras).

 The other Sailors and I spent one mad Sunday sewing as much as we could. No easy feat, since not everyone knew how to sew

This isn't even all of the costumes. My poor bed!

We got a fair ammount done: we cut the foam for the shoulder armour, glove rolls and hip rolls, covered these foam pieces in the requisite fabric (except for the hip rolls-the fabric was pinned over those, and then I finished sewing them later) 

Adventures in foam land

We used upholstery foam for our costumes, since I had a lot of it lying around in my stash-I knew it would come in useful one day (not really, but I can pretend that I did ; ) ) Great stuff, but cutting it to shape is very messy. Whenever one of us was cutting the foam scraps floated about like snow. Very annoying snow that liked to stick to all surfaces, particularly people's trousers.

More foam

Sewing space

For anyone thinking of making their own Sailor Scout costume, here are some tips. Use foam for the hip roll and shoulder pads: it is less of a hassle than stuffing it with wadding would be, not to mention that the foam holds the shape better, since the foam can be sculpted, as such. For our skirts, we used two metres of cotton by roughly 35 cm (including hem allowance), gathered the longest side at the top (I used the method where you zig zag over a piece of wool that has been secured at one end, then pull the wool to gather the cloth), then sewed the skirt to the hip roll. The resulting skirt will be a very full skirt that drapes nicely. For me this was an easier method than using pleats-weirdly enough, the gathered skirt mimics a skirt that has been loosely pleated.

One thing I am considering changing is the skirt openings. They fasten on the hip roll, with a length of velcro down the front of the skirt, but it is difficult to hide the hooks and eyes, not the mention that I'm worried that the hooks and eyes aren't secure. One thread on the cosplay.com forums suggests sewing the skirt to the bodice-you would pin the skirt on to the bodice while wearing the bodice, then carefully take the bodice off and sew on the skirt. This seems like less of a hassle than constantly worrying about your skirt fastening exploding in public.  

Totally off-topic, but here is the stripey goodness apron from Bizenghast : )

The skull was painted on with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium, the outline was drawn in permamenet marker. I made this apron from an old shirt-sadly I didn't realise that there was some elastane in the shirt, so I had to buy more ribbon for the hem. Aprons really aren't that hard to make-well, this one wasn't. It's basically a lot of rectangles. The apron skirt is made from the bottom part of the shirt, cut from under the sleeves. The sleeves themselves became the straps and the top section of the apron. The pockets are simply little rectangles sewn to the apron skirt-these will be very useful if I wear this to Malta Comic Con 2011. The eyelets are the kind you hammer in, but I just used a setting tool. Unfortunatley the tool tends to tear the metal, so the eyelets aren't very neat on the wrong side. One day I will buy my own hammer for eyelet setting.