Happy Hunger Games!

Okay, that's probably not the best sentiment, given that it's about a bunch of kids killing each other. But, imagine it in Effie's voice, and it makes more sense;)

I decided to go ahead with the Effie costume, and damn SDCC. I know it will be expensive, but I never, ever make myself anything without some kind of excuse, and I end up passing on a lot of projects I want to do because of that. I'm not saying this marks the beginning of a period of willy-nilly spending on crazy costumes. But, I have decided to make this one just for me, and I hope to find reasons to wear it out. I'll certainly show progress to y'all, so at least you can appreciate it;)

And now, let the 74th Hunger Games begin! (Man, if I was a Tribute, I'd be toast.)

Chicago Comic-con 2010!

Another Comic-con come and gone; my last here in chicago. Next year it'll be SDCC, but this year Wizard World was a little more like San Diego, I gotta say. There were some bigger names there than in years previous: Brent Spiner (Data!), Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn, James Marsters (still dreamy!), Nicholas Brendan, and yes, the Shat was there. I even saw Bill Shatner for about two seconds. It was awesome;)

Tab and A pulleed together amazing-looking Steampunk costumes from what we had around the house. One of the perks of living with a costumer;) They got, by far, the most picture requests, and it's pretty easy to see why!

This was the only other person in an Iron Man costume, and I'm really glad we ran into each other;) Almost literally ran into each other; it was super-crowded!

There were a couple other Steampunkers there, but I think Tab and A looked the best, by far;)

It wouldn't really be Comic-Con without the 501st, would it?

This was a pretty awesome-looking group.

After wandering around for awhile looking for him, exchanging phone calls and voicemails, we finally bumped into our dad. He had just finished getting a picture with Bill Shatner.

I'm so glad we ran into Kitty Zombie before we left too! He is so much fun; I wish we had had more time to play, but we were on our way out!

There were a few cool costumes walking around, but not nearly as many as I was expecting . . .

All in all, we had fun, but it was ten-times more crowded than it has been in years previous. I guess that's preparing my for SDCC!

My highlight of the day was getting the chance to chat informally with John deLancie, who played one of my favorite characters on Star Trek: TNG, Q. It was nice to get to shake his hand and tell him how much I loved the role; I had kind of a mini-nerdgasm. Overall, a pretty good day;)

Black Widow Diary: Part 2

Time to make some bullet bracelets, folks.

One of the most interesting projects for the Black Widow costume has been her iconic accessory; since Black Widow's introduction in the comics, she has worn bracelets made from very long, high-caliber bullets. I knew they had to be included in my repro, but it took a little figuring out. I tried to find empty bullet casings or blanks, but was unsatisfied with what I found: either overpriced or just not the right shape ot size. Enter the crafter.

What you will need:

-5 wooden dowels

-sculpy clay

-hack saw

-sandpaper

-hot glue gun

-silver and black spray paint

-clear stretch filament thread

-tape measure

Directions:

1. I started with the dowels. These are 1/2" dowels, and they seemed about right in width. I looked at the pics of Scarlett and figured that the shafts of the bullets should be around 3 1/2" long; if you want to, you can look up how long the bullets actually are, but I was going on appearance. Using a pencil and tape measure, I marked each dowel in 3 1/2" intervals.

2. Next, I took my trusty hacksaw and went to work. A lot of the time the dowel would break or split before I was finished sawing through it; given that they are 1/2" diameter balsa wood, this was unsurprising. It's no big deal, though; once I sawed through the pieces, I used sandpaper to smooth both ends, and that took care of any jagged pieces. The wood is so thin that even scissors might work on any pieces that might be sticking up. Once I had 42 pieces of wood, cut and sanded, I was ready to make the bullet heads.

3. I used the rounded, bullet-shaped end of a gel-ink pen as my positive mold. It was the perfect size and shape! Using a small block of sculpy clay, I pushed the end of the pen into it to make my negative, and baked the mold for around a half-an-hour at 275-degrees; follow the directions on your clay for this! Then, I made lots of bullet heads. Forming the clay into skinny logs I pushed them into the molds and then cut them off to the correct length. When I had 42 bullet heads, they went back into the oven at 275 and baked for about 15 minutes.

4. Once the bullet heads were cooled, I hot-glued them to each of the dowels. What I ended up with was a sharp reminder of just how phallic bullets really are;)

5. In a sturdy shoe box, I spray painted the bullets, first in silver, which gave them a very bright, flat silver look, then dusted them in black to give them a more gun-metal appearance.

6. Finally, using the filament thread, I tied the bullets together at the top and bottom, knotting each one into place and leaving long trailing ends so they can be tied onto my wrists on Saturday. Thanks for the help with this, Tegan!

A few notes: Measure your wrists and then calculate how many bullets you'll need to make to encircle them. My wrists are pretty skinny, so I only needed 42 bullets, but you might need more or less. If you want more of a chrome look, there are chrome sprays out there that could work, but I didn't have the time to search for them. Chicago has a law against selling spray paint in the city limits, and I just didn't feel like hunting through the suburbs to find what I needed.

I'll post pics after Saturday of the finished costume! Can't wait for Comic-con!

Black Widow Diary: Part 1

As promised: here's part 1 of the Black Widow Dress Diary. I thought the convention was this past Saturday so I rushed to get things done, but now it turns out I have an extra week! Yay! More time for procrastination!

