Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Making Alice

I don't intend for this to be a "how to make" post. I just wanted to show what and how I made it so maybe it helps someone out a little. Or if anyone for whatever reason wants proof I made it, well here it is..

This was the first cosplay I've made entirely by myself with no help. I'm pretty excited about it and it's made me feel much more confident when it comes to sewing.

My reference if anyone doesn't know who I'm creating. Alice from American Mcgee's Alice Madness Returns wonderland dress.

Anyway to start I made this dress using a modified McCalls M4948 pattern.

   Simple enough

My dog is helping sew of course. And by helping I mean making it very difficult..

Just following the pattern right now. If you need help reading the pattern I suggest youtubing it. that's what I did to figure out the hieroglyphics in them.

This is where some adjusting came in. As you can see from the picture on the pattern the apron top is square, so I had to make it a swoop neck and bring the apron's shape in on the bottom so it would look more like Alice's. I also had to make a back to match the front since Alice's apron comes down in the back, and the pattern had no back.

Coming together following the pattern.

The most frustrating part of this cosplay was these damn "poof sleeves" as I call them. It was so hard to get the adjusted so they weren't ridiculously large and they still ended up imo a little too big but i got over it. I hated gathering them UGH..

FINALLY got the sleeve attached to the bodice. I ended up adding the cuff and doing the same on the other side. After I put the first sleeve on I left the dress for a while because it was such a pain for me.

After the sleeves were attached I added the bottom of the dress. There was A LOT of hand basting done to make that happen. The pattern also made the dress way longer then I wanted it so next I had to shorten it. After this point i didn't get as many WIP pics because I was rushing to get it done 2 days before a con (freaking procrastination)..

I shortened it and added some white cotton trim. I don't know the official name for the type of trim for it >.> it has little eyelets on it though.

Again missing some pics after this but I basically added the bottom of the apron and the waist band. I improvised at this point because the bow is completley different then the pattern. I made a long waitst bad that tied in the back. I made a square of fabric with some stiff interfacing in it and tied it in the center with the waistband making a big bow! It would have looked really wierd if the skull didn't cover it. There was probably a better way to make this but with my lack of sewing knowledge and being short on time, this was simply going to have to work. The skull was just a table top skull decoration from the Halloween store and I attached a clip to the back of it with hot glue so it could come on and off of the bow easily.

^ Here's an example. This also shows the back where I put in the invisible zipper. It was my first time ever putting in one and my friend who is a professional seamstress told me she even still had problems with them so I was overjoyed to put in mine -_- (sarcasm) but it actually wasn't THAT bad. It definitely didn't turn out perfect but way better than I had though it would.

I made my own pattern for the pockets and added the Jupiter and Iris sybols to them using a double sided iron on fabric attacher stuff I found (I have no idea what it was called sorry) I cut the symbols out of black fabric and applied them using that.

When I debut it at Nebkon it wasn't completely done I suppose. I didn't add any blood to it, not because of a time issue but because I had just made my first dress on my own and didn't want to "ruin" it. I did later but I was really hesitant at first. I figured it's easier to Photoshop blood out of a dress then put it on there an make it look consistent. I also decided to scrap my first Omega necklace because I decided it was WAY to large.

Me at Nebkon

So to make Omega Necklace 2.0 I used the exact same method I used for the first one.

I made it out of sculpty and baked it. Then I was going to paint it with some metallic silver acrylic paint I bought but for some reason it wasn't going on well so I decided to spray paint it with some silver I already had.

After that I cut a piece of wire and made a loop out of it, hot glued the loop to the back of the symbol. Then I used a jewelry loop and attached a chain I made using some jewelry clasps.

For the blood...

I decided to used acrylic paint. Don't ask me why. I had some spray on special effects blood but it was too red and fake looking and unpredictable when sprayed. So made my own color using acrylic paints and painted it on. I probably won't be able to wash the dress because of that (it's retired anyway) and I realize I should have used fabric paint but I was in a hurry and I like acrylic soo yeah..

I was trying to get as close to the art on the cover of the game as possible.

BLOOD!! Yummy.

Wig was from Epic Cosplay because Arda didn't have what I needed in stock. And the contacts are Dolly Eye Green bought from PinkyParadise. My friend from Linda Pop Designs did my makeup for me for the con and my photoshoot.

And so the end result is...

