Edna Mode Cosplay

LittleLoloCosplay as "Edna Mode" from Disney's The Incredibles.

"Edna Mode" is a quirky fashion designer who creates costumes for super heroes, most notably known for saying "No capes!" and "I don't look back, darling..."

I made this costume dress in under 5 hours (over a span of 3 days), using mostly decade-old remnants from past projects. In total, I spent less than $40 to make this.

Dress: Made from upholstery vinyl and fashion pleather, a roll of insulating foam, sport zipper, black corset boning, with stretch gauze lining and pink shirting trim. Everything was remnants (free) except for $2 worth of pink fabric.

Glasses: under $10, purchased via Amazon Prime.

Boots: $30 purchased at Nordstrom (I "splurged" here since the rest of the costume was basically free)

A snapshot of my pattern pieces.

I drew my pattern from scratch. For the dress, I just traced one her shirts and used the same pattern for the front and back. I cut the V neck out of the front later.

The sleeves were the most time-consuming part of making this dress. The pattern for the sleeves was a little tricky, but here's a little explanation of how I made it. 

It took three layers of sleeve to make all of the arched pieces.

I started with a lining made out of a breathable stretchy gauze in the shape of a normal sleeve or mutton sleeve. Then I cut 6 copies of a "top" sleeve out of the vinyl (3 layers per sleeve) and split each of these into the arched shapes (which I numbered so I would know which order to put them in).

This is what the sleeve looked like before cutting the triangles.

The finished sleeve.

The real trick to sewing this vinyl was LOTS and LOTS of baby powder!

A zipper in the back makes it much easier to put this dress on a 2-year-old.

Costume Stress Testing, Toddler Style

When you're making a costume for a toddler, you want to make sure it will hold up to toddler antics. I put this Boo costume (from Disney's Monsters, Inc.) on my daughter to see if she would like wearing it. It's a bit like wearing a sleeping bag, with flippers. Needless to say, she liked it so much she started dancing around!

After I posted this video on Facebook it quickly went viral and amassed over 1.2 million views! Wow! I can't even read all of the comments, but apparently a lot of people know someone who has a little girl who would also make a really cute Boo. :)

Once I finish the costume I'll do a blog post on it. All I have left is finishing the hood and getting the eye stalks attached. I may also need to make the shoe "flippers" all over again because her feet grew.

Fun fact: I started making this monster costume months ago, but my daughter was scared to get into the "tunnel"; the costume did not look like clothes to her! Now that she's two-and-a-half, she is much braver. Once she is three I will see if she might be interested in wearing foam armor.

Turn Shoes into Furry Winter Boots

Sure, be all '80s and call these leg warmers. Or call them "leg corsets" or "boot uppers". They transform any shoes into fur-trimmed boots!

They were fairly quick and easy to make, even though I hadn't worked with fur before. I made them for my Diablo 3 cosplay (currently in progress), but they are also very festive for the winter holidays! I may even wear them to a Seahawks game.

Here they are pictured with the clawed footwear (still in raw Worbla, not painted yet) that I am working on for the Barbarian costume.

I'll include some construction notes here in case anyone is interested in making something similar.

Disclaimer: I plan to reinforce these later, to make them less slouchy, perhaps using Buckram or boning.

Materials:

• 2 packs of 13 Large Grommets (I used 20 grommets total)
• White "Mongolian" faux fur, long-haired (fabric.com)
• Suede fabric
• Black Grossgrain ribbon (for lacing)

Construction Notes:

Start by creating a pattern of your leg. Cover your leg in plastic wrap, then masking tape, mark a line where the top and bottom edge should be, draw a line down the center front, then cut down the center front line and you've got your pattern. You can allow for the curve of the calf by snipping the pattern from the top down about 4 inches in two or three places to create darts.

Cut the suede using your pattern. I serged the front and top edges - a roll hem would also work - and just cut the bottom edge since this fabric doesn't fray easily.

When dealing with long fur, use a comb! Figure out which direction is "down" when you look at the fur and how it is laying. When you cut the fur you can try and slide your shears against the fabric to "part" the hairs, and that will give you less cropped short hairs at the bottom.

The fur strips are 4" wide on top and 3" wide on the bottom. Start with a wider option because you can always trim it later.


For the bottom fur, on my "boots" this is not attached, it is just like an anklet I slid on over my foot, and this works because there is a little bit of stretch to the fur fabric. I serged the top edge, left the bottom edge raw (it's hidden and fray-resistant) and sewed the two 3" end together to make a loop.

After sewing the fur onto the suede, I added grommets. After marking the placements with chalk, I use a hole punch to make holes down both sides before I go get my hammer out and start pounding away. A regular hole punch is the right size to get a hole started for Large grommets.

Flannel Booties for Baby's First Cosplay

I made more baby booties. They are irresistible. This pair just happens to be made of soft green flannel so they will become part of baby's first handmade costume.