Anyway, I started, as I always do, with analyzing the actual costume. While some pictures make the bodysuit look black (as the original comic book costume is), watching the film and seeing the costume brightly lit reveals that it is actually navy blue. So, I picked up a navy blue spandex zentai suit as my base garment, and cut the gloves off:

Pretty non-descript and boring, right? Well, here's where it gets interesting: Scarlett's costume has grey princess-seamed piping down the front and back. I had a perplexing problem to solve: how do I put piping, which is generally a stabilizer, down something that stretches? If I'd had a little more time and money to solve the issue, I probably would have sought out stretch grey lycra binding and a thicker rope-elastic to serve as piping, but instead I gave myself a challenge, and used rattail and grey grosgrain. I just love a challenge. 

While the bodysuit was on, I marked points at my shoulders, center bust, natural waist, knee, and ankle, and then connected the dots, so to speak. My assistant (thanks, Tegan!) did quite a bit of this, since I couldn't reach everything myself!

Then, still wearing the suit and standing straight, we pinned the grosgrain and marked the same notches, so I could match the bodysuit to the piping once the bodysuit was no longer stretched to my body shape. I unpinned the rbbon and sewed it over the rattail to create the piping, and then sliced the bodysuit up the lines I had drawn and sanwiched the piping into the seams, stretching and pinning the suit to match up the notches I had drawn earlier, and sewing the piped princess seams into the suit.

 It looked very wrinkly until I put it on, and then everything stretched out perfectly! Yay!

 However, given the chance to do this again, I would definitely make the extra effort to use stretchy piping. The non-stretch ribbon pulls tight and doesn't really allow me to sit down in the suit; it's sewn to give a smooth appearance when I'm standing, but stretches too tight when I bend! Oh well. Who wants to see Black Widow sitting down, anyway? ;)

Everything is very nearly done. I'm not wearing the bullet bracelets yet; a post is coming about them soon. I need to attach the S.H.I.E.L.D. patch and the drop thigh holster too. But, otherwise, Black Widow is ready to kick some ass next Saturday!

What do you think, dear readers?

Black Widow Coming Soon . . .

We're coming up on Chicago Comic Con 2010; there's just a little over a week to go! Woo hoo! I guess that means I'd better finish my costume;)

This year by popular demand I'm going as Black Widow from Iron Man 2. So far, I've assembled the navy blue unitard, utility belts, gun holster, gloves, and boots. I need to add piping to the suit, paint the belts the correct colors, fix the gloves (sadly huge at the wrist), and attach the S.H.I.E.L.D. patch I made. I'll take pics as I progress, and post them here, of course!

Now, if only I could look as tiny as Scarlett in my unitard . . .

And the Winner Is . . .

Taking into account the comments on my blog, on my Facebook page, and my own assessment of the cost/labor ratio, the winner for which costume I'm making for Chicago Comic Con is:

Black Widow!

As though the picture above didn't already clue you in;)

Stay tuned for dress diaries!

*I just found out that Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, James Marsters and (drum roll) William Shatner are going to be there this year! Eeep! (brain explodes from geek-happiness)

Wizard World Revamp . . .

Well, I've finally reached the point where I need to be realistic about time and money for this summer, and shift my costuming plans.

Every year for Wizard World in August, I try to go all-out and do some fantastic outfit for myself and my sister. Some previous looks:

Inara and Zoe from Firefly, Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter and Silk Spectre from Watchmen,

Calypso and Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (with a very cool Jack Sparrow!),

Anakin Skywalker and the Emperor Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith, Phoenix from X3,

Asajj Ventriss and Shaak Ti, from the Clone Wars

Don't feel bad if you're not familiar with all these characters or the films or shows they come from; I know most people are not the huge geeks that we are;) Still, you can see I like to try to pull out all the stops for the one event a year where I get to wear something non-historical.

This year is tough. I had originally planned to do two costumes from Alice in Wonderland, then, I had to scale it back to one, and now . . . well, I think I'll be able to do the White Queen for Halloween, but probably not for the summer. Instead, I have to pick something easier and cheaper.

Here are my two ideas:

Kaylee from Firefly, or Black Widow from Iron Man 2. Either one would require some outlay of cash, but not a huge amount. This is my last comic con here in Chicago, so I want to go out without a bang without driving myself insane.

What do you think, dear readers? Ideas? Opinions? What costume do you think I should make for Wizard World/Chicago Comic Con this year?

Update:

Vote on the left sidebar for your choice! I'll make a decision at the end of the month!

Queen of Hearts-Preliminary Costume Analysis

You'll have to open the images below to see my commentary on the costume. Please send me any questions of suggestions in the comments section!

New Projects for Next Year . . .

Yup; I'm just that stupid. It's not as though I don't already have plans for some ridiculously ornate Halloween/Birthday dresses for the end of this year, but I'm already starting to plan next year's stuff.

Seeing as it's my last year for Chicago Comic-Con, I want to go out with a bang. Silk Spectre and Bellatrix were such a hit, but I have always loved doing groupings of costumes that go together. Add to this my general geek-girl worship of Colleen Atwood and my affection for Tim Burton films, and you get obvious choices for the costumes next year: The Queen of Hearts and the White Queen.

The QoH has an obviously Elizabethan-inspired ensemble, which is exciting to me, as it's something I can basically build in my sleep. The difficulty will come chiefly in finding the overskirt fabric, which seems to be a light-to-medium weight gold brocade. Good thing I'm giving myself plenty of time to look!

As for the WQ, it's tough to see a whole lot of detail at this point. I've gone ahead and purchased 3mm hot-fix rhinestones for the sheer sleeves, and I've gotten some white lace with metallic gold threads running through it, but it's going to take a little while before any better images come out of her in costume. I'll have to wait to do my in-depth analysis until later.

I'm excited about the QoH, however, and I'll probably start analyzing her costume in the coming weeks; look for posts on that to come.

Once again, I think my sister and I will kick all sorts of ass at Comic-Con next year; I'd better make it one to remember!