EFF April 2011

Yes yes, It's about time I started on a new costume.For some insane reason I think I can make an even more awesome costume for the EFF in April than the one I made for the EFF in September in HALF the time XD.This time there'll be more *crafting* and less sewing. I'll upload a picture of the design later 'cause I may want to use this costume in a contest. I don't know yet though.

I made a similar but less difficult to make design for kelsey. I told her that I'm going to focus on this costume and that she'll have to work on her own by herself. I will help her with the patterns but she can do the crafting herself :P.

As for the crafting. I started working on a sword. Everything in this costume is of my own design including the sword. I've never done this before so I may screw up and start over XD. On the other hand. This could turn out to be an awesome sword!I used a plywood base and covered it with a mixture of glue and sawdust. I picked this technique up on a website on making dolls. Suposedly I'll be able to sand it down afterwards and make the perfect looking sword :D.

Oh and BTW this should really be done outside :P

Midwinter Fair 2010

Woo :3 the midwinter fair was fun :D

I thought I'd upload a picture of what I looked like wearing the cape.

I had never been at the midwinterfair before. Ít's not as huge as the Elf Fantasy Fair but it's was fun and cozy. It was held at the archeon which is a park that has stoneage and roman buildings on the grounds so it all looked medieval. It was cold! but we had fun browsing the market stalls eating poffertjes :D! and listening to celtic/folk/irish music.

the cape is complete :D!

After lots of hand sewing, broken needles and pinpricks it's finally done!About time to since the fair is the day after tomorrow :P.I had trouble finding the right feathers/ feather boa for the lining. I experimented some with dye on a white boa... that failed. It looked like roadkill O_o srsly! And yesterday I found a shop that sells weird/retro/alternative/second hand clothing and the owner told me that there was a box full of new boas on its way :D. I got so lucky with this one. It was surprisingly cheap for such great quality! Anyway.. I'll upload pictures of me wearing my new chicken costume :3 after the fair.

mid winter fair cape

Progress is slow.

I'm very busy with my studies atm but as long as I get it done in a week it should be fine.

A week is more than enough the only problem is that I don't know with what I'm going to line the cape. .. I'll work it out later :3

mid winter fair cape

I haven't done much work on my mwf cape. none actually since I started.

I did make a mask to go with the cape. I might also buy a pair of cheap shoes and costumize those. anyway, atm I'm too lazy to add anymore info :B

Elf

I needed to express my creativity. I haven't done much for like a month and my hands started to itch. I HAD to make something. So I started on this Elf bust. It's my first attempt at something like this and it's far from perfect but I wanted to practice making faces/heads out of clay. So here's what I've done so far :D.

(failed to rotate this again >_>... grr how does this work!?)

BLAH

This is a nonsense post sorry, I couldn't fix the problems with the pictures in my EFF post so I'm posting a few here again.

Midwinter Fair

I decided that this year I'd like to check out the midwinter fair at the Archeon. It's a smaller fair than the EFF but I was told that the ambiance is great.
This ofcourse provided me with another opportunity for making *something* for the midwinter fair. I've already started on designs and plans for costumes for the EFF in April so I did not want this project to be too big.

I decided that I'm going to make a cloak.
The picture above shows my design. It will be trimmed with feathers instead of the better known fur trimming. The lining will be an icey blue faux satin like the color of the emblem at the back. I'm not sure yet how I'm gonna do the emblem.
This sunday I'll be shopping for fabrics with Kelsey and her mom. Can't wait to start on this one :D

autumn

When I was younger, my mom and I used to make autumn decorations with leaves and nuts and stuff we'd find during walks through the park or forest.
I wanted to do something like this again.
The only downside to the "all nature" decorations is that they start to shrivell and go bad quite quick. And I am, well, a lazy student XD. So I wanted something more durable. I bought all this at the xenos. It's a cute store. When autumn is over I'm going to put it on display in my kitchen XD. My kitchen has autumn colors and decorations already anyway.

The Elf Fantasy Fair september 2010

All the hard work and the costs were totally worth it!Ofcourse I had lots of fun making the costumes, but having them admired by other people gives such a boost to my confidence as an artist.

