9 mars 2010

Beatrix part ?



The progress so far. I've put a lot effort into this part of the costume. We talk about more than ten hours on things that you can't see, mainly because I've been very careful, the fabric is very very sensitive. And to tailorsew it isn't the easiest thing to do. I've never done that before so it's a very interesting process.



As I said before the fabric (some kind of fake leather, I think it's called pleather?) is very sensitive, so "cuts" like this is all over the place, I think that the edges rips when I try the coat. To solve this problem I choose to use a very thick thread and to repair it by hand. I think it will add a more authentic, medieval feeling to it then if I would repair it on the sewing machine.





Another time consuming thing is this endless ripping the seems up on purpose because they got wrong.








Before I got to this point remember that I've been doing a lot of tailor work (swedish= figursytt) to make it fit my body as I want. A lot's of testing the fake boobs to make sure everything fits, the corsett, sew the seem tighter and tighter. (I've sewn every seem 5 times over again to make the coat tighter) All things work have taken me more than 10 hours for sure! Lost the hour count a long time ago though. Now I've made another seem that is a "fake" one, meaning it hasn't to be there, but there is one on beatrix, and I love to try to make the seems correct and perfekt. But as a big surprise, this seem made the front to flap out a bit more. you can see the difference between the right side ( the cameras right) where the seem is finished and the left side where it's not.
The red squares on the picture marks out some needles that I put there to pinpoint the exact points compared to the right side, so that it will get symetric.
Above you can see the seem I'm talking about and how it should look like. Don't mind the red cirkle around the boot.

The picture to the right is the same thing as the picture before, but here you can see that Iäve used a pen and a ruler to draw from every "point" that the needles pointed out. This marking is the one I'll use when put the coat under the sewing machine.

I think it's very important to get a symethric feeling to make it look clean and proffesional. It's the little details that does it. To make this small effort to make it look right is totally worth it. :)




You can see the result above, the photo to the right was just to show you how the fabric falls now after the "surgery".

So after this I wanted to cut the length of the coat, and also a bit on the front since it covers my legs a bit more than it should. I found some shoes I could use as a reference to get my own length right before I cut it. Then after some careful cutting I got this result.

At the picture the right you can se a red marking. That's the next step for me to do, to make it fall that way, if it's possible. I think it looks quite good right now too, but I think the ultimate fall would be if it got a bit lighter, and not as heavy as it is right now. (The heavier the fabric, the straighter fall. ) I really would like that "swooosh" effect when I walk around :D

I will end this entry with a photo of the fake boobs with it's bra since that is a project for itself ;) To make these goodies to look naturally big isn't the easiest task! But I believe it's important! You can see that I've cut of the flimsy fabric an made is a "bag" for one pair of the fake boobs. :P

So! What's next from this point of the process? Next thing is to make it fall exactly as I like, then I have to reinforce the seems with a zigzag seem next to it. Then After that I should be able to move forward to make the red inside! I'm looking forward to that :D


Swedish wordlist: Seem = Söm ZigZag =Zick Zack ? (en typ av söm som är starkare en raksöm) Surgery = Att bli opererad Authentic = Autentisk (Äkta) Medieval= Medeltida Sensitive = Känslig Armour= Rustning Repair = Laga Rip = Reva, Riva upp .




25 jan. 2010


Hi!

I've made some progress on Beatrix. Last time I wrote I had just made the left part and had begun with the right. Now they are both finished and together as one. However it's still lot's of work to do before I can begin with the lining. As you see on the pictures, it does not follow my body perfectly - I've made it a little bit to big, so I have to sew the seems a bit tighter to my body. I've left some of the "backline/seem" open, later on it's supposed to split but not that much. However, I wanted to be sure, and it's better to leave it open than to sew it and then have to cut it up again, leaving ugly holes from the thread. This fabric is very sesitive about that, and the holse after the thread is very noticable if you have to cut the seems up again. So I have to be very carefull before doing anything - It's quit a hard fabric to work with, but it looks really nice!
This is how it looks like at the inside:





This is how it looks like on the left side (my left) It's far from complete, and I'm not near satisifed yet. But well, it's the progress I've done so far, and I believe it has the potential to look really nice. You can see that I havn't cut it in the right length yet and that have a influence on the fall ofcourse...

