Because I think I have worked it out. Flexible relatively light and I hopefully can make them fit my suitcase in pieces.
So I’ve requested some more urethane (squee!) and will test what I have already.
They are… complicated. But that is fine. I feel very ambivalent* about everything I watch- always looking at why I like or dislike or feel uncomfortable about things.
(Addn: this is just one facet of identifying- and I have tried to not frame things as “I r spechul snowflake” but that on this single level the movie affected me deeply; emotionally and vicerally. It’s what I can talk about directly and in public. I also did not identify with everything about the character because while I can dislike and feel anger I have yet to want revenge. But I do also identify with the accidental caring and wanting to protect “beasties”. As I wrote above: ambivalent. Not uncaring but pulled in many directions.)
I did identify a lot with grown up Maleficent. And the loss of the wings meant something very different to me than intended I think.
Okay, it has come out the scene is a metaphor, it is not over reaching as some reviewers have been accused of. And I got that, but the howls of anguish she lets out were visceral and really affected me deeply.
Often when we cry it feels very much part of the body, you feel your face and eyes and chest as the pain just wracks your body. But then there is howling. And it feels different. You feel disembodied and that you are eavesdropping on someone or something else. You don’t know when it starts or when it stops and you can’t actually feel it, until after.
I howled, not raged, not wept, but howled when I was diagnosed. I knew what it meant. Autoimmune diseases were what I had previously studied at a compartmentalised distance so I understood the complexity and how it was never going to be better. The disease was taking away, not giving and what was taken would never be returned. And it was taken.
It was not just my dreams shattered, I’m pragmatic and change whether I like it or not, but also on a very mundane level it means I have to have care in many day to day mundane and humbling/humiliating ways. It changes day to day, month to week, year to year, but I know the minimum to expect when I am older.
Yes, since then I live and cope and often thrive in spite of it. And I do not live with regret and I mostly live without self doubt or being bitter and resentful.
But I still howled, and my heart aches when I hear it in fiction or reality because to go that far means you have been pushed that far.
So, plot, story and other elements aside, I did identify and appreciate a lot of the character at least.
*The fact that the term was spelled out in Girl, Interupted is not lost on me.
I’m vertical for a little bit. Also managed to trick youtube into letting my upload a 46min video! Woohoo!
Also my point in this video is don’t let anyone tell you what characters you should do because of what you look like. Most people can’t seem to see beyond basics and that’s just limiting. Have fun whether you try to look like the character or not. This make up is the opposite of what I do for Regina which is another character people wouldn’t immediately think of for me but which works very well indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVHNArp_jcw
So this is me starting from the more interesting part- the highlights and contours.
To get to this point my eyebrows were plucked and eyebrows and lashes coloured (go pastypastry!) and then the lenses put in and my eyelashes glued down.
The eyelashes are simple dollar store goodies and I may just grab a collection of them having now worked out how to make them work. Clip to size and glue the lid then the lash as if using contact cement!
I have a quiet voice so hopefully the video while long is not too droning but I did it to show how you really do want a nice calm time to zone in and chill while making a face that is not your own. I can do some editing to do a before and after comparison.
But also, man I wish other people could get photos like this of me. You can see I have cheekbones and my mouth is not all pinched. It’s even at the world’s worst selfie angle (under the nose) and lookit! Anyway. It’s just making me really determined to see what my lens can do….
You ROCK! As always.
Thank you 🙂
This is hands down the best maleficent costume I’ve seen! Wonderful job. I want one 🙂
Thank you 🙂 Super fun to wear, a total pain to make but worthwhile 🙂
I love this!!!! Is the headpiece available for purchase?
Thank you 🙂 I still have my molds and am thinking of doing a number of casts while I have the product (finally got a large amount of aerosil/cabosil which makes it lay up easily in a curved mold and not run out everywhere!
I have horns. In fact I am wearing them right now. So light and well balanced! I may just wrap a length of fabric around to get a reasonable selfie.