The Elf Fantasy Fair was great! Kelsey and I could hardly walk 5 meters without being surrounded by dozens of photographers. We couldn't even eat or fix our make up without being photographed XD. Also, pleople who had awesome costumes themselves came over to talk to me who would not have noticed me otherwise. I had great fun :D

On saturday we went with a group of 8 people and on sunday Kelsey and I met up with a friend of hers and that friend's boyfriend. It was fun :D! I can't believe it's already over ;_; boohoo what's 2 days on 6 months of anticipation XD

Anyway, Here are some photos of the final results (I haven't yet got any good ones of maart & pris though, maybe I'll change them later).

I made The fairy wings, spartacus costume and ofcourse "general Andraste" (purple, black & gold). Kelsey and I made her costume "Queen Imperia Crimson" together (the beautiful red queen).

fairy wings

Maarten came over with his girlfriend to try on his costume.Even the pants fit quite well yay! There's still some work left to do on the pants, but it won't take long.

Also about a week ago I watched a tutorial on how to make fairy wings! They were supposed to be easy and quick to make. I was excited and wanted to make them but for whom?So I asked Maarten's girlfriend Priscilla if maybe she would want to wear fairy wings and come to the eff with us. I asked her what color they had to be and she said purple and pink. So here they are!







Me, being a newb at this failed trying to do it the way the woman on the tutorial video did. She used cheap white stockings pulled over iron wire. I already had iron wire and got myself a couple of different pairs of stockings. I failed at streching those wide enough. all they did was deform the wing shape. I should have had strechier stockings (larger size?) and stronger wire (though my wire is already quite thick!).


So after that failed experiment I found some old and cheap fabric lying around. It was sort of see through. I had hoped it would turn out better but the paint sort of closed up the holes in the fabric so it's not really see through anymore. My next set of fair wings will have to be made more appropriate fabric.

I hope Priscilla will like them :3
If not. I'll try to sell them XD

Maarten's attire 85%

Today I finished the "arm armor". well I'm not sure if finished is the right word. Maarten is coming over on tuesday for a fitting so I'll probably adjust a few things. I'll also be able to get back to work on the pants after the fitting :P. I like how it looks so far except for the fur on the arm. I though it would be cool if it looked ragged and fluffy :P so I sewed it so the hair would go sideways. On the legs the fur looks neat and straight XD and I prefer it like that. But.. It's supposed to look like he's been in battle so maybe it shouldn't look neat and straight XD. I'll ask maart what he thinks when he's here.

So all there's left to do on this costume is:

finish the pants

adjust the armor

And perhaps I have to do some work on the sandals he's going to buy & the arm warmer. We'll see.

This was fast and easy :D *yay*

80%

Tatatadaaa! Here it is, my entire costume so far. The top may look a little weird but that's 'cause my dummy has smaller boobies than me XD. It's not perfect but I'm proud of it anyway.There are quite a few things left to do. I still have to make my boots, finish the armor for my shoulder and make padding for the inside of my helmet.It looks like I won't have to do any last minute work on this one this time :D

make-up

Ok so, today I tried my idea for the make up. I'm almost there. i still have to figure out how to get my eyebrows white without it looking funny XD. I tried to make neutral or evil looking faces but I failed XD as you can see.

suggestions for the make up are welcome.

Maarten's attire

So, a couple of day's ago Maarten came to my place with the faux fur and the extra faux leather he'd bought. The leather looks nice though it was hard to work with. He bought leather for furniture XD. He did not find any studs but we found a website that sells them in case we can't find them at the market. So far I've managed to finish the greaves. they can be pulled over his leg like leg warmers and strapped on with the leather bands attached to it. I also finished the bracer for his left arm.

The pants is about 40% finished. I need him to fit it before I can work on it again. The leather belt with the armor flaps is about 80% finished. Again I need him to fit it and it needs studs. It has five flaps.

Maarten is going to make the shield himself though I may help him when he needs my help.

The armor for his right arm is going to take the longest to finish. All in all this is a small project. Thankfully! XD

zombie!

My white lenses arrived today. I had to try them :P I roughly used eyeliner and quickly stuck on one false eyelash XD just to see what it would look like. The picture looks a little weird 'cause I only did one eye. This is not a preview of the make up I intend to use, it's just to show off my lenses ;)

Maarten's costume.

