SO THAT COSTUME LIST :)

SO THAT COSTUME LIST 🙂

by michaela de bruce, August 10, 2014

My blog yesterday sort of didn’t tackle the reasons why I have had to make some major decisions. I think it’s pretty obvious when you click the health tag 🙂

Possibly best to make the list after actually looking at what I have!

So I’m going to stack a few costumes in to containers before coming back to this post 🙂

Right. Well that was a few hours ago and I have not actually gotten a list.

 

However I do have more fabric for the kitties and I also have more stuff to sell on. Luckily very little in the way of needing to be finished.

So… what order, shall I try to put a table in here? Darn no easy way to do so soo….

 

Recreations:

This year:

Maleficent: horns; tabbard; action onsie; prosthetics; wings

 

Frozen: Elsa Ice Queen, I have finally got a way to for sure match the sheen and tones from skirt to bodice, and just need to save for my clever idea for the cape

Dracula: repair Mina; finish Lucy

Doctor Who: finish Silurian sculpt

Star Wars: Mon Mothma, finish jewelry and foundation skirt

 

Next year & beyond:

Maleficent: christening gown (in that order, so I have something to wear no matter what :)- Gown definitely post October); Moors robes also well in to the new year; Coronation gown also next year.

Phantom of the Opera: Think of Me ensemble- new skirt ropes, new dressing gown, put it all together!; Wedding Gown (using my current stock of vintage fabrics to get them made in to something!)

Moulin Rouge: Pink Diamonds, just the bodice at this stage; Hindi Wedding

Star Wars: Darth Talon new bikini upper; Shaak Ti…. everything; IC figure out how to turn current test jumpsuit into more appropriate shape, other crew gear- OC so just playing about with silver and black; Darth Phobos because she is totally madly fabulous.

 

Historic:

SCA:

Finish sheer partlet of never ending doom!

Reline black spanish skirt, trim (not sure with what)

Decide what to do with white spanish disaster

Decide what to do with pieces of Cologne dance dress (possibly use silk as lining to the old red velvet and use the black silk satin.

 

Late Historic:

Blue taffeta, make the 1870-71 convertable dress as planned.

Sheer natural form gown; I have cotton net and lots of rayon trim it’s time.

Striped 1906 day dress- tidy and put permanent fastening in

 

 

Stuff to decide on:

Fabrics galore (silver twill, beaded chiffon mainly, leather pieces)

Cersei style crimson gown, still have the leather corset pieces marked

Mystique old school dress needs ties, boots, gloves, belt, wig

Dawn white dress, needs corset, collar, rose

Fur coat- perfect size to like big ass Cologne sleeves but I can’t. I have some salvaged fur but this is too much

Fur shawls- again, salvaged but I can’t use them, it’s my line and I don’t judge. I just feel suffocated by the tanning process.

Black and white Victorian, to finish for Ange’s birthday pressie

 

And some finished costume I may think about selling.

It’s a bit hard and I may not. I’m thinking of doing a costume exhibit at some point and it’d be nice to have a full variety of the above and already finished pieces 🙂

I TRIED TO DO THIS AS A POST YESTERDAY- HORNS GLUED CHEEKS STARTED

I TRIED TO DO THIS AS A POST YESTERDAY- HORNS GLUED CHEEKS STARTED

by michaela de bruce, August 5, 2014

 

So I wasn’t sure I could get away with such small appliances but I can and they really do make a huge difference. I have a much more pointed nose than Angelina and was worried the nose piece would make my nose look shorter, but it does the opposite! It’s not just a bump, it’s very carefully tapered so as to raise in to the bridge higher than my actual nose. That piece makes it longer, and I would not have known unless I had my facecast to actually look at it from the outside :)

The cheeks are no deeper than 1/2″ and atm about 1 1/2 wide, if that and that will get smaller once I start smoothing it properly (after peeling them off, evening them up, and then sanding the PVA layer on the face). So very close to the originals. The mainly move and sharpen the cheeks unnaturally than really change the shape of the face. In part because they need to lie only on places where there is not a lot of movement so avoiding the eye socket and going past the apple of the cheeks. I may move them a bit further in to the temples though.

