January Update

Hey all! I guess it's been a while. Happy New Year!

2016 was not a very productive year on the cosplay front. That's primarily because I've been getting more work in my industry but also due to me taking some time to step back from my projects a bit. I have not been as active on this blog as I would like, but that's partially due to a lack of finished material to post about.


For me this has been a year of learning and career progress.

I finished 2 costumes this year from my ongoing projects list and completed several more smaller projects (mostly hats!).

The first was Presea. This one was in progress and then on hiatus for several years--with the bulk of the work having been completed more than 3 years ago. I'm glad I was able to finally complete the battle axe this year with my current skill-level in painting. :)

The second (and final) costume I completed was Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi--her Rebel Scout outfit. I've been a Star Wars fan since forever and Leia and Han were always my favourite characters. It was nice to finally cosplay from that series. And also to step-up my wig game.

I still need to get some finished shots of this costume--aiming for late spring to do a photoshoot in the park behind my house.

So, what does 2017 have in store for me?

On the cosplay front: Completing the last 4 costumes I have left on the go! Plus 2 new secret projects? Secret mostly means I haven't quite finalized the list yet, and I don't want you guys to hold me to any promised future costumes. Hoping to complete the top row in the first half of the year, and announce my 2 new costumes halfway through the year.

On the personal front: Well, I have some product ideas that I am taking off the backburner. I've been working on some designs for a while and need to finish prototyping. Looking at debuting some things to sell early spring.

On the blog front: I'll try to keep up! Haha

That's all for now folks! Looking forward to 2017 with a positive mind! Gotta get back in the groove!

Taking Orders for Splatoon Commissions!

Taking orders for Splatoon hats and tentacles!

- 30$ for full "boy" hats 
- 25$ for just the "girl" tentacles

All are made of spandex and hand painted. Team colour on request!

**Shipping is extra, determined by location

***All squid headgear must be sewn down to a wig in order to stay on (including boy hats). This is not included.

Shoot me a facebook message if you're interested!

Photo credit to Elemental Photography!

The Thrifty Costume Challenge

So, as those of you who follow me on facebook know, this past summer at my job we engaged in competition of sorts.

The rules were: Using only things you find at the thrift store, the dollar store, your closet, and as a last resort, Walmart, you must create a costume to fit the weekly theme. Try to keep your budget under 20$. The sub-goal is to google the costume and find the crappiest costume someone else on the internet has come up with and see if you can beat that--thats how you set the bar for your standards! >;D

I think it's fitting that I saved this post for October, because contrary to my normal costume-making projects, the goal of the costume challenge was to create costumes as cheap and quick as possible--perfect for Halloween! Terrible = Great!

Hope maybe some of you find some Halloween inspiration here! >:D Without further ado I present the results of the Weekly Wardrobe Dress-up Challenge!

Week 1: Scooby Doo

Started off with a bang as the Mystery Gang! Pretty easy costumes to throw together for our first week, and a solid recognizable group.  Winner for the cheapest costume goes to Sarah, who spent a total of 3$ on her Shaggy outfit! Talk about a ham sandwich! Points for outstanding accuracy go to Devon for her Velma! You beat all the "sexy Velmas" that came up in our google search. Seriously--why is that a thing? Points to Frances as Scooby for being the most popular with children!

Daphne
Purple dress: 7$ (heavily altered)
Purple skirt: 3$ (cut up to use as trim & headband)
Green scarf: 1$
Shoes: from closet

Total: 11$
Sewing time: 3hrs

Week 2: Grease

We cheated a little bit--one of our cast members owns a costume rental place and hooked us up with the Pink Ladies jackets for free. But the rest was all thanks to us and the trusty local thrift store. We made a night out of pin-curling our hair while watching the movie!

Cheapest costume award again goes to Sarah for her 2$ Frenchie costume. And the 2$ was spent on prop lollipops. Seriously, who owns a poodle skirt?? Creativity points to Melissa for turning a mens plaid shirt into a plaid skirt! Points to Devon for reusing her shoes from Velma.

