Leather and Lace pt1. Jewerly and Patterning

It is perhaps my greatest challenge yet. Admittedly, I am a bit of a lazy costumer, I have only made a few costumes entirely by hand - in that I don't use found items in conjunction to things I've made. Normally there's no need, much of my costuming is plain clothes that second hand store finds with some tailoring would do the job properly. However, I was coerced (and by coerced I mean it took little to no convincing on their part) into a Final Fantasy X group. I was never a HUGE Final Fantasy fan, simply on the grounds that turn based combat drives me insane. I played VII back in the day but just couldn't get into it because I hated waiting around to beat up the enemy. I didn't play a Final Fantasy game for a good many years after that. But wanting to know what all the hype was about I borrowed my roommate's copy of Final Fantasy X and was just totally hooked. While I'm still certainly irked by turn based combat, I've grown to tolerate it.

X is hands down my favorite game of the lot, since I've picked up the others to keep up with the times, and Lulu was always my strongest character (100% overkill. 100% of the time) and by far my favorite, so when I was asked to be part of the X group as Lulu, I just had to jump on board.



Obviously my normal plan of attack isn't going to fly, this isn't going to be anything I'll be able to find and modify (outside of the plethora of belts). I guess its time to put that college education to work.

I decided to start simple. With her jewelry. This is often times done incorrectly due to simply how distinct the beading is. However, I managed. So I made the jewelry while being holed up at home with shingles (eww). I'll be the first to admit that my jewlrey isn't 100% accurate, I went more for aesthetics and texture rather than to the tee accuracy, though still not trying to stray too far from what the design is, hopefully I will be forgiven for my choices.

The earrings are pressed coral. The white necklace is bone, as are the red beads on the red and green necklace. While the green on the red and green are jade. The purple necklace is made of fired ceramic (the purple) and glass (the black). I chose to use black as opposed to the yellow/gold simply because I didn't like the look of it in the game renderings, it just doesn't fit with her color scheme well enough for my taste.


I was presented with a bit of a problem when addressing her skirt and belt configuration. The belts will obviously be heavy, and with the material I plan to make the dress out of, while sturdy, would simply warp under all the weight of the belts. I decided to make something of a harness to wear under the dress, which will lace up over my hips and support the weight of the belts, which will then clip forward into the panels of the dress. That being handled it seemed reasonable to just go ahead and make the dress as it appears. Some would argue that she is simply wearing a skirt, however in some in game shots it is revealed there is an open area in the back of her dress, only some of it is revealed under the corset. It seems odd for there to be a keyhole in the skirt, if it is indeed a skirt, the skirt would have to be extremely high wasted in order for the hole to be in the location it is, which then indicates to me what she is wearing under her corset is a dress. Perhaps a backless one.

I chose to put a bodice on what she is wearing under her corset, to help carry the weight of the train, in addition to making more sense, construction wise, of where that hole is located. When more construction on the dress I will be sure to include the reference picture I have been referring to.

The base pattern I decided to work with is a McCall's bridal pattern. It is an 7 panel dress with princess seams and a train. It took very little modification to get the look I wanted. Rather than making the dress backless I simply added a keyhole in the lower back of the dress, adding a zipper on top. As the bodice won't be seen, it doesn't really matter too much how that's going to look.

This is simply my mockup pattern, but the idea is beginning to take shape. My next entry will likely be addressing the styling of the wig. Stay tuned!

Steampunk Rundown

This year, and some of last, Steampunk has really been a prevalent trend in the costuming circles, and like the bandwagon jumping dorks me and my friends are, we had to get on that too. Now I'm no expert when it comes to Steampunk, but I've done enough period research to at least have an educated take on the trend.

First of all, what it steampunk? Wikipeidia, in a nut shell defines it as; "a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.". Its seen as the path that wasn't taken during the Victorian Era. Perhaps technology stood still, and the only means of power, besides crude electricity, was steam - which was the method of choice at the time.

Steampunk has been present in American culture since the late 1980's when the term was coined, and while not many people are familiar with the term itself, many people are familiar with its asthetics without even being aware of it. Wild Wild West (with Will Smith) and League of Extraordinary Gentleman (both the comic series and the movie) easily fit into the Steampunk Genre. Both instances have technology far advanced for their time period, but they still meld seamlessly into their anachronistic time period.

And while, for this particular post, the distinction doesn't need to be made, I'm going to make it anyway, perhaps to return to for a later day. Steampunk, in many ways, is the antithesis of Cyberpunk, which shows a science fiction take on the development and expansion of technology, and is usually depicted in a distopian enviroment, whereas Steampunk stays in the heyday of the Victorian age (1880-1890). Cyber and Steampunk aren't the only kinds of alternate realities that got their own aesthetics, In the same vein as Steampunk, Dieselpunk is very similar to Steampunk, only their technology and styles of dress are taken from 1920-1950 (Tankgirl is argueably an example of Dieslepunk, incorporating aspects of modified WW2 war machines and very heavy 1980's Punk movement influences). There are kinds of "-punks" for just about every era and notion of the future.

Now that we've got the nutshell definition out of the way, how do you plan a costume like this? While it seems silly, it helps to first make a character for yourself. Now perhaps this works for me because I'm in school for costume design, I'm given a character who's clothing I want to recreate. First off, I chose aspects of a costume that I would like to make, things that I would want to work into this character simply because I want to make them. I'm a fan of makeup, so I wanted to include scars or some kind of minor trauma, which would mean I have to think of a way for the character to have gotten those scars. Secondly, I needed to find reference images that would support whatever minor details I had decided for my character.

