Maintinance Monday: Adding a widows peak to Raven's wig

Hello everyone!

In the spirit of Maintenance Monday  I spent a little time working on adding a widows peak to my Raven wig.  I'm basically using FireWolf826's Tutorial here: Click me! and Epic Cosplay tutorial here: Click me! since I'm using their Eros wig.

Step One

 

The first thing I did was put my wig upside down on my wig head and stitch some tulle in. Yay, super easy!  Please ignore the zombie face...we used it for a Halloween decoration(yay!).

Step Two

 

The next thing I did was figure out how big I wanted my widows peak to be.  To do that I cut out a couple triangles out of paper and pinned them to the wig and tried them on.  It took three tries before I found one I was happy with.

Step Two - In action

 

Here you can see me trying it on. On a side note, I did not realize when I got dressed this morning how perfect my shirt was for today. 

Step Three

 

Now that I have a triangle that I'm happy with,
I'm leaving the paper pinned to make sure that I actually put the fibers into the tulle in that shape.
I also colored on the tulle in some alcohol based markers to kind of give me a guide. It's not easy to see, but if the paper slips off or anything it'll be something...

To be continued!

Coming Soon: Maintinance Mondays

Hello!

This is just a quick announcement that starting next week, July 28th every Monday I will do a "Maintenance Monday" post.  Maintenance Monday posts will surprise, surprise be about costume maintenance.  In other words: fixing stuff that got broken at a con and making something better that I had to rush or found a better way to do, etc. They'll be posts about making the costumes I already have better.

Here's a preview of what I'll be writing about next week.

I just got this in the mail yesterday.  These are ventilating needles and the holder. You can use these to add a custom hairline to a lace front wig, or in my case a semi-lace front wig.  This week I'm going to add the widows peak to my Raven cosplay wig. I used Epic Cosplay's Eros wig for that costume.

I bought a white wig for the first one and dyed it with ink and then added a widows peak the easy way, by sewing wefts into the right shape(triangle-ish).  I chose to do that because it was faster than the ventilating method, but didn't turn out well...  Someone with more experience with wigs could have probably pulled it off, but not me.  I ended up not liking the color on the first wig anyway so I bought a new one in Royal Purple and I just never added the widows peak.  So this Maintenance Monday I'll be posting some pictures and I'll write about how that's going. Once it's done I'll post both wigs side by side and hopefully we'll see some improvement in my wig handling skills.

See you again soon!

Let's Go Shopping!

I have a very long list of things I want to post about, but most of them feel too heavy to use as a second post, so I decided to just do a post on a few of my favorite places to buy supplies for my costumes.  Hopefully I'll do a formal write up on Storm and Raven soon, as well as some work-in-progress stuff, but for now here you go.

Fabric

Spandex World
This website is my absolute favorite place to buy stretchy fabric for my superhero costumes.  I've purchased fabric from them probably at least seven times.  It's not as cheap as buying from a major chain like Jo-Ann, but I think it's worth the extra money.  They have a huge selection, the quality is amazing, if you're not sure about color or texture you can order samples.  They also ship fed-ex and even the samples come pretty quick.  I love this store. The only con for me is how expensive shipping is and no free shipping options for spending "x" amount of dollars.  Now that my sister cosplays too though, we just order fabric together and split the shipping(Shipping cost/yards of fabric x fabric that person 1 ordered, etc.).

Wigs

Epic Cosplay
I love Epic Cosplay.  Their wigs are always great quality, tangle-free and pretty. My first and second Raven wig are from them, as is my latest Storm wig.  It's not as cheap as some of the wig shops on Ebay, but unlike with Ebay I don't have to worry that I'm not getting what I thought I was. I've loved everything I've ordered from them.  Their customer service has also been pretty A+.

Arda Wigs
This is my other favorite wig shop.  They have excellent wigs and a very wide rang of colors and styles.  If Epic doesn't have the color or style you need, Arda probably does.  I love that you can order cheap samples to be 100% sure that the wig is the right color.  Like Epic they ship from the USA which means you get your wig fast(Yay!).  Arda wigs are also more expensive than buying a wig on Ebay, but again it's worth the extra money to know you're not going to get a nightmare in the mail.  What you see online is what you get.  They've got a great reputation.  This is where I ordered my wig for Pixie and I will buy more wigs from them in the future.

Makeup
I don't wear makeup everyday, I usually am only wearing it for special events or costumes, but this is where I like to shop based on A+ customer service and vegan options.  I buy most of my makeup online, at Whole Foods or Target.  I'm not going to list all my sources, but here are a few I like.

White Rabbit Beauty
A portion of the money from your purchase goes towards an animal chairty, what's not to like about that? A++ customer service, fast shipping and good prices.  I've ordered from here a few times and I will continue to do so.  I love this shop, plus you're supporting a small business.

Etsy
I like to buy handmade cosmetics sometimes.  Etsy has some great shops to checkout, just read reviews, Google the shop, check their facebook page and if possible order sample sizes first.  I mostly buy lip balm on Etsy, but I've also bought eyeshadow and lipstick a few times.  It can be fun and I like supporting small businesses so.... 

Prop Building Supplies

Home
You probably already have a lot of stuff to make props with.  Save newspapers and sales papers to use for armor and sewing pattern drafting.  It can also be used for paper mache.  You can upcycle a lot of "trash" into amazing things, so always think before you toss something(but be honest about when you'll use it, do not hoard stuff.  If you're not going to use in the next few weeks, toss it).

Jo-Ann
Whatever I need, paperclay, markers, paint, etc.  I go here first.  Why? COUPONS!  You can save a lot of money by coming prepared with coupons or during a good sale.

Michaels Arts & Crafts
Whatever Joanns doesn't have, like casting resin that I used for my Raven belt, I buy here.  You can only use one coupon per transaction, but sometimes they have good sales too.

Cosplay Supplies
They have all the fancy thermoplastics, fast shipping and great customer service.

Thrift Stores and the 99cents Store
You never know what you're going to find and it will be cheap.


This is not a complete list of the places I like to shop, but it should give you some good ideas if you're looking for somewhere to buy something.  I'll eventually post a "where I buy" list that'll include everything and other categories like contacts, etc.There are also a lot of stores I really want to checkout when I have some time(they're all far or out of budget for now...T_T).

Once upon a time...

Welcome to the blog of Onyx Sky Cosplay! As the blog name would suggest I'm a cosplayer and this is the first post of my cosplay blog.  You may call me Onyx or Sky for short.  This blog will be used to document my works in progress, finished costumes, tutorials, features of other cosplayers, convention reviews, product reviews etc.  Basically all things cosplay related.

About Onyx Sky
I've been cosplaying for about 2 years.  My fist costume was Storm from Ultimate X-Men.  My original alias was Sky-Cactus, which I used as a name on deviantART and have since changed to OnyxSky-Cosplay. I mostly like to cosplay superheroes right now, but I also love anime and manga.  I've been sewing for about a year now. I'm also still very new to prop and armor building, though that doesn't stop me from taking on difficult projects(I love to challenge myself).

When I'm not cosplaying I'm usually writing, reading or watching something. Some of my favorite titles are X-Men, Teen Titans and Sailor Moon. I also have a sister who cosplays, though she does not post about it online, so you may see some of her work posted here.  We have some group costumes planned for the future.

 Nice to meet you! Feel free to ask me questions.  If you need help or want more details on anything I post here feel free to e-mail me at OnyxSkyCosplay@gmail.com and I'll try to reply.

You can also find me at:
deviantART
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