When I've done something too big, and the wrong side of the fabric won't be visible on the final product, I usually just take a pencil and draw beside the seem I want to alter. I can do it like two V:s meeting eacother, or I just follow the seem I just did but some cm beside. Like this:



Well, that's it for now. Tomorrow I'll try to to the changes and make it follow my body more nicely, and hopefully I'll get further than that, There's a good chance that I'll cut the shoulders more accuarate and hopefully I'll begin to work on the length of the coat. The plan is to make it float over ground so that I'll get a more accurate picture how the fabric moves before I do anything else.

Wish me good luck!

22 jan. 2010

Beatrix, part III






Hello you who reads this :)

I've actually made some progress on my cosplay, Beatrix! After "years" of courage gathering, I finally managed to cut the fabric. Yeah, all of you who have ever done a cosplay knows the feeling. That feeling that it might get wrong, that as long as you don't start cutting it will still be fine, that absolute horror to make a mistake. You know it, I know it, and you who never felt it should still know it! But now, finally, I got myself to do it. And the results? Well, hard to say right now, but I havn't stepped at any minefields yet! so far so good.

Before I begin to update you on the latest, I want to urge you to lift on the phone and do something for Haiti. What if it happened to you? We need more humanity in this world, We need to care more for our "brothers and sisters" all around and help eachother.

Okey, first things first. I never ever just swing it and cut wildly in the fabric without any plan or thoughts behind it. First I draw out a pattern on a thin big paper thingie I don't know the name of, you can find it in any store - let's call it "pattern paper". After that, I nail the pattern paper attached to eachother and try it out on myself. Watch the needles, they're really sharp! After that I'll nail the pattern onto the fabric. A tip is to nail the needles in a "horizontal" way or else you'll strecth the fabric and it will be much harder to sew it right. Another tip is to look carefully on wich way you want the fabric to fall before you attach the pattern on it. If you need it to be stretchy, don't forget to test the fabric in which way it stretch by rubbing/pull it in different directions.


So, after I attached the pattern, I cut it - 1 cm beside the pattern, the regular measurment for an allowance. And begun to sew! Right now I've cut and sewed/stitched (sp?) the left part of the coat, and I've cut out the right part. It Still needs some finishing touches like that I need to cut the length, right now it's draging beneath me - But I'll do that when I have the right shoes on! I released that Beatrix has pretty high heels, so I wanted to be sure by making the coat insanely long! I also stitched all the seems two times, one with regular seem and one zic-zac (? dunno if that's the right word in english..)



What's next? Well, I've to sew the right part together. After that I've to test it on myself and make some adjustments to make it follow my figure nicely, The I'll have to cut the shoulder part at the back and the shoulders to make it look more accurate. And then it's time for the lining!


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Wordlist for you swedish readers:

courage= mod
allowance = sömnsmån
fabric = tyg
pattern paper = Mönster papper ?
nail/needle = Nål, i detta fall en synål med knopp på.
horizontal = Horisontal, är en riktning, denna riktning --------- inte |
Sp = Spelling, stavning. Sätts ofta i parantes efter ett ord man är osäker på hur det stavas.
high heels = Höga klackar
coat = Kappa
adjustments = förändringar
accurate = likt/exakt
lining = Fodring/Foder (det som finns i kappor och dylikt, inte foder som i mat.)

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8 jan. 2010

Hello!

Havn't made that much progress yet, but I felt urged to write something anyways so I thought I could bring up what I've done before I started the blog!

The first thing I did, before the fabrics, was to look around at a site called "Tradera.se". It's the same deal as ebay, just a swedish site for the same thing. I found lot's of interesting things I could use, but before I reveal what I actually bought I thought I could tell you something about the plan and why I wanted the stuff in the first place.


The corset
Since Beatrix wears a coat that seems to be tailor sewed after her body, I thought I could make use of a corset. But not only that! Beatrix belt defyies gravity as floating rock would, sooo therefor I hade to make up a plan how to make it "attach" to my hips. Here's where the corsette makes itself very useful. I thought to install two "hooks" in the corset, make two holes in the coat for the hooks to go through and install something at the innerside of the belt that goes on the hooks.

I think if the hooks are attached to the corset and not directly on the coat, I won't risk that the coat will get ripped nor that the fall and movement of the coat will be disturbed since no weight is put on the coats fabric.

However there is also a plan B! I might just decide to buy some strong magnets instead, but since I want to wear the sword in the belt, and that means weight - I'm not as fond of that idea.



Boobs of doom.
Have you noticed that Beatrix have one nice pair of boobs bouncing around like the girls in Soul Calibur III ? Well, my own arn't even near that big - which I'm pretty happy with, I like my own body it's not that! But, I always try to look as much as the characters I cosplay both in body and costume so how did I solve the body problem? I bought a pair of boobs ofcourse!

