Work in Progress: Sailor Moon

Hello everyone!

First off, I added some new pages to this blog.  An "About" page which just has some profile stuff you may or may not want to know about the person writing this blog and what the blog will feature, which was also somewhat covered in my introduction/first post here:  "Once Upon a Time".  I also added a "Portfolio" page where I'll be posting nice pictures of my costumes as well as details about them.  I didn't do a good write up on Storm yet, but that's because I'm probably going to remake it in early 2015.  Raven from Teen Titans is essentially done minus the widows peak, so once that's finished I will take some good pictures of that costume and post them there too.  Unfortunately I didn't get too many/couldn't find any online of when I wore it to Phoenix Comicon 2014 to post here.

Work in Progress

Sorry for no Maintenance Monday this week.  I spent all of Monday and Tuesday fiddling around with my Sailor Moon costume and didn't end up doing anything else that I had planned. I kind of mentioned it earlier and on my deviantART account, but I'm doing a Sailor Moon group with some friends of mine and I'm responsible for making all the costumes minus accessories(They're all getting their own shoes and we're having a tiara making party!).

I didn't think these costumes would be easy.  They look simple, but there's a lot of little details that really make these costumes shine and so I knew it would be challenging.  I made 2 mockups to play around with the base leotard because I was worried about doing the breastplate before starting mine.  For those I used the Green Pepper pattern that many Sailor Moon cosplayers loves, but after taking measurements of my friends I quickly realized that it wouldn't work for them.  The biggest size doesn't accomodate their hip sizes.  They all have very womanly figures and workout a lot, so the Green Pepper pattern unfortunatly was no longer an option.

The solution was to use the same pattern I used for my Raven leotard: Kwik Sew 3502.  I figured I've used it before, I can basically apply what I did for my 2nd(The successful mock up) and it'll be cake.

I was wrong...I was very tired while doing my costume because of work and schedule changes, so I made mistake after mistake after mistake until finally Tuesday things started to go smoother and I'm almost done(FINALLY!).  I just need to hand-tack my breastplate down and add the space-lady sleeve rolls.

Now onto pictures, the fun stuff!  To the left is how I like to cut my knit fabrics.  Sorry for the bad photo...I usually use my phone.  The pattern tells you to lay that peice on the fold, but I'm not skilled in the art of cutting fabric nicely and so when I try to double cut or cut on the fold my edges are very choppy and uneven.  To get a better cut I like to trace my patterns onto the fabric and then cut them out.  It takes a little more time, but I just find it works better for me.

No one is ever home when I need to take progress pictures so, I had to take pictures with a mirror again...Anyway, to the left is my finished breastplate.  It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it and I got it on the first go which I was impressed with a) because that was the hardest part of the leotard for me and b) because of all the other mistakes I'd made up to that point.... To the right is the mockup of the collar and bow that I made out of leftover fabric from my Storm cape.  I just wanted to make sure I could do it.  I don't love the bow pattern I used so I'll try another one I found and see which one I like better.  The lines also won't be that thick, I used white bias tape because I didn't have any ribbon laying around.

Also if anyone is curious I'm using white milliskin for the outer fabric of the leotard, white swimwear lining for the lining(except the breastplate which is lined with milliskin).  We haven't gone shopping yet for the other fabric so I'm not sure what we'll be using for the bows, skirt and collar.

That's all for now!