Here is what the pattern (McCall's M6342) for these baby booties looks like once you cut out the pieces (2 of each):

More: Itty Bitty Baby Booties

Cosplay for Pregnant Geeks

I haven't been working on a costume for myself in a while because I'm expecting! But I did do some research on cosplay options for pregnant ladies and I wanted to share some of the best ideas I found. Here are my Top Five:

#5 Zombie Baby

I prefer the subtle, yet genius approach. 

via Reddit

 Look no further than Pinterest for more disgusting options.

#4 Paint the Bump

via Geekologie

If you're just going to paint your tummy, you gotta find an artist to help you out (unless you think you can do a good job of it looking in a mirror). Also, Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the only way to go.

I have yet to see someone pull off a M.O.D.O.K.

#3 Death Star Bump

 More than just a painted bump, you can add Darth Vader or Imperial Officer costume pieces for a little more geek fun. And don't forget to add a tiny spaceship or laser. This has been seen in at least three different variations, which you can find here on Pinterest.

#2 Pregnant Amy Pond

This would be a great cosplay for a couple! Since Amy's costume looks like mundane clothes, you really need a Doctor or a Rory with you to help put it in context to pull it off well. Also, you need some fabulous ginger hair and a cute Scottish accent.

Pregnant Bella from Twilight could also be acceptable, but only if your costume includes a bloody vampire baby bursting out of your bump.

#1 Pregnant Padme Amidala from Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith

concept sketch - via Padawan's Guide

Padawan's Guide has an excellent list of her costumes with reference pictures including fan-made replicas and close-up hi-res costume exhibit photos. My favorite would be the "Sleeveless" outfit. I mean, how cool is this? It's action-hero maternity wear! Sure, you can always wear a loose nightdress or a cloak, but the best maternity outfits include leggings and knee-high boots, IMO. The top of the dress is flattering and form-fitting, curving under the bust and then giving you lots of room in the tummy area for any stage of pregnancy. Heck, this outfit would even look good on someone that's not pregnant. All you really need to make to pulls this off is the dress with harness (including the sculpted brooch details) and a pair of fingerless gloves. Buy a pair of off-while/taupe leggings and brown boots that fit. The hair is a little tricky if you don't have long hair, but you could fake it by pulling your hair back and adding a custom braid extension. This type of extension shouldn't be too difficult to make, even for someone like me who is not a hair stylist. Alternatively, you could get a super-long dark brown anime wig and style it.

Superhero Bracers

POW! BAM! ZAP!

Ooh, shiny!

These bracers were a two-night project. I started one of them one night and finished them both on the next night. I sewed the snaps on while catching up on "The Office" (love that Catherine "The Doctor Donna" Tate  is on the show!) and "King of the Nerds" (cosplay episode!).

Soft satin.

I am particularly happy about how these turned out. Even the insides look nicely-finished! I added a strip of ribbon with my AvalynArtistry.com URL printed on it.

Snaps on, easy to do with one hand.

Curves right into shape and snaps closed!

Left and right bracers. Shiny yellow-gold!

Sorry, they are not designed to reflect lightning, especially not if you are standing in salt water.

Superhero Bracers on AvalynArtistry.com

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Photoshop

TadA!  My cosplay is complete (although you guys may have seen it ages ago on the blog from the SakuraCon post back in April,) but here's my final post about making this cosplay.  Actually it's the post processing of this photo to make it internet worthy.

As you can see here below here is the original photo I took.  I used a timer and had to run back and forth trying many different poses and whatnot.  I probably took 40 pictures and only ended up with a handful I liked.  So how did I turn the bottom photo into the top photo?

• Layer 1, the original photo. 
• I didn't actually do any manipulation here

• Layer 2, the border
• Found a border on the DeviantArt stock images (credit  http://karma-manipulation.deviantart.com/art/Grunge-Border-156054027)
• From the stock images I inverted the colors and softy erased out the center white area.  I let the middle fade out as to not create any solid lines
  
• Layer 3 Logo
• I took the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Icon from online, removed the excess background
  
• Layer 4, the color
• I overlayed a pink color with a 20% transparency

Enchanted Cloak and Cape

I love making cloaks and capes! I made two in one night using the same aqua velvet crush fabric.

ENCHANTED CLOAK ~

First up is a cute off-the-shoulder short hooded cloak. I wanted to make the cloak kid-friendly so I used Velcro for the closure and hid the stitches under a pair of pretty gold buttons.

The cape is short or half-length on an adult. But it would be a nice long cloak for a kid. The back of the cloak is squared (pointed corners).

I added a charm at the point of the hood. It's a nice detail and the added weight keeps the point hanging down properly.

View the Enchanted Cloak on AvalynArtistry.com

ENCHANTED CAPE ~ 

Next I made a simple cape that fastens in front with a little snap. Again, it's a short style for an adult, but it would be nice and long on a little princess.

This cape is rounded at the bottom instead of being square-edged like the cloak. I left the neck opening huge so it drapes down the back. This also gives the option to pull it up and tie it in front instead of using the snap.

Or, I suppose you could wear a pair of wings on your back and have them poke out of the back opening from your shoulder blades.