During the days I spent in Garderen, maarten and I bought a few materials for his costume.this will be his first EFF and I honestly never expected he'd like to attend, even less while wearing a costume XD. But he's still enthousiastic about the whole thing. yay :D

The costume I'm making for him is based on the one spartacus (blood and sand) is wearing.Actually, the only thing I'm sort of copying from these costumes (see pictures) is the "arm armor (XD)". When I finish his arm I'll be halfway on this costume. I made this in roughly 12 hours. It would have gone much faster if I did not have to sew most of these parts by hand (though on my machine). But this is not a large project so I'll have no problem sqeezing this one in aswell XD.

the gloves are done!

the second glove took a lot less time to make. had some trouble gettin the purple&black long part attached in the right place. I also did some finishing touches on the skirt but for now the gloves are the only things that are completely done. I still need to line the inside of my helmet and I need to attache one last piece of iron wire to the back flap of the skirt. I think it's fair to say that I'm at least halfway.

I do not expect the other parts (the top, the shoulder armor/pauldrons and the boots) will take as long to make as the skirt but I prefer to finish this costume early. I don't want to be sewing on the day of the EFF like last year XD.

Also since I won't be wearing grey make-up I'm sticking to the original designs for the sleeves so those'll be easier to mak ethan the ones I had trouble with when I first started on this project.

this are going well.

gloves 60%

After a few failed experiments I ended up buying strechy black gloves after all. This was an easy base to work on. It took me quite a few hours to get this done though, the fabric refused to coorporate. I'm pleased with the end result though there are quite a few visible mistakes. I didn't think it worth it to start over, I'm still learning anyway. The finger parts and ofcourse the gemstone were glued on all the rest was sewn on. Only the black pointy ends have iron wire in them, I didn't think it necesary or practical for the other parts.

The left glove is finished and I've barely started on the right one. All this takes up more time than i expected O_o. I'm beginning to feel the pressure.

Gloves

I've been thinking on how to make the gloves: should I use strechy black gala gloves as a base or should I make my own? Gloves would be hot and I won't be able to eat without getting them dirty, I wouldn't be able to feel and touch anything I might consider buying at the EFF. Now that I've decided I'm not going to paint my skin things become easier. I don't have to cover up the skin of my hands so I made this new design. My palm will not be covered but I'll make armor like scales for my fingers. All large pointy ends on the glove will have iron wire in them to make them sturdy.

make up

I tried different styles of make up today, even though ( friends have pointed out) the grey would stand out more, I'm almost certain I won't be doing that. mainly out of practical reasons but also because it looks cool aswell with my own skin tone. (I know the editing was sloppy also my wig is a mess atm.. so plz look past all that XD)

I ordered my "zombie white" lenses yesterday :P from some obscure internet shop. I wonder when they'll get delivered to my house. I'm hoping before the end of next week I can't wait to try and see what they look like.

helmet 99%

all there's left to do now is to glue some fabric to the inside of the helmet and maybe add some pillow stuffing XD. I made one terrible mistake O-o I misplaced one eye and removing it left some ugly spots that can still be seen (I'll live though :P). The photo quality is crappy so you can't really see any details. I roughly put on some make up to kind of show you my idea. I was wondering if maybe I should forget about the whole "painting myself grey" idea. It would be hot and a hassle, expensive and I'm not sure I can make it look nice. It really needs to be worth it and I'm not sure if it would be that much cooler if I did. Maybe if I didn't use the grey paint I should use lighter colored make up. I don't like dark lipsticks on me XD. What do you think?

helmet 80%

this is as far as I have gotten yesterday. I had no glue left :P. It seems that my fabric glue works best on this. It's expensive but worth it. You can still see the lumps and bumps from the paper maché, but I don't really mind it. I don't like the fact that the middle line on the beak is off centre at the tip. that happened when at first I wanted to make the beak out of one single piece. It started to wrinkle so I had to cut it into two pieces.

Most parts are simply glued on but the lower part of the beak and all the spikes were sewn first.

