August Update

So it's the end of the con season for me! I made a record number of costumes this year! I also attended a record number of cons! (For me anyway. 4 is a lot.)

Our Fanexpo table was a success, though I didn't make the number of sales I had hoped for. Plenty of stock still left over, so if you are interested in Owl bags, Panda bags and hair clips hop on over to my facebook page where I will be putting my leftover stock on sale! And from there hopefully I will be setting up shop on Etsy. Fingers crossed.

 Fanexpo was pretty awesome this year. I got lots of compliments on my costumes. ;D Also got to meet some cool celebs. John Barrowman and Chris Sarandon. Pretty awesome. Also got to take a picture of me as the doctor in the Delorian. Irony abound. (And for those of you who don't get either reference: It's funny because I am in the wrong time machine. Also, go watch back to the future. It is necessary.)

I also have business cards! New layout coming soon to match them!

School is starting up again in a week for me. I will try to keep updates frequent. But no guarantees. :/

Now excuse me while I go clean my room. Apparently all my costumes have exploded out of my closet.....

10th Doctor - Wig

Hello all! Here is a quick look at how I made my 10th Doctor wig.

Re-creating David Tennant's iconic, gravity defying locks is no mean feat for an amateur at wig styling. As an amateur with limited funds, styling can only go so far. And so any wig for a character with really short hair is very difficult to pull of without it looking terrible. I managed a decent job considering. And actually received a few compliments on it. (Someone even asked if it was my real hair, which was weird because it is fairly obvious that it is a wig... O.o)

As always, the most important part of styling any wig is buying the best, closest base wig you can find. Which can be hard. Because most wigs are bought online. Ordering from a reputable cosplay store is one thing, but when you order from an ebay seller who lives in Asia (No offense) it can be a complete crapshoot.  Like mine was.

This is the wig I ordered. Because I figured that it had enough lift in it already that it wouldn't be too hard to get it to defy gravity and that I could easily style it to look more like I wanted it to.

THIS IS THE WIG I RECEIVED IN THE MAIL. NOTE HOW IT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE PICTURE.

And then I was like...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--"

"orz

But I was out of time to buy  new wig. So I resigned myself to do the best I could with what I had.

My wig studio: a stool on my front lawn. Wig head duct taped to the stool.

My tools: sharp scissors, pins, comb, and hairspray. I use 'got 2B glued'. It works pretty well.









First I combed out the wig, and then pinned it in place on the head.

Then I divided the top section that I wanted to spike. I also trimmed the emo bangs and shortened the back. 

I started at the crown and worked my way to the front: pulling the hair straight up and spraying the base of it. I held that in place until it was mostly dry and then repeated the process with the hair in front of it.

This wig actually did have some of the lift that was shown in the product image, it just wasn't apparent when I first took the wig out of the package. It needed a bit of styling to stick up properly.


I shaped the 'sideburns' as best I could, knowing that it wouldn't be perfect because it is not the best wig.

This wig looks best from a 3/4 view, as you are able to see the styling better, and the sideburns look less... wig-like.

Overall a good attempt at this wig. I was really satisfied with the result (especially considering the starting wig).

Next up: the final post from Fanexpo: Ginny Weasley - Wig

10th Doctor

Hello again! This is an in-depth look at how I made my 10th Doctor costume... Now when I say that, what I really mean is an in-depth look at how I made a blue blouse and altered a women's suit. And was extremely lucky at thrift stores.

Yes.

I was at a thrift store, when I discovered this amazing brown suede long coat. Once I tried it on, I knew I had to buy it and one day do a 10th Doctor costume, perhaps in the far future. Not 2 days later I found a brown and blue pinstriped suit in another thrift store and I thought, "DESTINY!?" So I decided to make the rest of the costume for fanexpo. >:D

Lets take a look. As the doctor would say, "Allons-y, Alonzo!" >:D

So I found a basic blouse pattern in the basement storage with my mum's sewing patterns. But she lost the instructions... So we had to guess how the heck it should be put together. She had actually pinned it to some really 70's looking fabric to make a blouse back in the day, but never did. So I took those pieces too. I will one day make that blouse also.

I was originally planning on tea-dying my blue fabric to make it a bit darker, but I ran out of time.

I cut out all the pieces and started by sewing the collar together.

After much confusion, we managed to figure out how the placket at the front was supposed to be sewn together.

Beautiful! :D

The collar was then flipped right side out, corners clipped and pressed. It was then sewn to the other collar piece. 

I sewed the back and front pieces of the shirt together at the shoulder seams only, then finished those seams nicely.

I sewed the cuff pieces, flipped the right way out, and pressed them, same as the collar.

Then I took the pants in. And then I took them in some more. I may still do some more altering to the suit and pants, as I am not entirely satisfied with them at this point. 

Trying to decipher what these marks are supposed to mean...

Some were the pleats and the other was a slit that I put some bias tape around the edges of.

The cuffs were then sewn to the sleeves, and the sleeves were sewn to the shirt.

The buttons were the last thing to add. I got my mum to do the holes for me as I had never done any before and didn't want to wreck the shirt.

And then it was done!!! >:D Brilliant!

I was attacked by a Dalek! D: But he soon realized that my screwdriver was not as sonic as I had originally hoped! "THAT IS NOT A SONIC SCREWDRIVER."

Actually, funny story: I needed a hat stand for my display, and so we bought one at ikea. And we put it together with my screwdriver. MOST USEFUL PROP EVER.

I met like a million more doctors at the con. Lots of 10ths. But I was the only girl. :( And I was way shorter. They called me mini doctor. I was not amused.

Those observant people may have noticed that I actually darkened my eyebrows for this one! It helped make the wig look more realistic. Next in-depth look is at how I achieved styling this amazing wig! >:D

September Update

Holy carp! It's september already? And I managed to disappear off the face of the earth, AGAIN. In all fairness, prep for FanExpo was crazy-hectic and took up all my time.  But still, now I am even more behind on my picture posting... sigh. (Seriously, my last post was almost a month ago, I am starting to feel like a failure of a blogger!)

I made owl bags, hair accessories and necklaces to sell, and put together 3 costumes: the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who, Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter, and a steampunk-lolita creation of my own original design. More pictures coming up in early september. (Hopefully)

But I didn't make any business cards, so hopefully the 4 people who bothered to ask for one and received this url on a scrap of paper actually made it here... DX Next time I will have business cards!

In the middle of all of that I went to Montréal for the Jean-Paul Gaulthier fashion exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-Artes. A very fun trip. :D

I saw the Cirque du Soleil perform Totem last week! What an amazing show!!! 

I start university this week at Ryerson, which I am very excited about! (And really nervous, but mostly excited!) Orientation was last week and I met a few people from my program who seemed very nice! Looking forward to what I hope will be a wonderful, if busy, year! :D

Here's how it's going to work: I will finish posting Edinburgh pics, and then I will take a 2 month fast forward to post my FanExpo costumes and products. Then I will back track to the rest of London, and Folkestone and continue in chronological order. XD (Meaning that after that will come the farm, Tremblant, Quebec and then Montréal, Quebec.)

Hoping I haven't lost you in my absence? XD