Showing posts with label prince. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prince. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Prince & Princess - Tube Heads - Katamari


Hey-o! So here's a look at how to make your very own Katamari tube head! ;D

First I took a 12" diameter sonotube and cut a piece that was 2ft long for each head. (I drew a guide line all the way around and cut it with a hand saw)

I bought an 8ft sonotube at Home Depot, so in theory with 1 tube I could make 4 heads. This is good news for group cosplays! XD

I compared the size of Miso's face on the tube to see how the size looked. If I remember correctly we determined it to be a tad small and made Prince, Princess and Nickel's faces a tad bigger.

Alex made the expressions for each face and sewed each on. Then she attached the yellow bias tape to the edge of the face to finish it off. Fantastic! :D

I set to work on cutting the neck holes. Using my handy workbench, I clamped the tubes down in preparation for dismemberment cutting holes.

I drew the shape I wanted cut, then drilled a hole big enough to fit my jigsaw blade in. With much caution--or at least as cautious as one can be while using power tools upside-down on a curve--I cut out the neck holes.

Then I had to decide where to glue the helmet. I marked the center on the inside and put the helmet in. Then I used an available human (preferably the one who would be wearing the costume) to determine the spacing for the placement of the helmet. I used blocks of insulation foam (hot glued in) as spacers to have the helmet sit at the right height and angle. I had some problems with this because the glue didn't really want to stick to the waxy inner surface of the tube... solution use MORE glue until it works! But in all seriousness, I should probably find a more reliable adhesive...

Other problems included the fact that Prince was to be worn by 3 different people, all with differing head sizes, neck length, etc. which made it a little tricky to fit it so that it would work for everyone.

Once that was done I cut out an eye slot using the same method I did for cutting the neck holes.

I went to Camp Connection (at Bathurst and Lawrence in Toronto) and bought 2 eggshell bed rolls. Instead of buying upholstery foam at Fabricland, this is much cheaper! It is also the perfect width for covering the 2ft wide tube.

I hot glued the foam--eggshell side in--to the tube.

Once it was glued on, I cut the holes in the foam for the eye hole and the neck hole with a pair of sharp scissors. Always do this after, just in case the holes don't line up.


Testing my fabric colour combos. I think I came pretty close to perfect! >:D

Then I created the pattern pieces for the end of the tubes using the bump pattern from the Katamari ball.The circumference measure for the base of the bump in this case is the circumference of the tube with the foam padding on it. Then you use  rectangle of fabric that spans the 2ft tube, falling a little short so that it pulls tight.

(In hindsight: It is also a good idea to add an extra inch to the end of each c-shape because you will need to tuck and hand stitch this sucker. I learned the hard way that this would indeed be helpful...)

I made these assembly line style. Always make sure to do the relief cuts before you pin it. Also, mark the 1/4 marks so everything lines up alright.

Then attach the next ring. These ones look like green eggs (and ham). :P



Next thing I recommend is to take packing tape to compress the end of the foam. It makes it 50 times easier to get the cover on. I tried it without and managed to rip the top circle on Princess's cover. D:

You leave the tube cover open at the bottom, the open seam going across the neck hole.


Mark where the eye-hole is going to need to be on the cover, and determine the placement of the face making sure it will cover the eye-slot. In the case of the Prince, a white rectangle also needed to be put down  under where the face flap would be so that the rather see-through fabric for the face wouldn't look green. (Obviously an unnecessary step for Princess.)

I took the cover off, sewed on the white rectangle and then remarked the eye-slot on Prince.

Then I stitched the tops of the face flaps on.


Using the markings I made for the eye-slot I sewed a rectangle where I wanted the edges of the hole to be. Then I carefully cut a hole in the center leaving a 1/2" seam allowance.

( In hindsight: Mark and attach the velcro squares to tack down the face now rather than later! You can easily machine stitch them on when the cover is not on. If you wait too long (or forget) you will have to hand stitch them on, which is not fun!)

Then I made a back piece for the slot, same as the front.

By making a relief cut into each corner, I was able to sew a rectangular tube into each hole. I was able to easily feed this through and tuck it into the face, gluing it in place on the inside of the tube. A very clean way to finish the eye-slot.

 Then make 2 foam core discs and stick them in each end. These with be hot glued in place later to help push the stuffing out into the ends of the tubes.

Each cover was then slipped on --more like wrestled, I made them very tight fitting so they wouldn't be loose--and stitched up. The neck hole was cut out leaving extra fabric to pull and hot glue to the inside.

Then the antenna--which had a yellow bias tape trim glue along the bottom--was stitched on. >:D Voila!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Prince - Dress & Shoes - Katamari


 Here's a quick look at how I made Prince's dress. Essentially it is exactly the same process as I made Cousin Miso's dress, except more streamlined as now I had a pattern to follow.  If you are looking for a more in-depth guide on how to make Prince's (or Miso's) dress look here!

Originally, there was no plan to make Prince until 2 weeks before Anime North, once Alex and I decided wearing the Katamari ball would be too dangerous. (Crazy fans might try a roll up and accidently injure whomever might happen to be wearing it.) We figured Prince is one of the easiest, most recognizable cousins we could do short-notice.


We even had green stretch fabric the perfect colour left over from a Link costume we had done 2 years ago. The catch? There wasn't enough left to do the whole costume, which meant we had to find another perfect green stretch short notice! Oh no! D: Finding the right green in a stretch fabric was a quest that we didn't really have time for... But the sleeves absolutely wouldn't work without a stretch.

To remedy this, we managed to find a slightly stretchy green that was almost a perfect colour match to our insufficient green. Using the 2 fabrics we were able to complete the costume.

This costume was made so the 3 different people of different sizes could wear it.

 Here it is pretty much impossible to see, but the top fabric of the sleeve is a non stretch and the bottom fabric is super stretchy.

The tube was attached last, with much swearing. ;D

 Now about those shoes... If you recall last year, for Miso we luckily had a perfect pair of purple shoes on hand. Well unfortunately we only had 1. Running short on time, our solution was to dye some canvas ballet slippers purple using ink. Certainly not perfect, but much better than running shoes.



Friday, June 8, 2012

June Update

Hey guys! So I'm back and ready for action!

...Or I would be if my sewing machine weren't broken! D: Good thing this happened after Anime North!

Anime North was a huge success! Our group won a Technical Achievement Award in the MASTER DIVISION. Awesome! So now I am officially a Master level costumer! Time to crank out some really good stuff! Hahaha

Check out our Entry: Katamari Coup D'État! Timing wasn't our strong suit because none of us could see, or hear... yeah.

Tons of awesome stuff coming up these next months! So look forward to that. Inside looks at our full Katamari group including: Prince, Princess, Nickel and of course the Katamari itself! And yes... I keep saying I will put up my original Jumper up, but I haven't gotten around to taking those finished photos... It will happen... soon...

Otakon is coming up in July, and I am making 2 new costumes for that. :D I am also attending a wedding (which I am currently making my own dress for).

In other news: I got a dress form! Introducing Molly Bobbin the first! >:D

That's all for now! Cheerio! ;D