Marty
Jacket: FREE
Navy skirt: 7$
White shirt: 2$ (altered to fit)
Blue shirt: 1.50$ (turned into neckerchief)
Shoes: from closet

Total: 10.50$
Sewing time: 30min
Hair prep: 1hr

Week 3: Powerful Women / Game of Thrones

The theme was powerful women, but several of us wanted to do Game of Thrones characters. Hence the bizarre theme name. Nothing is as surreal as being driven to work by Furiosa.

I think I got a little too over-ambitious that week... We all did. Creativity points the Game of Thrones gals for using duvets, bedsheets, table cloths and chair covers to recreate the stunning GoT costumes on a budget.

I actually don't know whose costume was the cheapest that week, but I have a feeling it was either Devon or Sarah. Extra bonus points for Frances for wearing every belt in existence and for her robot arm that was so shiny and chrome (despite being made primarily of cardboard).

Arya
Beige fabric: 10$
Gold chair cover: 5$
Green circular tablecloth: 3$
Shoes: from closet
Total: 18$
Sewing time: 12hrs
Hair prep: 40min

Week 4: Jurassic Park
Jurassic park week--because really, we were in Drumheller. It would be silly to waste a perfect opportunity to take pictures with dinos. Probably the easiest costume I made for this whole thing, since our thrift store was predominantly 80s-90s clothes.

Special shoutout to Sarah for putting up with our teasing all day and us forcing her to wear the padding. She was actually the highlight of the group as Dennis Nedry. Points to Devon for stealing tacky amulets from the wardrobe to wear with her Jeff Goldblum costume.

Extra bonus points to Sarah for finding actual Barbasol brand shaving cream to use as a prop. And then tweeting them pics of her costume. And they tweeted back! Why do they have a twitter? I don't know.

Lex
Elsa hat: 13$ (with attached blonde braid. Seriously wtf)
Purple shirt: 2$
90s jeans: 3$
Purple paint: 1$
Shoes: from closet

Total: 19$
Sewing & painting time: 1hr

DOUBLE BONUS POINTS TO DEVON & SARAH FOR MY FAVOURITE PHOTO EVER.

Week 5: Sound of Music

This was a stupid idea that I came up with. The original joke was that we needed to find terrible curtains at the thrift store and turn them into clothes for the Von Trapp kids like Maria does to the curtains in the movie. We ended up finding super cheap fabric on sale at Fabricland and got like 12m to split between the 6 of us. Everyone's a winner, we all spent the same amount! We managed to recruit 6/7 Von Trapps. Not bad! Not featured are the extra bandanas that were distributed to the other departments so everyone could match.

Friedrich
Fabric: 5$
Wig: courtesy of Sarah's closet
Shirt: from closet
Shoes: from closet

Total: 5$
Sewing time: 3.5hrs

Week 6: Cult Classics
One of those weeks where we picked a broader theme and kind of all did our own thing. Featuring Melissa as John from the 80s classic The Breakfast Club, Sarah as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Devon as Princess Aura from Flash Gordon, and myself as The Black Knight from Monty Python's The Holy Grail.

Creativity points to Sarah for using hockey tape to make striped pants!? My mind is still exploding over this. Effort points to Devon for that wicked jacket. Smart points go to Melissa for the most functional yet still recognizable costume in a workplace environment. I get points for being a paint wizard.

I had to buy a lot of stuff to make this that I wouldn't normally have if I lived at home where I have a stock of basic craft supplies--like paint.

The Black Knight:
Black dress: 8$
Black shirt: from closet
Black leggings: from closet
Shoes: from closet
Bucket: 2$
Bristol board: 1$ (for stencil)
Red paint: 1$
Black paint: 1$
Silver paint: 1$

Gold paint: free
Killer rabbit: 2$
Holy hand grenade: 2$
Gems: 1.50$
Red fabric scraps: free (for fake bleeding stump arm)

Total: 19.50$
Painting time: 2hrs

Week 7: Star Wars
Sarah and I blatantly cheated. I already had a Leia costume in the works and Sarah's obsession with Anakin fueled her to screw the budget and make the costume for real.

