Vacation!!!!

I've been super bad about posting this month so far, but October should be better.  I've just been busy with the Sailor Moon group stuff and work.  Tomorrow I'm going on vacation for five days so there will be no progress this week.  When I get back I'll be posting a lot of StarFire progress because I want to finish that by October 11th!

For now here's what I have done on her arm bracers.  I just have to to finish the invisible zippers and add the gems.  Originally I was going to sew the vinyl around batting, but that made them look too plushie like.  So then I tried to sew with just heavyweight interfacing and had the same problem.  In the end I just hot-glued it around craft foam.  Not sure why I had to make it so complicated in the first place.

Below is some stuff I plan to post about when I get back.  I'm taking my Raven wig with me to work on in the hotel, so hopefully that'll be done soon.  A friend put half an hour of work on it for me last week since I've been neglecting it.

I'll end this with some exciting news! A friend is going to Bumble Bee with Breasa and I at Comic Media Expo!  Can you say Teen Titans group?!!

See you soon!

Upcoming posts

• Green contacts review
• More StarFire WIP(Top, Skirt, Belt, Boots)
• Mold Making
• Raven makeup test & finished wig
• Teen Titan Photos

Work in Progress: StarFire & BlackFire

The results from last week.

Hi everyone!

Unfortunately my Sailor Moon sewing is taking over most of my free time.  So all I've been able to work on for StarFire and BlackFire is the hand gems.

This weekend I tested some different dye methods with the epoxy resin because as I stated in my last post, the blue and yellow resin dye would not mix!  So to make green I decided to experiment a little and I found two new ways to get fun colors with resin that work!

 

 Alcholol Based Markers

I was on youtube looking for dye methods and I saw this video where the lovely cosplayer uses sharpie!  I didn't have any green sharpies laying around, but I did have some green Chromatix markers I bought on sale that were drying out anyway.  I had a hard time getting ink to come out while squeezing with pliers so I added a bit of water to the tube.  Next time I will try a little rubbing alcohol instead to see if there's a difference.

 To the left is a picture of the resin without dye.  It's just clear.  I use EasyCast Epoxy Resin.  I buy mine at Michaels Arts&Crafts with a coupon. You can also buy it on Amazon and there are other, similar products you can use.  It's a simple 1:1 ratio of resin and hardener.  It's very easy to use.

To see how much resin I would need I poured water into my mold and then back into the cup, marked it with a marker and dumped it into cup #2, refilled to that point and re-added the water I placed in cup #2 and marked it again.

 To try all three methods, I divided the resin mixture into three smaller plastic cups.

In the photo to the left you can see the cups and the marker I used for the first dye test. The color is Grass 2.  It ended up being very light as you'll see in some pictures further down.  I should have added more ink.  I only added about 2 drops and as I said above, the tube was dry so I added a bit of water. Overall the ink did mix really well with the resin and I will use this method again.  I'd like to try it with Sharpies and Copics.

 Food Coloring

I wasn't sure I would like the results of this method, but I actually like the color better than the marker method!  It's perfect for StarFire! As you can see in the photo to the right I only used about one drop for three small gems.

This is just regular food coloring you can buy at the grocery store.  I will definitely be playing more with it and try other colors, but that's a post for another day.

Castin'Craft Resin Dye

To the left is red and blue Castin'Craft resin dye which is made to work with resin and also purchased at Michaels Arts&Crafts.  I needed purple gems for Breasa's BlackFire costume so I mixed red and blue dye to make purple as those two colors will actually mix vs. blue and yellow which will not for some weird reason.

Overall I do love the purple gems I got with this method.  I won't lie, I want to play more with the other methods to see what other purples I can get, but this worked well too.  I think I did one big drop of red and two drops of blue.

Results

This is a picture of them all before they've hardened/cured.

As you can see above they all turned out really well and thankfully transparent.  I was worried after seeing a few other people's results with random dye methods that they would turn out opaque, but they're beautiful!  They're sitting on gold foil scrapbook paper right now, but I have seen people use nail polish on the back of resin gems and I'd like to try that method first.  I like how the foil looks, I used it on my Raven belt, but I want to try something different.

Work In Progress: StarFire

Today for Work In Progress Wednesday I decided to start casting the gems for my StarFire and Breasa's Black Fire costumes.  Once I started gathering my materials though I realized I no longer had the little paint trays I used to cast my hand gems for Raven which meant I couldn't do any of the smaller gems.  I also only had one big mold to use for the neck armor so in the end I only managed to start one gem today.  I need to go buy a new paint tray this weekend.

 

This is my work area!  The cardboard is where I do a lot of spray painting.  A lot of people use epoxy resin inside, but I'm very clumsy and I have a curious cat so it's better for me to do it outside. If you want your gems to harden outside too make sure you keep them covered.  Otherwise you may end up with gems that have dirt or bugs stuck to the bottom of them...ew.

 As always when working with chemicals make sure to use proper safety procedures.  Whenever I spray paint, cast stuff in resin, sand props or do anything with chemicals in general I wear a mask, goggles, gloves and clothes I don't care about.  To some people that might be over the top, but it's better safe than sorry.  Gloves, masks and goggles are cheap you can buy all three things at the dollar store and a better mask for sanding will only run you up $10-20 at Home Depot or Amazon.  There's really no excuse not to be safe.

Epoxy resin is pretty easy to use so I didn't take pictures during the process.  There are already plenty of great tutorials out there like here: NyuNyu Cosplay: Casting Resin Gems.  The only problem I had is that I intended to mix my blue and yellow dye to make a green gem for StarFire and the dyes did not want to mix so I got an ugly brown...I ended up adding red which would mix fine with the blue and got a weird purple color that I hope will work for BlackFire.  I'll know in a day or two...If not no big deal I'm going to order green dye so I'll try again when I get the small molds.