American McGee's Alice Cosplay

The end result! I made a hobby horse as well which is not shown. You can see the info on how I made it HERE My photo were taken by Max Phillips http://www.modelmayhem.com/1728741 My makeup was done by Linda http://linda-pop.deviantart.com/ If you want to see the rest of the photos from our photo shoot go to my deviantart account http://missqueenkong.deviantart.com/ If you have any questions or if I forgot something feel free to ask and i'll answer best I can. Thanks for stopping by

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Nebraskon (We only went for Wheatfields)

I attended Nebraskon was this weekend (Nov 4th-6th) in Omaha Nebraska and I have to say it was a blast! I went with my best friend Linda, and my good friends Jas and Nam. Nebraskon is a fairly small convention (as most midwest con's are) and to be honest I wasn't expecting a whole lot. But they ended up really wowing me! They did a great job this year. There was a great turn out with a lot of great cosplays, and the cosplay competition (which we joined) had a HUGE turn out and awesome crowd. All in all I was very happy with it and I'm hoping to go next year as well. We didn't win anything for our cosplays but I got some great feedback on my Alice cospay, as well as me and Linda's Miku and Luka Magnet cosplays so it was well worth it.

I have pictures to share!

First is my Alice cosplay was Debuted and I had so much fun wearing this and carrying around my Hobby Horse! It was all made by me.

            

I wanted to show off my amazing makeup. My friend Linda is a professional seamstress, makeup artist, costume designer, hair dresser, and fashion designer, so I am very fortunate to have such a skillful friend. Her work can be found here http://linda-pop.deviantart.com/ She did all my makeup for the weekend, and I got a lot of compliments on it. With Alice, getting her makeup right is really important for the cosplay. People are very critical of those who don't get it right and I didn't want to be on the receiving end of that :/ But I don't know how to makeup. I'm not good at being girly. So she took over and rocked it!

MY green contacts are Dolly Eye Green brand and I bought them from PinkyParadise.com They are so comfortable and make a very dramatic effect!

             

A rear view of my Alice Cosplay.

             

There's Alice! Got this awesome picture of me, my hobby horse Edgar, and the best Old Spice Guy cosplayer ever Bill!!

I cosplayed as Alice on friday and although I had a few rude comments from some guys about my hobby horse I overall had such a good time being her. A friend of mine is going to take some professional photos of the cosplay later on and they will be up on my deviantart page. I'm going to make some adjustments before then.

Anyway next day me and Linda went as the Vocaloids Miku and Luka Magnet Version.

If you don't know what those are this is what they look like...

                

The nice thing about this cosplay is that the original art for these two does not show the bottom half of their dresses so it's left up to interpretation by the fans! Me and Linda had fun designing them and we made them by ourselves. She hand drafted patterns for both of them and told me how to sew mine (since I'm still learning). I had to hand gather over ten yards of fabric for the bottom ruffle on the dress and while doing so I was like;

                         

Holy crap that was the worst sewing expierence I've had thus far.
NEVER AGAIN!! LOL

BUT! The finished product was worth it!!

             

Look at us!! We loved how they turned out! So much hard work! Linda once again did my makeup and did a fantastic job. We made our Headphones as well, and Linda styled her wig.

    

    

     (lol my face XD)

    

Sorry for low camera resolution. But there we are! We entered these in the cosplay competition. Didn't win anything but we got a great reaction from the crowd :) She is the best Miku ever!! <3

               

One last close up of my makeup by Linda. Contacts are Dolly Eye Blue from Pinky Paradise.

    

We are dumb lol

Linda's amazing friend Borin took some professional photos of us, and again those will be on my deviant art when they are done.

Speaking of Borin...

    

THERE HE IS! ADVENTURE TIMEEEE!!! I <3 this guy. He is fantastic.

We also ran into our doubles!! This was so weird they we like younger versions of us! They were so sweet too.

The last day was pretty chill. We hung out at my friend Jas' Artist table in the vender hall. He is an amzing artist. Please go see his works http://ca-jas.deviantart.com/

There he is with Edgar XD lol

      

And the last noteable expierence was my first trip to Wheatfields the resturant!

          

           (oh my insulin..)

       

       (Breakfast of god's)

If you are ever in Omaha GO TO WHEATFIELDS!!

Last to share is my con swag. There wasn't much so I'll just share the most amazing thing I got...

                  

A bust of Asuka one of my favorite characters which was signed by her voice actor Tiffany Grant! Meeting Tiffany was amazing she was so nice!!

For now that pretty much sums it up. Check out my deviant art for official cosplay photos and say hi to me here if you like.