Double bonus points for creativity go to Frances. Her BB8 was on point! Take note of the neckpiece, which is the brim of a sunhat. And the orange electrical tape. Points to Devon for her amazing McGyvered staff. Made of a pole, a flashlight and solo cups... or are they HAN SOLO CUPS?

Also--bonus points to Devon who bought hair extensions from the dollar store and literally nobody noticed because they perfectly matched her hair. No one thought it was odd that she suddenly had 10 extra inches of hair.

Leia
I'M A CHEATER.
This was the first wear test for my Leia Rebel scout.
The pieces of which were lying around in my workshop.
For free.
Totally.

Total: $$$

Week 8: Gender-Bent Disney Princes (Men)
Philip! I had been looking forward to this since we were deciding themes at the very beginning. Originally we were going to do this one earlier, but it ended up being at the end. The joke was that all I really wanted was to make Philip's hat and then wear it with every costume. Originally it was just supposed to be Disney princes, but Devon wanted to be Gaston.

Congrats to Melissa for being the most easily recognizable as Prince Eric and tying the group together nicely! Bonus points to Devon for continuing to freak people out with her hair extensions.

Philip
Red felt: 10$ (made into hat, tons of leftover)
Red sheets: 5$ (shared with the Red Woman from GoT week, made into cape)
Off-white fabric: 5$ (made into dress)
Belt: courtesy of Furiosa
Black shirt: from closet
Shoes: from closet

Total: 20$
Sewing time: 8hrs

ARE YOU INSPIRED YET? There's still over a week until Halloween--you've got time! Make something super awesome with 20$ and whatever's lying around!

Presea - Accessories - Tales of Symphonia

Welcome to Presea Part 4: Accessories! Feel free to venture back and check out the Gloves & Boots, Dress, and Wig. Many thanks to the ever fabulous Elemental for the amazing photos! We braved the cold and pulled it off!

This costume had a lot of smaller pieces involved. This post covers the belt, pouch, dagger, and Exsphere (necklace).

For this project I actually bought a piece of real leather to work with. I used the suede-like side as the outside (as opposed to the shiny side), because I thought it was more true to the character.

The first piece I cut was the long strip for the belt. Later I went back and reinforced this strip by sewing a second layer to it. I used scissors and carefully cut out the holes. The buckle was found in an store on Queen street after much searching.

Then I patterned the pouch.

The pouch consists of one curvy strip of leather that folds over on itself to be the front, bottom, back and flap of the pouch.

Then there are the 2 panels that form the two orange curved sides of the bag.


These were stitched together, then all the edges were finished.

These were then marked and very carefully hand stitched to the leather. At this time I was unsure if my sewing machine could handle leather, so I hand stitched all the leather on this costume. Turns out it can, with the right needle, which I found 1 year later when I returned to finish the project. Unfortunately I finished all the leather work before then...

I made a matching bias tape and stitched that on as well. The last step was to cut 2 slits in the back so the belt could be fed through the pouch.

I had intended for this bag to be functional, but unfortunately it was too floppy to hold it's shape with anything inside...

Next up is the dagger! The dagger is also attached to the belt, but the character never uses it, it seems purely part of the design.

I made the dagger out of wood, cutting it out with a jigsaw.

I had my friend Ian dremel out the blade edges because at the time the sanding bit on my dremel was not working. When I received it back I hand sanded it even smoother.

I created a sheath and loop to attach to the belt. The loop was on an angle so the dagger would be angled like it is on the character.

I started the paint treatment with grey primer, then silver and finally a light blue acrylic for the face of the blade.