In order to get the horns off I may have to soak the head in water to soften the PVA and peel it off. I’ll do that once I get the horns stabilised and ready to test. The bogging stage will not be messy as the filler can be used at densities high enough to make it hand formable and non sticky.

 

The horns are slightly asymmetric, I need to check this on my own head to see if it is obvious in reality.

MALEFICENT HORNS, OF DOOM!!!

MALEFICENT HORNS, OF DOOM!!!

by michaela de bruce, August 5, 2014

Not really, but they were a PITA to get to this stage. The glue on one side didn’t cure and so fell off and in the middle of mixing fibre and filler. This means a very short working time and so I tried all sorts of ways to get it stuck back on.

Heating the mix to make it cure faster? Nope. And my heat gun died. Sigh.

Cleaning and using a contact glue? Nope. Too much uncured resin around interfering on a chemical level.

Cleaning and using a hot glue gun?
JUST BARELY BUT IT DID!

I checked on the horns and they are still stable and the resin is curing. It’s still cold and malleable but working.

 

Also see if you can spot what I did. Sorry small image is small. But it’s not in the traffic but nearly centre of the photo…

 

And finally Mr Boo. Looking discombobulated after a bit of fur ball wheezing this morning. He always looks as if it is something happening to him by some unseen person. So a few pats and a warm toasty blankie and he was okay.

AND HEAD CAST FINAL BOGGING, I HOPE!

AND HEAD CAST FINAL BOGGING, I HOPE!

by admin, July 28, 2014

I will be able to trial the mouse sander tomorrow 🙂 Actual mouse sander that has proper accessories and exhaust which means no burning through motors!

Also it is super light. This was very important.

No new ear casts because I am about to start to slow walk to bed.

Basically back filled the side seams that had opened while sanding back and evening up what needs to be evened and then able to be cut back. I didn’t realise how much extra I had added in my effort to join the two halves together.

So after this I will be able to back fill and shove on a spike pipe so as to be able to work some clay on that face! I’ll have to leave the surface a bit rough to help the clay hold. But very happy to get this to the no more resin stage! Except my ears. Darnnit!!!

1 COMMENT


    • KRISTEN

      REPLY

    • July 28, 2014

    it looks good!

MALEFICENT TABBARD TESTING

MALEFICENT TABBARD TESTING

by admin, July 28, 2014

My super soft crepe for the Hindi Satine costume has done stunt duty for the tabbard pattern. If I were able to dye this a lovely rich black I’d just go and use this for the actual lining. sadly there is not enough to do so even if it were cost effective.

 

It is both easy and not easy. I really wanted that accordion effect down the side and to direct the majority of the folds to the front. I am really happy with the front but the back really needs some work. It needs to be shaped differently to allow for the cloak to fit smoothly over the top. Sigh. But I will be able to grab the pattern of this before I start to  try to work on that. But at this stage, yes it looks like about 11 yards of fabric is needed. Full width fore fronts and backs (6m) and then about 2 yards each side for the back panels that turn in to the cloak. Maybe more as there is a strange gore CB that may hide a good fold of fabric.

MY FABRIC ARRIVED, BLISS :)

MY FABRIC ARRIVED, BLISS 🙂

by admin, July 22, 2014

So perfect!

http://www.mjtrends.com/products.Stretch-Black,Matte-Vinyl,Fabric#.U829YPmSyao

 

It really is stretchy and it really does have that texture 🙂 Very good vertical stretch in fact more stretchy than horizontal 🙂

I’ve been a fan of their product for years, and have used it for all my Shiny Butt catsuits:

Catwoman, Witchblade, Mara Jade, Blood Dragon, Shae Vizla., Regina/Maleficent stunt costume.

So I wasn’t too concerned about the quality but I was unsure how well the texture would show. And it really is as advertised 🙂

 

So leather onsie will get done in the most perfect fabric available 🙂 Also the emails you get are lovely 🙂 I do now wish I’d grabbed the spiral steels at the same time but never mind 🙂

 

As a comparison:

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/05/31/magnificent-maleficent-high-fashion-costume-design-for-angelina-jolie-in-disneys-dark-new-film/

 

So not the exact match but close and really good. I think there is some hue and contrast shift here, and the colour of the stretch vinyl is a warm black. Not charcoal, not raven black but still on the warm muted side of the richest deepest black.