I planned on buying more glue today to finish the helmet, but I feel like crap. I think I'll finish it tomorrow :) Maybe I'll even upload a pic of me wearing it ;)

helmet 60%

I'm done paper maché-ing (lawl is that a word XD?) the helmet and have started on the faux leather cover. this is going pretty fast and *if* I would, I could finish it in about 2-3 hours I think. I wanted to coat the inside with black cotton but I don't have any so I'm not sure what I'll do. maybe I'll just leave the inside bare for the time being.

Imperia crimson.

Over the past few Days, Kels and i have done some great work on her costume " Imperia Crimson" .
Check out her blog " www.wheneveritsnows.blogspot.com "

Skirt

Ok so, it still needs some tweaking and it's far from perfect. But since this is only my second costume ever I'll accept the flaws. I did not expect the waist band thing to wrinkle like this. I don't like it and I'm not sure I'll be able to fix it. Ah well. There's plenty of time 'till the EFF

Boots

The skirt is 99% finished. it needs a few finishing touches and then I'll upload a pic of the result.

When I first put it together I thought it was really cool. Now I've gotten used to it and it doesn't look that special anymore. I really do hope I'll stand out at the EFF'. I'll have to wait and see.

Also I had an epiphany today. I found a pair of old boots in my closet and decided that they would be the perfect base for my boots. I'll have to repair the heels. It'll be a temporary solution, but as long as it looks good at the EFF it's fine :P

Helmet

Instead of finishing my skirt today, I felt inspired and got to work on my helmet.

My initial plan was to solder the wires. I would have had to do that at my dad's place since I do not have a soldering iron. But I had to do something 'cause I felt that itch again. Then I thought of my glue gun and used that instead XD. I know the joints won't be as sturdy as soldered joints but they don't have to be. I'm going to coat this with some paper mache and then my faux leather fabrics. Now I still have to find a type of glue that can glue faux leather, my gems and paper mache.

Almost done

Today I made 3 out of the 4 extra flaps on the skirt and when I layed it out on my bed I was happy to see all the parts looking good together :P. The gems haven't been glued on yet i simply put them on to see what it would look like. So the skirt is almost finished :D *yay.

Also I'm pleased with the fact that the skirt I'm making is quite similar to the one I designed. I hope I can keep this up.

3 Layers done

Yesterday I finished my work on the third layer.

I added some finishing touches today and also inserted horizontal wiring instead of just the vertical ones that are shown in a picture a few posts back. This straightens out a lot of the wrinkles. (wonder why I haven't thought of that before). Also in real life the wrinkles are much less visible. But still, it needs to photograph well.

What remains are the extra flaps and the aist band. I wonder how I'm gonna sew them all onto the waist band O_o, perhaps that should be done by hand. I don't think my sewing machine can cope with that many layers. lawl.

the second layer

Today I finished the first halve of the second layer. Also my gems arrived today! and they're just like they are in the picture :D. I hope that, when i sew all the parts of my skirt together, I can work out some of those wrinkles. Other than that I think it's coming along quite well.

Finished first layer

Last night I finished the first layer of the skirt.I know this isn't the best picture, but it was dark and I had to use the flash on my phone XD.Today I'm starting on the second layer. From now on each new layer will be done faster. *cant wait to see it*

Oh and I received an email that my order for the gems had been sent. They'll probably arrive the day after tomorrow (though I'm hoping tomorrow:P)

gems!!

Wow! After hours of searching the net I finally found some fake gems that seem to be about right for my costume. I won't be sure untill they've arrived. The picture shows the plastic gems I ordered. At first tried to find gems that could be sewn on. Unfortunately I couldn't find any over 10mm which is too small. These gems need to be glued on (I guess I need to test a few types of glue to find the right one). They're 17mm which I hope is about right. I can't wait to see what it's going to look like :D.