That's all for today, hopefully next week I'll have something more exciting to show you.

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!

Work in Progress: StarFire

Hello everyone!

I decided to postpone WIP Wednesday and do my WIP post today because I have way more exciting things to show you today than I did yesterday.  Early this afternoon I received my fabric for StarFire, BlackFire(my sister, who has requested to be called Breasa is making) and my Sailor Moon group's costumes.


After the delivery came I go straight to work.  I'm now trying to finish six costumes before Comic Media Expo, so let the panicking begin!  We've got all five original scouts now!  Can you say AWESOME! I'm really excited about these costumes.  Sailor Moon was my favorite show as a kid, I was obsessed.  It really inspired me.  I wouldn't be the same person without that show, so doing these costumes is a dream come true.

StarFire Progress

My morning started with watching Teen Titans.  I popped the disc into my computer and used the episode titled "Betrothed" to get 70+ reference images of StarFire and BlackFire. I used those and started sketching some ideas for the basic bracer shape based on seeing her arm in different poses. I still need to do the same thing with "Sisters" where we first meet BlackFire, but my sister is using my DVD.

 Next I pulled out some newspaper and went to town.  I used a ruler and measure my arm and made a guesstimated mock-up.  Then I cut it out, taped where the bracer connects with masking tape and made adjustments.  The first two were okay, but I got it right on the third time.  Best part of all is that Breasa can use the same one, so I don't have to draft another pattern!

Yay messy desk!

The image to the left is me trying pattern #2 on. We're still figuring the rest out.  I'll probably do a full mock-up soon.  We're probably going to use batting, felt or craft foam to give it that armor stability shape.  Breasa wants to use batting, but we're ganna have to test it out.  I feel like that'll be kind of lumpy 0_0.  We don't have our armor fabric yet.  SpandexWorld was out of stock in what we wanted.  So I'll be ordering it in the morning. 

After messing around with the armor I decided to draft the skirt pattern.  To do that I used a maxi skirt I just bought! That made my life way easier.  I knew the skirt fit about how StarFire's needed to be, so I traced it, straightened it out with a ruler and viola!  Instant pattern in five minutes.

Next I cut it out of some leftover fabric from a shirt I never finished making and sewed the sides together.  Voila! Instant StarFire skirt(almost!). I still have some work to do and we're going to add elastic.  Either way it was a quick mock-up and I feel pretty good about how this project is starting.

To the left is the finished pattern.  I used newspaper again like with the armor for the pattern.  Newspaper is kind of a cosplayers best friend.  It has so many functions.  I keep a ton of it around for paper mache, pattern making and for laying down under messy projects.  I don't read the newspaper, but my mom does so I ask her to save hers for me.  I definitely recommend newspaper collecting.

 

Trying on the skirt.  Excuse my funky tights, I never get to wear them and they're so cute.

And here is the back view.

 See you next time!

Maintinance Monday: Raven's Wig Part 3

Hello everyone!

It's Monday again!  I'll start by apologizing for not posting on Wednesday.  The progress was barely visible despite working on the wig for a couple hours, so I didn't feel like making an additional post about the wig.  I've also just been busy with work :P.  This upcoming Wednesday and on, I will be posting a Work-in-Progress Wednesday post, but I won't be posting about the wig.  I'll have plenty of other material.

To the right(obviously) is a picture of the progress thus far.  I did work on it every night since I started for thirty minutes to an hour, but there is still a lack of progress to show for it.  I'm starting to get the hang of it though and I think progress will move faster.

I found that doing one wig fiber at a time was faster than me doing two or three. I also think it's easier to start at the point and work backwards, but that's just what's working right now.  We'll have to see how things progress.... I may not post about the wig again for a little while though.  I'll keep working on it daily, but I have other things to fix too, like Storm's cape could be a little better, the wig needs to be restyled.  I also need to redo the invisible zipper on my Raven leotard now that I have a proper invisible zipper foot.  So hopefully things will get a little more interesting around here.

Coming soon....

I just ordered fabric from Spandex World to start the costumes for my Sailor Moon group and for StarFire from Teen Titans.  It should get here Thursday, so expect lots of WIP posts and pictures.  I need to finish these by early October for Comic & Media Expo and maybe some Halloween events. 

Five costumes in a couple weeks, while working nearly full time...I must be crazy T_T.  I've never really made a costume for anyone else before(I've only made a few for myself...)...I'm a little scared, but if anything I'll probably grow a lot from this experience.

See you next time!

Maintinance Monday: Raven's Wig Part 2

Happy Monday everyone!

Here are some progress pictures of my Raven from Teen Titans wig.  Since last week I've only worked on it again this morning for about forty minutes, so I don't have much progress to show.  I did learn a lot while I was doing it though and I plan to spend thirty minutes to an hour working on it every night this week. I need to finish it so I can order my wig for Sailor Moon(my next project) and work on that.  I don't want to work on two wigs at once.

The hardest part about doing this was not dropping the wig fibers before I got them through the mesh.  For the last couple that I managed to get through, I taped one end of the fibers to help me keep track of them and then pulled them through with the needle.  That seems to help, but it also makes it take longer and wastes tape, so I'll probably find another method to help me.  The more I work on this though the easier it'll probably become or so I've learned happens with most things.

 After trying to use the ventilating needle and failing for about fifteen minutes, I ended up pulling out a self-threading needle and I found that worked a lot better for me.  I'll try using the ventilating needle again, but for this first part that's close to the hairline I'm going to stick with the self-threading needle.  You can see both side by side below.  It's probably just because I'm used to holding a regular needle and I need to practice more with the ventilating needle.

I'll post more progress pictures on Wednesday for dun dun dun dun! : WIP Wednesday!

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!