There is a narrow support but that is just being held in place by a wide strap of elastic looped around my hairline. I need to decide on how I’ll make the join stronger (atm just some araldite) as the support flexes just enough to curve to my head (slightly narrower across the brow than the wig head though everything else is great.
And this is just making me really sure I want to do all the versions of her just to wear these horns.
Warped section and all. That’s about to be fixed anyway 🙂
The train may be about a foot too long. But I’m not sure how to take that in without seriously affecting the rest of the gown.. though…. possibly by unpicking the seams I will be able to angle in and stretch the pieces to shape. I think everything else is fine as it is. The sleeves are a little big as well. Basically I left a hem a good 10cm too long so it threw everything off scale 🙂
Meanwhile I am wearing stretchy jeans and am actually happy with them 🙂 Had to lower the seat so I could hitch the waistband over my hips (I hate feeling like they are falling off.)
Photos are processing. Horns worked this time but there is a bump that won’t come out. Even with heating so I will have to wedge a solid shape in there. Pity I hacked apart some styrofoam that would have been great.
Sooo, the duo tone blue green doesn’t show up in the photo but it does in reality and I’ll just mix some and coat it tomorrow.
So I put the horns and head in the sink and used hot water to soften them enough to remove from forms.
E voila! Head support, untrimmed horns and staff all ready for the next stage of sticking together and sanding.
See the thin layer on the horns? It’s a bit tricky to do and I’ll probably not do that again. These will get a layer of black latex for the show so I don’t need to try and make some latex sheeting. It’ll stay well until I need to remove it 🙂
So how to stick the horns to the support? No idea just yet! They’ll be trimmed before anything else. And I’ll try and get some foam inside. Still not sure how one of the horns got warped but it must have been during curing as it won’t heat shape out.
So it’s a total pain to try and sew as it sticks to everything. To tidy the front edges I needed to top stitch a narrow facing. And I stumbled across this nifty little method to avoid puckering!
A button hole foot! Yep, this sticks to the pleather and you can then sew the full length and then lift the foot and slide forward again as you need.
For those of us with some fancy feet but not all.
For the hem I used a really sloppy running stitch with a very few back stitches, then clipped the hem off.
Once the hem was reshaped I then zipped it under the overlocker using the hand basting as a guide. I don’t fancy hand sewing all this. So I may wind up doing a “rolled” hem that the machine does. It’s a silly name as there is no rolling, just a very tidy encasing in thread effect.
On the plus side I rescued my mold 🙂 On the down side I am running out of resin and ability to use it :/
And I probably should have grabbed a zip today when I had the chance.. so today will be a day of mostly rest while my fingernails reform (hot water to soften molds also softened finger nails) and taking all the rest of the antihistamines.
Three kinds. Three kinds of antihistamines. And I can’t just take one. oh no. All three.
I may also be redoing the collar in leather.
2 Responses to “Wings, or rather ZOMGWINGZ”
Dare / 26 Jun 2014 9:27am #I found your site when trying to get better pics of the christening gown and it’s so exciting to see your progress. Especially bc my motto is similar to yours except it’s “overcomplicating costuming for 10 months and then half assing and last minuting the other 2″. As a former lover of costumes with wings (I don’t have the time to make them anymore) I’m excited to see how you made a “light” urethane wing and am looking forward to that post! I think I’d read in another costume post that you’d been to Dragon Con. Are you doing Maleficent there this year? I’d love to see it in person.
Was the fabric you’re using already textured like that or did you wrinkle it?
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admin / 2 Jul 2014 6:54am #Hello 🙂 The fabric was already wrinkled. I’m in the process of acquiring more, there are only remnants of it left!
I haven’t made the wings yet and have two options, still debating between them!
I’d love to go to D*C this year, my one and only trip was 2012 and I don’t think the luck that played in to that will happen again. So much help from friends and family 🙂 ANd Celebration 6 was the weekend before that made it oh so tempting 🙂
And thank you 🙂
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