Finally, Mireille Bouquet from Noir!

I got it done! Only thing left is to secure the shoe covers and then I'm officially closing the construction of Mireille. It took only 1,5 years, but better late than never.

I had sewed most of the costume already, only things I actually made was the bag, belt, shoe covers and finished the skirt. Over all, I'm really happy with the result.

Yoki took some photos, so here you go!

Towels and stuff

For the celebrations of annual Towel day, we got geared up the proper way.

 It always comes back to the sanding paper.

What do you mean 'I have no fashion sense', this is a perfect working gear.

Hiron changed her mind about spending Desucon Saturday in casual clothes. She dug up a costume project which she started about two years ago. Mireille Bouquet, codename Noir. High ranked assassin and a fine woman... except her purse is really... pink.But Hiron made it, because she loves bags almost as much as hats and headpieces.

Progress with songstress Diva

I still haven't finished the gown even if predicted otherwise... all because I realized that I have to sew the satin bias tape by hand. Oh well, I thought and started to do everyting else but sewing the bias tape by hand, like making new curtains to my workroom and sorting the wig shelf. Despite the distractions, I now have the dress in decent condition. Some tweaking here and there is required, but I'm confident that I finish it well on time.

 

I have also the world's oddest bolero under construction.

The wig is also taking form with the rose and feather brooch. The extensions and the bun are all attached with hair clamps, since Yoki will be using the wig in its normal form the day before. Fangs we fitted and customized the other day.

Nothing special, I'm just...

... Making new costumes!


Who am I kidding; I’m just too easily bored. It seems that I need to have something in the making or I won’t be satisfied. So after all the speculation, we are going to have new costumes to debut at Desucon in June.  I thought I could play a little game here and give some hint before revealing the characters. If you are inpatient, just scroll to the end of this post.


The characters are from manga adaptation of certain series. Finally we are able to cosplay female characters who are siblings! And I’m really happy that I can sew some modern, “real” clothes. We are currently in a situation where three people want to reclaim the jacket Yoki will be wearing after the convention.

I must also give myself praise that I get Yoki to wear a skirt. A short skirt.

Both of the characters have black hair and something sticking between their teeth. Yoki will be wearing light brown contacts, while I will re-use my blue ones.


One reason for choosing the manga version is that the gown I’ll be making for myself is really pretty. I fancy pretty dresses.

Yoki might be the one who gets recognized more, since her outfit appears in both anime and manga.

Time for the revelation! The characters we are cosplaying are Saya and Diva from the series Blood Plus!

Yoki’s outfit is nearly finished, I’m currently constructing Diva’s gown and will hopefully have it done on Sunday. I’ll try to make a post after I’m finished with it.

P.s Ja ei, äiti. En ole tekemässä morsiuspukua ja menossa salaa naimisiin, ei huolta!

Video update with the Decepticons

New video has been uploaded to our Youtube page - the brilliant plan to take over the universe, part 3 745 106, starring Princess Megs and Lady Star.

Troll toes trial no. 1

Since I don’t have anything under construction right now (except for few fancy dresses for summer and a quilt works), I thought to continue our troll project with experimentations on the foot-side. It’s weird that WOW troll has three fingers but only two toes! The asymmetry is rather weird, but I will roll with it. The fingers I’m going to solve by sewing custom gloves, but the toe matter is bit trickier. I’ve seen costumers making the feet over boots, but I wanted the toes to look like they bend and act rather naturally. And I really want to make the feet look good, since people seems to loath them so much.

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to make the toes out of foam. The “how” is the thing I’m still pondering, but my first trial gave a good base to the future construction.

First I kindly asked Yoki to lend her foot so that I could draw the outline on a piece of foam. After that I sketched out how the fake toes would look like and how they are placed compared to the real toes. Then I cut away the inner section and the excess around the troll toes.

When I had the first piece ready, I copied it on another piece of foam and cut the top part of the foot. I rounded the edges and carved the inside of the top part hollow so that it would sit nicely on Yoki’s foot.

Then I trimmed the pieces until they looked fairly nice. I also added creases to where the toes might bend naturally.

Then I had a problem. These two photos show how I try to find a solution to how to wear the damn think and how to fade out the angularity of the cut edges. I ended up using the stockings for the trial.

I’ve bought a pile of blue stockings to be used as pieces of bodysuit for the trolls, but for the trial I used regular lycra to act as skin. After sewing a tight fitted sock I stuffed the toe part inside. I screwed up the pattern, but the idea worked quite nicely. Yay, for troll feet!