I browsed the Rhode Island Commercial pattern database, narrowing my parameters from 1885-1899, simply because I perfered the clothing of the late Victorian Era, and it would be much easier to construct in the 1) limited time and 2) limited patience for something like this as towards the end of the 1800's the clothing became far less ruffly and much more streamlined, moving straight into the iconic 1920's with their long lines and lack of silhouette (arguably speaking). The dresses I seemed to be gravitating towards were either bathing suits or dresses for girls around the age of 14. I, a 20 year old who by no means can pull off being a 14 year old would have to justify someone of my age, wearing children's clothing (which I did by doing what every great B movie writer does, a bump on the head - the scars I wished to incorporate simply came from some kind of accident which caused my character to lose her general mental stability, and so, simply hasn't changed her clothing since she was 14) obviously this choice would mean my clothes didn't have to fit, and would probably be pushing the limits of Victorian modesty. My main reference came from a dress worn by a 14 year old from 1892.

A sort of Steampunk staple, and something I enjoy wearing, is the corset. While wearing one is very much underpants on the outside and would likely be very frowned upon in the era we are trying to recreate, its almost required of any female Steampunk-ite, as its the most iconic article of clothing from the Victorian age. I'll be making a simple straight seam corset, something akin to a ribbon corset with garden variety rigidline simply because I don't have the money at the moment to buy a busk or nice steel boning. Though an accidental perk to this is that I will have more movement, which is generally my main gripe about steel boned corsets, though women wearing steel boned corsets in their correct time period weren't mean to do as much slouching around as I do.

Staying with the outgrowing ones clothing and underpants on the outside, I also made the choice of making a pair of bloomers that far extend the hemline of my dress, as though these might be the only article of clothing on this character that actually fits her, the legs of the bloomers being artificially lengthened by the addition of more and more lace (enough to choke a Lolita).

Smaller details, such as a belt of skeleton keys, various religious artifacts, jars of teeth (both animal and human) and rabbits feet - were chose because of their ties to the era (such as skeleton keys and rabbit feet - the notion of a lucky rabbits foot came from the time period) and to display the mental dissaray of the character (the jar of human teeth).

As construction swings into high gear, I'll be sure to post pictures.

Bites, Bruises and Burns - A Compendium

Out of an attempt for me to really get in the habit of using this, I decided to log all of my makeup tutorials (most of which ended up being posted on cosplay.com - as that's where I get most of my questions) and walk-throughs for easy reference.

Text Only Tutorials/Guides:
Bruises - [link]
Facial Scarring (Convex 3-D) - [link] [link]
Scarring with Rigid Collodion - [link]
Scars and Bruises for Theater - [link]
Acid/Chemical Burns - [link]

Photo Walk-throughs:
3-D Scarring - [link]
Looking Generically Creepy - [link]
Cartoonish Burns (Zuko) - [link]

Wig work! Sadly I don't have any in progress pictures of this one, but really its not all that complicated, I dreaded Kanekalon, which was just a process of ratting and steam sealing, then sewed the dreads into the wefts of the wig, I did the same with the crin (the little tubey things). I'll have a matching outfit for this wig, so hopefully I can post pictures of that when the time comes.

Frankenfest Pirate Day 2009

Yes yes, I know this isn't super noteworthy, but I thought I'd make an entry about it just to get the ball rolling.

Frankenmuth, a sort of German tourist trap an hour or so away from my house, has sort of a theme week called Frankenfest each year, and this year me and some friends decided to attend on Pirate Day. Generally this day is full of Ren-Fest quality costumes that I don't have the money or patience to make so it was going to be a day of Closet Costuming.

Which I think is a skill that is sort of worth having, people don't always have the time or money to whip up a costume that you'll only need for a day (be it a costume party, halloween, or running around a quasi-german town in the middle of spring), and you'd be surprised the kind of things you could find in your closet that are entirely passable with just a few safety pins.

This costume consists of a pair of socks I got from Kholes, a skirt from Goodwill, a scarf from an easter market in the Czech Republic, a "corset" from Charlotte Russe, a crinoline from a Halloween store and a mens button down dress shirt. Nothing here is really that odd (while my scarf might be from across the ocean, I'm pretty sure you can buy things like it at any sort of Clarie's or accessory store of the like). The crinoline was just bought for funsies and is totally optional. But as you can see, its at least passable. The shirt was rolled up to my elbows, pulling the baggy part of the sleeves over the cuffs and I simply safety pinned the collar to the inside of the shirt so it wasn't showing. The skirt was pinned up on its self and a scarf put over it to hopefully keep my butt covered.

Just sort of some things to keep in mind, clothes that are too big for you are good for this kind of thing, you're left with more room to modify the clothing to how you'd need it while still having room to actually wear the garment. And if you're just a T-Shirt and Jeans kind of person, Goodwill and second hand stores are FULL of clothes for under $5 that you can put together to make a costume in the same manner that I did with out taking a huge chunk out of your budget and without resorting to buying those costumes that are pre-fabricated from Halloween shops (you'll find I have a very strong hatred for those polyester abominations). You'll have a costume that's unique, and not factory made. Button down shirts, suit jackets, and full skirts are great basics that you can do a lot with, and are usually worth the investment (if anything, you've got lots of fabric you can cut up and put back together again). But just be willing to take your time and look around, you'll probably find what you're looking for.

If safety pins aren't going to cut it and you're a total newb to sewing, never fear, there's this beautiful product called Stitch Witchery, its pretty much glue you can iron onto your clothes to make minor adjustments. So if you've gotta make that skirt shorter to be that naughty school girl? Its got you covered. You can find it at any JoAnn fabrics near the notions aisle.

So keep an open mind, check out garage sales, second hand stores, heck, your mom's closet. And remember, just because you found that gross frilly shirt in your basement doesn't mean its gotta go straight to the garbage.

Next up on Big Kid Dress Up: Corset Pattern Drafting

-navigated