Walkthrough: Punk! Usagi

The photos from February's shoot are in. Credit to Simon Spiteri Photography https://www.facebook.com/simspiphotography/ and Glen Taylor https://www.facebook.com/taylorsphotographymalta/ for their fantastic work. Check them out!

This costume is based on a drawing I did of Usagi from Sailor Moon, dressed in a punk style outfit. 

I don't think I sewed anything from scratch: everything was either taken from my wardrobe or modified.

The Denim Waistcoat

 Initially I bought a denim waistcoat and tried to bleach it. I failed spectacularly, because I could not get the colour to shift. I submerged it on bleach, I tried applying bleach directly, I put it in the washing machine with bleach, I even tried soaking it in salt water. Nothing. 

Instead, I bought a light blue denim jacket and cut off the sleeves. I designed the patch using watercolours and photoshop. I printed the final design on to t-shirt transfer paper, and transfered the design to a piece of fabric. I cut out the patch and stitiched it to the back of the waistcoat. For decoration I added metal studs, and my boyfriend let me use some of his badges and pins. I also made a pin from an old bottle cap

You can buy prints, t-shirts and more with this design on my Redbubble

https://www.redbubble.com/people/malteselizzie/works/24045245-in-the-name-of-the-moon-i-will-punish-you?asc=u&c=615024-sailor-moon  

The T-Shirt

Initially I had another t-shirt for this costume. I took a white t-shirt and dyed the top part red, and added eyelets and lacing to the sleeves. Unfortunately, the dye ran in the wash and turned the t-shirt orange. 

The shirt began as a plain white t-shirt. I drew the letters on with a permanent marker, tracing each letter carefully. A textile marker would be better, as permanent marker sometimes blurs in the wash. Instead of messing around with dye, I bought spray fabric paint. It has a liquid consistency, and behaves a bit like dye. It takes some practise to use, but I like the result. 

 The Bat

The bat is made from foam: the original wooden bat was unfortunately confiscated at the airport :( I cut up a camping mat and used a bamboo stick for the core of the bat. I painted it with acrylic paints, and wrapped the handle in duct tape. I also used a small piece of styrofoam to shape the end of the handle.

My cat would make a brilliant Luna, but I don't think he'd appreciate having to wake up for a photoshoot

The Wig and Accessories

The choker is a piece of ribbon, with a sequin cut into a moon shape. It closes with a snap. The shoes, gloves, earrings, tights, and shorts are all from my wardrobe.  The wig is from Coscraft: it's lovely, but as with all long wigs it tangles easily.

How to NOT paint a baseball bat

 Here's my mostly complete baseball bat for a punk version of Sailor Moon. It looks pretty good so far, but I made my fair share of mistakes, which I will now share with you so you won't make them,

 I bought a cheap baseball bat from a tourist shop. For some reason, it has an Arsenal logo on it. Has Arsenal branched out into baseball or rounders? Anyway, my first mistake was not sanding it. Sanding helps the paint to stick. The spray paint I used was really good, so it didn't matter too much. I think it was Montana brand paint, in a pale pink colour.I only needed a few coats to cover it. 

 My next mistake was using a different type of spray paint for the details. I bought a small bottle of spray paint, but it's a lot more watery, almost like acrylic paint. It was hard to paint over the other spray paint. The magenta paint was also very runny. 

 I made a stencil with tape, cutting out the letters with a scalpel. Unfortunately when I stuck the stencil on to the bat, the magenta paint bled under the tape. I had to respray some areas light pink, and chip off the magenta paint in others. Outlining the letters and rose with a permanent marker made it look a lot better. 

My last mistake was how I applied the varnish. For some reason, I couldn't get the spray varnish into thin coats, so there were thick layers of varnish. I also made the mistake of touch it when it was wet, and not removing the cord from the handle. The cord stuck to the handle and when I removed it, it pulled of some of the paint. Luckily I want this bat to look a bit rough, so it doesn't matter too much. 