Costume cross-section- Baby Jane Splicer

My splicer costume has only three different pieces; dress, hook and a stay-up sock. If I ever wear Baby Jane again I will finish the other hook and definitely wear a wig, since my own hair wouldn't do anymore. The wig I have planned for Baby Jane is again a remnant from last decade. The bob is actually going through one of my experiments, which this time is dyeing with ink. I might tell about that ordeal later on.

The dress was rather simple task to complete. Based on the reference pictures, the cut was easy to transfer to basic pattern, as the seams follow quite faithfully the darts on the front. The dress is made from taffeta that shifts between dark green and black. The cuffs and the collar I made from some navy blue scrap velvet, which had been conserved into the depths of the sewing locker for over ten years. Now I finally found use for it! Thank goodness, my memory served me well. Cotton velvet is so damn expensive!

I added a lining on the bust and sewed plastic boning on the seams. Hidden zipper is on the back seam and the dress has too removable navy blue shoulder straps. The hem was constructed what was left from the fabric after cutting the bust and the sleeves, which I two-pieced to get the right fit. I tore the hem with scissor and added an old fake rose on the bust.

I laughed a lot while trying to take a photo of the stay-up sock, but I think you might get the idea… I didn’t want to buy a pair of socks just to destroy one, so I made one from pair of old pantyhose. The upper part of the sock or the panel is made from the crotch part of the stockings, as its bit more durable. The suspender is just a piece of black elastic band.

The hook has its own construction post. For painting the hook I used acrylics paints, mostly grey with hues of silver and copper with black on the weathering. The red is theatrical fake blood, still tacky after six months.

The make-up had rather regular composed feel to it, but this time I used make-up latex with tiny pieces of toilet paper to make the scars, with touches of fake blood. I especially liked how my knee turned out, even if it didn’t show in any of the photos. And about the black tooth lacquer… it tastes horrible.

Redesigning a wig

I haven’t styled too many wigs during my cosplay career. Years ago I somehow came to a conclusion that it was difficult, messy and altogether a long process. It became something I consciously avoided…until recently. After styling two wigs in one week with major style change, I can finally trash my prejudices. It’s not hard and it doesn’t take hours after hours. All that is required is some clean table space and patience. Maybe that is the trick; I might have become more patient. 

First thing was to raid our closet, which somehow has been invaded by costumes and other supplies. I grabbed one of my many second-hand wigs. (Greetings to all the Finnish cosplayers who kindly pass on their old wigs at Aniki!) The wig is nice quality, but pretty thin on the back like some long wigs tend to be. In my case it wasn’t a problem since I was making a short one. I tied the fibers on a ponytail and cut it off to be used as thickening wefts. Since I had still some burgundy fibers left, I mixed them in as highlights.
 

The wefts I made by sewing the fibers on black iron-on interfacing. I hand stitched the wefts on the wig; five rows on the back and four overlapping ones on the front. With that amount I was able to hide the base web, which was ivory. I repeat, ivory on dark purple wig. Someone’s brain has seriously farted.

The back flips and the small top crest I shaped using hairspray and a blow dryer. Following is the process in pictures. I apologize about the varying quality of the photos. I only had my old digital camera with me. But then again you can follow the day turn to night and to the next morning.

Wig in its original length.

Roughtly cut and wefts added on the back.

More wefts and styling started with feathering the ends.

First back flip in making.

Back done.

Shaping the top crest.

Styling complete.

Trollolollolol

Well, I didn’t finish the red wig… But I might as well reveal that the costumes we are certainly going to make this year are female trolls from World of Warcraft. They weren’t mentioned in the post where I revolved around costume plans for this year. To be frank, I might as well delete the whole post because the content isn’t anyhow correct anymore. It seems that I’m at work for whole holiday season. So it's no for going to conventions or at least for two days, which means no competitions as they usually are held at Saturdays.

You’d think that I would be a wreck, but I’m not! I’m too excited about our trolls. They are going to be our characters for Tracon’s show competition, if that kind of contest is part of the repertory. Plans changed also on that front, because our original plan was to use characters from Star Wars universe. Not a bad switch, I’d say. Wow characters are certainly more familiar to the audience in roleplay/anime convention and show class gives nice freedom with the costume design and construction.

The construction part offers again new methods and materials. We are going to take our time and hopefully get the costumes in presentable stage in the summer. What I’ve noticed with some Wow cosplayers, the costumes are never really finished. They just keep upgrading, like in the game.

The red wig I presented in the previous entry was mine. Thanks to a nice flow I got going on yesterday evening, Yoki’s wig was finished just few hours ago. As my high tail up-do reached over my shoulders, I decided to make Yoki’s wig short.

It still needs some trimming and styling on the sides, but it has to wait because for that I need Yoki's head. The bone necklace is also something I made yesterday from leftover Das clay. The feathers were the result of an experimental dyeing process with disinfectant... Weird.