My natural womenly figure is an B-cup. Beatrix breasts are big, but I didn't want mine to get too big for my body. Did not want to ruin my proportions and make myself ugly and look like a failing plastic sergery case, so after testing some pairs at lingerie store, I decided to go for a C-cup. It looked really nice on my body, and to fill out the gap between my own breasts and the bra, I needed two pairs of silicons.

I bought one pair of wonderbra. Wonderbra is a silicon bra with glue on the backside that you put directly on you skin. I thought it could work nicely to make a beatuitful cleavage. After that I bought one pair of normal silicon breasts. The result? Excellent! :D



The wig
I've looked for the right colour several month! Mostly of my earlier wigs have all been bought at cosworx.com (I highly recomend this shop for you cosplayers out there!) But this time they didn't had the right color I wanted.

Beatrix hair color is hard to define. But I believe it's mix of brown, blonde in different shades. Most wigs were to dark, but I finally found a wig I wanted at Tradera! I'm very pleased with the result. The wig is a kanelekon fiber wig, and holds a high quality - and I got it really cheap!


The results
You might wonder how much all this costed? The bra, the two pair of fakes, the corsette and the wig only costed me: ~ 50 dollar. (about 500 SEK). I'm not totally sure exactly how much 'cuse it was some time ago I bought all this , but I believe it's fairly accurate.

If you want to buy things on the internet
Be patient, but not afraid! You can find really cool stuff for your cosplay if you have the guts :)

The photos
And I've finally learned not to use the flash when I take photos :) I was too lazy to put anything on myself, so the bra hangs loose and the corset too - but I hoped it could give you guys some idea of how it would looks like.

5 jan. 2010

Fabric bought!




Hey!

I finally bought some fabrics I feel very pleased with today! Havn't cut or sew anything yet, so I'm not sure if it will work out yet, but I really hope so. It took the last of my money, and had to borrow 50 bux from michel. Promise I will pay it back in the end of the month! Thanks you! Thanks to him I'll be able to finish the coat in Januari. If he didn't help me out I would have to wait for february!

The new fabric costed alot. 17 dollars a meter (169 SEK)! Needed 3 meters of the white, and 1,40 meters of the red. The red's costed 16 dollars a meter. So I had to pay about 73 dollars for it all (~729 SEK )! Damn, I've already payed about 87-88 dollars on the fabric on this cosplay. But I guess it's worth it.

How much time I've spent so far: ~ 10 hours.

4 jan. 2010


Hi!

I was at the fabric store today and tried to decide between some good fabrics I found. I've finally made up my mind about the red fabric, but I'm still uncertain about the white leather. I'm afraid that the fabric will still be too thick, even though this one is softer than the other I bought.

I've also studied some of my own jackets to learn how they make a regular coat. I think I've found some useful tips to use :)

I'll sleep at it and decide about the white leather to tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll have the right fabrics under the sewingmachine by the same time tomorrow! :)

The picture: Michel is helping me out in the fabric store!

3 jan. 2010

Hi!

The Cosplay so far
I'm, currently working on Beatrix from Final Fantasy IX. I've just started, so I havn't got that far yet. I've managed to make a pattern for the coat, and to buy som fabric. Unfortunately, the fabric where both in the wrong colour and too thick to move like I want. So, tomorrow the first thing after breakfast is getting to the fabric Shop, Tygverket in Stockholm, to buy thin fake leather (pleather?) for the coat. I found the fabric some month ago, but I wanted it thicker so I didn't buy it. I was totally wrong. So now I've already spent 40 dollars on fabric that is totally useless. *sight*
My plan
I have three month to get this ready for a convention in April called Uppcon. I've already got far with the sketching of how I'll make it. Right now I just have to.. well, making it :) So my schedule is this!

Januari: Coat and gloves finished.
Februari: Armour finished
Mars: Sword, boots and wig's ready. And hopefully the special effects for the sword too! (The special effects is secret right now.)

April: Training for the cameras ! And ofcourse, If I havn't got the whole costume ready for the convention, I still have some days to finish it all in April.

The Character (I'll try not to spoil to much of the game)
Beatrix is a Genereal of the Alexandrian army. (A city in the game) She's working directly for the Queen of Alexandria who doesn't seem that friendly. Beatrix are asigned some "evil" quests, and during some of these quests she meets up with the heros of the game. She seems to be one the bad guys in the game, and a powerfull one too. However, without telling too much, the plot has some twist in it and Beatrix will play another role than you first thought.