 

1 COMMENT


    • KRISTEN

      REPLY

    • July 22, 2014

    Looks great though! Just wish shipping from MJtrends wasnt so expensive to the UK.

MALEFICENT FABRICS :)

MALEFICENT FABRICS 🙂

by michaela de bruce, July 25, 2014

 

I remembered O have a lovely crepey fabric in stash 🙂 It’s what I used for my Rachi so I can hopefully make the moors robe and a circle skirt to go with my Rachi robes to make a custom jedi 🙂

Velvet… omnomnomnomnom.

 

 

Leather for the boots! This brown pvc coating does come off (with a solvent)

 

 

Perfect finish and weight for functional boot covers. Who am I kidding. I’ll make a full boot upper!

 

 

The MJ Trends stretch matte PVC. This is amazing! Super stretchy much softer than it looks here, I have not stretched it as I do not want to pin through the fabric. But I have tested it against their shiny butt stuff and it has a very similar stretch. Slightly more vertically though. So a light single knit backing with a light but good coating. I have a few samples to send to locals to get a feel. I may be able to post small 5cm by 10cm pieces to others as well.

Well worth the money and shipping. It’s fully tracked so it is pretty much dollar for dollar fabric/shipping. This is why I didn’t get spiral steels at the same time. Now I wish I did!

 

1 COMMENT


    • KRISTEN

      REPLAY

    • July 25, 2014

    OOh that fabric does look amazing plus all the drapy fabrics in your stash!

ELSA SEQUIN UPDATE, WHOOPS!

ELSA SEQUIN UPDATE, WHOOPS!

by admin, July 13, 2014

 

 

Top: Shimmer Sheetz turquoise, Shimmer Sheets iris blue, Josey Rose cornflower blue sequin film. Middle: Athena aqua green, Athena cornflower blue? Bottom: turquoise 3mm sequin fabric. With duo blue/green on left, plain on right. So I appear to have gotten the cornflower blue by accident the first time. But this is good! Now I have a proper full comparisson for anyone wanting to mix known and tested colours. It’s interesting to compare the hues of these similarly named products as they really are all very different! I think I may wind up using the Shimmer Sheets and sequin film for my own gown. The Athena cornflower blue however really is great as a match to the Disney doll colours- even if the name suggests a warmer blue than it is. They are significantly darker than the Shimmer Sheets or film. The Aqua green is very green indeed with very little of the purple interference. But it may be possible to dye these so I will sacrifice some to iDye poly to see 🙂 But yes, pretty sure I want to cut my own just need to get the shape into a file. It really will be halfway between the pre-cut and scanner pre-set shapes.

MALEFICENT NOTES

MALEFICENT NOTES

by michaela de bruce, July 13, 2014

Just some sketch notes, I do line art rather than full sketches so as to clearly define seams and edges. Inext stage is to get more specific in terms of exact position. The detail page of the back is for when I see the film again and get proper notes. The lower back is very poorly documented in current publications so I’ll have to hope the doll is accurate or that I can get those costume details from the big screen 🙂
The DVD cover has been released so hopefully it will be out soon enough to use for references!

MALEFICENT, FEMSHEP.. MALYSHEP!

MALEFICENT, FEMSHEP.. MALYSHEP!

by admin, July 12, 2014

So yeah. With working on the pattern diagrams for the action suit/leather onsie I’ve realised that I could make it in different parts and use it under my Blood Dragon armour so I can switch out fandoms really quickly 🙂 Also I want a photo with Baby Mordin and Bill Salyers. Baby Mordin is getting some Krogan gear- she has a bunny hat on right now and it is perfect, and shows how she’d look in Krogan baby gear.

But yes, crossing the streams!

I still needs a really good clear shot of her back though. I have placement for the spines just not what they are mounted in and I know I saw lacing somewhere.