The last detail was the Exsphere. I started by drawing out the piece full scale, then making a wire frame for it. I bought a large red bead for the gem in the center. I sculpted the piece with apoxie sculpt, which is great for this kind of thing as it dries super solid. Later I went back and broke the two side arms and bent them further back to better contour the neck. I filled in any divots with more apoxie sculpt and sanded it smooth.
 

I masked off the gem with painter's tape and then sprayed the piece a matte black. Then I painted over that with a gold acrylic paint. Lastly I created a short chain so it could be worn. The actual character has this gold piece built around the gem, which is fused into her skin, I didn't think that was necessary for me! Hahaha I just had to be careful not to look down suddenly, otherwise I would be jabbed in the neck.

Presea - Boots, Gloves & Armour - Tales of Symphonia

Salutations! After years on the shelf, I would like to continue to take a look at how I made my Presea costume! Look here for a blast from the past: how I made the Dress and Wig! Seriously, I was posting about this in 2013 what-the-heckaroonie.

Getting this costume photoshoot worthy and documented is one of my 2016 goals and I'm pleased to say that with the costume and photoshoot done I can now finish documenting how I made it. From the depths of my computer hard-drive I have salvaged ye ancient progress photos.

Possibly the most challenging part of this costume and the main reason I put this costume on hiatus for a whole year (the other reason being my dog ate the tip off my battleaxe). This was my first time making boots, gloves and armour, and to be honest I had no idea what I was doing! I didn't get very far before I gave up. When I came back to this project a year later it was after I had done the armour for my Asuna costume and had much more sewing/patterning experience.

I started by buying and deconstructing a pair of well fitting costume gloves, from this I was able to make my own glove pattern. I made it go extra wide further up the arm so that it would be loose at the cuff.

My main problem was that the character's gloves are above the elbow, but loose fitting, meaning they essentially float there defying the laws of physics. My trouble was making them stay up without any seriously visible rigging...

It took hours of hand stitching to assemble those gloves. Above is the separate thumb piece which was slotted into the glove.

Left is my first attempt at making the boot covers, as you can see the cuff looks kind of wonky... Partially due to my inexperience working with stretch fabrics. This is where I stopped working on them for a year.

I patterned my boots to cover a cheap pair of canvas shoes I picked up at Ardenes. Above is the toe cover, left is the 2nd attempt at the boot cover. (from the inside)

I opted this time to do a fold-over cuff, which looked much cleaner, even though it isn't as accurate to the original design.

I replicated the cuffs on the gloves.

I marked where the shoe cover would be sewn to the shoes, then I hand stitched the two together. It took a while, but the result was a nice clean finished edge.

Then I sewed elastics to the inside so that the loose gloves and boots would stay up. These had to be far enough away from the edge so that they would be hidden inside. How I made the cuffs stay up was I sewed some short pieces of wire into the boot cover where it attached to the cuff.

At one point I had attempted to wire the whole boot, but I found it a) really uncomfortable, b) hard to keep it secure and c) it would be harder to pack into a suitcase, because the boots would have to remain upright. That and every time the wire got dented they were even more uncomfortable to wear... With the short wires only at the cuffs with fabric casings they were easy to fold up, and didn't cause any discomfort.

Next I got to work on the small bits of armour, following the same method as I did for Asuna. I used the leftover styrene from that costume to construct the toe and hand guards.

First I made paper patterns of the shapes I wanted, then traced them and cut them out. There were 8 pieces total. Compared to Asuna's this armour was total cakewalk.

I then made the raised bits out of craft foam, and hot glued them on.

I used the same spray paint treatment as Asuna's: primer, matte black, then silver.

I weathered with sandpaper, glued all the pieces together, then aged them with black dry-brushing.

Lastly, the shoe armour was hot glued to the boots (while I was wearing them, so the armour placement would be correct). Then I rigged the hand guards with some elastic so they would be easy to take on and off. I painted the elastic grey so it would match the gloves.

Overall this project really benefitted from me not rushing to finish it the first year and instead applying another years' worth of experience to finish the job.