first layer

So this is what my first layer is going to look like. In this picture it's only being held together by pins, by now I've already sewn them together and it looks great :D (even if I say so myself). I hope the waist band is going to be strong enough to hold the entire skirt together. I plan to use a strip of my purple or gold leather inside because it's of better quality than my black leather (funny how when they sold it to me they were all the same price). And no I do not intend to attach the 2 seperate halves together. I think it would move better if they all were just "seperate flaps". *somewhat excited*

pockets

I've managed to succesfully XD sew on the decorations on the first layer of the skirt. These picture also show a pockets on the inside of the skirt. I know it looks bad but I simply needed it to be practical. it's not to be seen by anyone. I've finished 1 out of 4 parts of the first layer and had to stop myself from working too long. The top layers will be easier and will take less time to make. Even though I know my design I'm still anxious to see the skirt when finished. I hope it'll look cool, somehow I think it will :D

decorations

The initial *drawing* of my costume shows flame like details. I started to draw the designs for the details on the skirt yesterday and realized that I didn't like the flame details. I looked up a few pictures on the internet and ended up with this style. I'm fairly pleased with it and will begin sewing them onto the skirt tonight. I know the fabric looks brown-ish in this light but it's actually gold. The thread I'm using has a "metallic" cover and it's hard to work with. I hope that at least it'll be easier to work on this than my top XD

armored skirt

Ok so, I know I said I wouldn't update this untill the end of june.

I felt so frustrated with the top that I thought I'd be able to leave it all as it is for the time being.

The thing is, I love working on my costume and I figured that the time I would spend *not studying* as in watching tv and relaxing I could also spend on working on my costume XD.

So yesterday evening I started on a pattern for my *armored* skirt. It's not actually going to be armored but I need it to be stiff and move in a certain way. so this is what I decided to do.

I'm going to sew in these iron wires so I can bend them and the skirt with it.

Let's hoep it works :P.

MEH!

So I've been working very hard on a new top and it started to look good.
But yet AGAIN the sleeves are not right *boohoo*. Also part of the faux leather came off the fabric underneath. I hope I can glue that back together.
This was a major setback so I decided to leave the top alone for a while.
Atm I need to focus on my studies and my upcoming exams. After that I'll start on all the other parts such as the skirt and the armor first. I'm hoping that'll be easier. *sighs*
I also need to find a glue that can glue this faux leather onto my paper mache armor.
We'll see how it goes.
Anyway, there won't be any updates untill the end of june probably.
I really need to work on my studies XD

setback

Everything went wrong this evening. I found out that my fabric is of such poor quality that it tears easily. I made a couple mistakes which I couldn't take back and I completely failed the sleeves. So I've decided to start over. This time I'm using a blouse as base for my pattern. I hope that helps. (Maybe I should take some lessons on how to draw up a pattern *sighs*)

Memories

Oh gosh, now I remember what I was like working on a costume. I'm an addict!

I'd worked on the pattern based on my dummy for about 3 hours on friday (I don't have a lot of experience making patterns so I work slow). Then Yesterday I tried it on some cotton fabric and then started on the actual fabric I bought for the costume. It's all faux leather. Yesterday I worked from 8 p.m. till midnight XD and today I woke up at six. My head was so full of ideas. I tried sleeping but it didn't work so I got up at 7 a.m. And this is where that got me.

The wig

I've been looking for a white wig for my costume.
I couldn't seem to find the right one. One that's not too expensive and looks good.
This morning I woke up at my dad's place and realized that after work I had to go to "'t feesthuis". They sell wigs, costumes, accessories and stuff. When I got there I decided to buy a cheap wig and cut and model it at home. The picture shows the before and after :D (somehow I can't seem to rotate it...)
I'm fairly pleased with the end result ;3

Creative itch

At the moment I'm adjusting my dad's matrass covers so that they can fit on the beds on his boat. I love sewing!.

If I have enough time today I plan to start on a pattern for my new EFF costume. The picture on the left is the front design for the costume.

I was inspired by some guild wars armors and ended up with this :)

It's supposed to attract attention at the fair. I inted to get photographed alot XD. I want people to see this and think it's awesome or beautiful.

I hope I'm skilled enough to pull this off.

I won't know until I try right :P?

The dressmaker's dummy

I've wanted a dressmaker's dummy for quite some time now.
I've failed twice, trying to create one myself.
I tried to make one out of fabric and another using the "ducttape method". I ended up buying this dummy.
It's not very stable but it was cheap and it had about the right measurements.
In this picture the dummy is wearing part of the costume I made for the Elf Fantasy Fair in september 2009.

I probably won't uplaod any of my previous works, but from this point on I'll post updates on what I'm working on at that moment.
I'll try to be faithful :P