Hopefully once I put white tape on the handle, it will pull the design together. So far it looks pretty good.

Walkthrough: Princess Serenity

Before university starts, I wanted to finish the last cosplay project of the summer, but I didn't want to buy new material. I had a lot of white satin, a lot of pearl beads and acrylic gems, some white tulle, and gold satin. So I decided to make Princess Serenity's dress (Sailor Moon).

 The advantage of making this costume is that it also doubles as a Fionna the Human (Adventure Time) costume. It's not identical, but close enough, especially if I wear the bunny hat. I quickly sewed a fleece bunny hat, just in case I can't get hold of a wig for Usagi.

The first step was the cut the bodice and the skirt. I used a Burda style pattern for the bodice. it was originally a sweetheart neckline but I altered it. If I were to do it again, I would have made it straighter along the top, as currently it has a slight curve. I started by cutting the bodice from white cotton, so that I oculd alter it to suit the dress. I cut the half circle skirt immediately from white satin; it's the same material I used to make Sakziou Juliet's skirt.

Next I made the circles. This would have been easier if the top of the bodice had been straight. The easiest method is to decide how many circles you want. Measure along the bodice top edge (not including seam allowances), and divide it by the number of circles that you want. This gives you the diameter of the largest circles. Divide that in half to get your radius. I then measured out the smaller circle on my template. Next I cut out circles of fusible web, which I ironed on to gold satin. Then I peeled off the paper on the back, and ironed the circles on to the dress, securing them with a satin stitch (or as near as my sewing machine can get to one)

I could not attach the lining fully until I had completed embellishing the bodice, so I simply attached the lining at the top to create the scallops. In hindsight it would have been simpler to make the top of the bodice straight, then to tack on the circles. Before I added the lining, I used the seam allowance to create boning channels in all the seams except for the back seam. I added a boning channel in the centre front for extra support.

 The anime Princess Serenity has quite a simple design on her bodice, with just the circles and a line of beads under the bust. 

I wasn't making an empire line dress, and I preferred the more detailed look of the dress from the art books, so I added a lot more embellishment.

Firstly I sewed a piece of white lace on to the bodice. I had to fold it slightly to make it fit the curve of the bust. Next I sewed a line of pearl bead under the gold circles, and some gold-painted cord in loop shapes underneath (I think the technique is called couching).

I thought it still looked plain, so I sewed on some more beads and gems.

I took a break from the bodice and made the sleeves. Each sleeve is a rectangle of slightly transparent cloth. I folded the cloth rectangles in half and sewed them into a tube. I turned each tube inside out. Down one edge I sewed a piece of lace, then I sewed channels for elastic at the top and bottom of the rectangle. I threaded elastic through each casing, then over locked the edges and sewed them together. The sleeves were probably the easiest part of the costume.

The bow is made of tulle. I used My Cute Bow's tutorial. The bow is a little bit floppy and might be remade. It is basically two rectangles of tulle sewn together, and a piece of tulle shaped a bit like a swallow-tail butterfly. 

Before adding a zip, I overlocked the hem, and added an in seam pocket. Weirdly, the skirt pieces seemed to stretch, so that some edges were much longer. I think the dress needed to hang for longer, but I didn't want to waste time. I trimmed the hem, Overlocked it again, and sewed everything together. I tacked and sewed an invisible zip, and hand sewed the lining to the inside of the bodice. I also added some clear elastic straps. The final step was to sew a row of pearl beads all around the waist of the dress. 

Here's what the dress looks like. I shoved on my Female Titan wig because it was the first one at hand. I don't have an Usagi wig, so I styled it as Fionna the Human's ball gown (Adventure Time) with a fleece hat.

And a look at the details 

The only thing that I might change is to add an overlay of net or chiffon to the skirt. It would be a little bit expensive to do so, because chiffon costs around 6.50 Euro per metre, and I'd need around 5 metres for a half circle skirt, though I could get away with about 3 metres if I made a gathered skirt.