Note: Both the cloak and cape are pictured with my Shimmering Mage Blouse.

Steampunk LollyPop

For a Lolita Steampunk Cosplay, I wanted a Lolita prop.  ~giggle~ a LOLLYPOP.

So let's see how to make a steampunk version of a lollypop.

Instead of getting the expensive steampunk gears at the craft store, I went to the original source, the Hardware Store! I went through the different buckets of bulk goods and picked up random pieces that I thuoght would look cool together, including a long screw to use as a handle.

Alcohol ink will dry to metal, and not rub off but it will if you spill a happy hour drink on it.  It's just randomly dab it all over the metal pieces to give it an non uniformed colouring.

Than using industrial super glue I randomly arranged them into a lollypop shape.  

 

The glue isn't ment for metal, so after many uses, some of the joints did get lose, so a little extra glue helped them stay put.

Sneak Peak for 2012 Steamcon

Yay, Steamcon is in two weeks.  It's the Steampunk convention here in the Seattle area.  This year because it's the Halloween weekend the theme is Victorian Monsters.

Here's a peak at my costume in works.

-SmallRiniLady

Fleece Cosplay Dragon Ball Z Gohan

I've talked about this before, but I wanted to bring you another example of why using fleece for cosplays are so great.

Fleeze is stretchy and smooshable so making a ball is much easier than traditional fabrics, because if you make a mistake, enough tugging out or smooshing inwards will help get you to the desired shape.

Because fleece is light, you can def add full supture pieces to the top of the hat without worrying about it being too heavy. 

This kid is a child of an old classmate, I didn't have him around to try test the outfits while I was making, so his parents sent me a ton of measurements.  But just in case, using fleece means it can strech a bit if the outfit is too small.  ~cough~ ok i made the shirt too short, I asked them to pull to stretch it out, dont oonw how much you can stretch before it gets a little crazy.

Anyways with the fleece I didn't need to worry about cutting the edges and it fraying, so I was able to cut out the chinese symboles and use a zigzag stitch on it to sew the pattern on.  If you go over the sewn lines a few times with the zig zag it creates this very smooth pipping look. 

The tail would look a lot more awesome if it could be shaped.  ok that's easy, let's put some wire in it.  But But But how do you wash the outfit if there's bendable wire in it?  Put the tail on with a button!  LOL ok so maybe it distracts the person and shows that this is indeed a costume instead of a real tail, but I thought it was a really cute idea.  And besides isn't it any mother's dream to be able to wash a child's outfit simply without having to destroy it?

Riven Cosplay - Shirt Upgrade

I like to make costumes I can wear over and over again. Sometimes I have to do a rush job to get the costume done on time, but then I have the opportunity to go back and redo something, give it an upgrade.

It looks a little droopy in front because my dress form is rather flat-chested...

I made a new shirt for my Riven costume. The first shirt was literally three pieces of cotton gauze fabric sewn together at the shoulders and sides. It was really rough, not wearable in public.

This shirt took four (4) hours to make, a nice after-work evening project. The fabric is super-soft, stretchy, and also breathable!

I didn't use a pattern, but I did have a store-bought shirt of a similar fabric, so I traced it to get a pattern for the back, then I draped the rest. If I didn't have a serger, this stretchy fabric would have been a lot more difficult to work with, I would have had to roll all of the hems, yikes! As it is, I just serged the edges every piece of fabric after I cut them out and ended up leaving the arm holes and the bottom hem rough. The bottom will be tucked into the skirt anyway!

I hope I can finish the rest of my upgrades to this costume before PAX. It's less than two weeks away!

Geek Girl Con 2012 Recap

Geek Girl Con 2012 was last weekend and we were there! SmallRiniLady had a booth and I (Avalyn) went for moral support and because I can't pass up an excellent cosplay opportunity.

SmallRiniLady debuted her new Captain America crossplay outfit, which was SUPER ADORABLE. I love the the winged headband!

We made flyers for the swag bags. I cut them out myself - oy!

This was our second year at Geek Girl Con (last year was the first year for the con!) and we were up for our Intro to Costume Craft and Cosplay panel again. This year we actually got through all 54 slides with 5 minutes to spare (54 slides because who doesn't want to see lots of cosplay pictures???).

There was never a dull moment at the SmallRiniLady booth!

I attended several panels, including Art as a Business Online, Steampunk Sewing (focused on corsets and bustles), and LEDs in Fabric.

Art as a Business Online panel

Somehow, I found time for lunch.

I always end up at Subway during conventions!

On Sunday I found a really great Codex! She even did her best to follow the online video tutorial on making the staff, it was very well done.

The weather was super warm and sunny. Since I was wearing costumes all weekend and riding the bus to and from the convention I was very happy not to see rain. Rain and foam weapons do not go well together.

Downtown Seattle on a rare sunny day. Gorgeous!

Of course I found something I had to buy upstairs in the dealer hall. TARDIS earrings!

Squee!

That's all of my Geek Girl Con pictures. Cup of tea, anyone?