tales from the orient, another alice (4)

Finally blogging about how I made the kabuki mask at the back of Alice's dress. I'm not 100% pleased with how it turned out but I'm sure I'll work on a new version sometime soon for my photoshoot.




 Hopefully you can get a basic idea of how I tweaked an existing mask that I bought for $4 at a Halloween store. I didn't have time to take TOO many pictures but you can see I have cut out the eyes and mouth based on the reference images I gathered (yes that is the official Alice:Madness Returns artbook!!)

I used clay for the eyebrows but knew I needed something very light to create the saggy cheeks and fat nose. I should have used foam but I was really running low on time, so I ended up using puffy fabric paint to create the raised areas--I smoothed the unevenness of the fabric paint out w/ some sculpting tools.




To make sure I could attach the mask to the bow itself, I needed to fill in the back somehow. Luckily I grabbed some packaging foam from work to glue into the mask. I then glued a piece of felt w/ some snaps sewn onto it--I used snaps again to attach the mask to the bow. I used tacky glue and a hot glue gun, which worked extremely well and this costume lasted 3 entire days.


 

Yeah yeah my apartment is messy but I'm always working on stuff :< !!!

I spray painted the mask with primer first, then with Montana Gold spray paint. The BLACK areas are actually a very dark grey I applied with an airbrush.



 Geh, my dress is wrinkly from all the sitting down I did (kind of) at the 2 conventions I wore this to! I did spray a gloss over the mask when the paint was all done.

tales from the orient, another alice (3)

Here's a quick post on how I made the Omega necklace for this particular Alice:Madness Returns outfit. After staring at reference image after reference image, I realized the string of the necklace wasn't a flimsy string--it was wired, round. To make things easier for myself I bought a wired jewelry choker for $2. I wrapped the wire with embroidery floss, applying tacky glue onto the wire as I wrapped the floss tightly around.




For the pendant, I used DAS clay and sculpted the Omega. Before drying, I cut a piece of craft wire and created the loop for the pendant. I let the sculpt dry and sanded the surface smooth. I painted the first layer of green using the Jacquard fabric paints I always use--I already have a ton of paint and these have a metallic finish that I really like. I let that dry, then brushed my shimmering white Jacquard paint over the entire pendant, quickly wiping away with a dry towel. I added some teal accents (you can't really see it though), let that dry as well.

tales from the orient, another alice (2)

I realized that almost every single project I work on involves bias binding, which I call the ragequit of sewing. Especially since I usually end up making my own bias binding, I always have a ton of scraps leftover I can't ever use for another project since the colors I choose are always so damn obscure.

On this project especially, I had to use bias binding to finish all the edges of my silk pieces... which is basically the entire dress. Overlocking the edges of a silk piece is blasphemy. Never do it. Merrow edges are ok but those are mostly decorative anyways. I just think overlocking the edge of a silk piece lessens the quality of using silk in the first place (or maybe I just like to torture myself). I used bias strips cut from the lining fabric, which was a soft acetate. Still very difficult to sew considering my silk was stretch silk and the lining is very thin as well. The hem of the skirt is finished with self bias binding (the silk). You can imagine how long this took me, I pretty much wanted to call it a night after sewing the entire hem.


One of these days I better take a picture of all the damn bias binding I cut in one year.
 Bias-bound edges for the silk pieces.
Lining pieces are overlocked ^

There is 1 zipper along the side of the dress as I did not want to put a zipper along the center back--I thought it would look cheap and gross.

For the cuffs, I pinned 3/8" width satin ribbon (this costume had a triple whammy-- silk charmeuse, double faced satin ribbon, AND bias binding=ragequit) and stitched these very carefully in place. Yes I interfaced the cuffs. I hand-gathered the sleeves along the cap (not along the entire cap, for a total width of 5", which was reduced to 3") I hand-gathered the bottom of the sleeve to fit my cuffs. Sewing cuffed sleeves are easy unless you have a tiny ass bicep and you have to end up hand-sewing the cuff along the inside because you can't wedge the fabric between the machine arm and the needle. For me it is easier to sew the entire sleeve piece, then attach the sleeve to the armhole because I don't want to have to deal with handling the entire dress just to sew on a damn cuff or something.




You can see that the ribbon does not match along the cuff seam--I didn't mind this because the ribbon is randomly placed in the reference images. Also, unless someone is staring underneath your arms, nobody is really going to notice this.

If you're going to be hand-gathering a lightweight fabric such as silk charmeuse, I highly suggest loosening your stitch tension and gently tugging the fabric while sewing to help the fabric move along smoothly. Or you could buy a walking foot that might make it easier. I will probably need to invest in one as I've been sewing all kinds of different things these days.

The petticoat is shown as below. I overlocked all the edges as you can see. If you sew a lot I suggest you spend the money and buy a serger, this one was about $300-$350 and you can use it for knits as well. I have the option of switching between a single-needle and double-needle option, which is great. Totally worth your money if you sew alllllll the time.




I sandwiched the ruffle as below, and you can see how using these 2 colors creates a cool effect.


 Hand-gathered. This piece ended up being about 7 - 8' long, so I was sitting here gathering fabric for quite a while....

The pink layer is on the outside, yellow on the inside.




To finish up the dress, I had to sew the ruffles/pleats--I chose to go with pleats--at the center front. I used the leftover linen from my apron fabric and hand-pleated the trim. I just eyed the pleats as I stitched because I'm lazy and didn't want to mark equal distances on my pleats. Don't be lazy ok?



I sandwiched the pleats between the lining and the self fabric, right sides together. After you turn both inside out, you will have a beautiful clean edge as my photos below. It takes a bit of time and there's a ton of ironing involved but it's totally worth it. I don't even iron my day-to-day clothes on a regular basis.

Aaaaand here's a preview of what I've got so far! Yes the petticoat is sticking out a bit too much so I'll have to reduce it from the waistband area.




The only things left for me to do on this dress are to sculpt the necklace, dye the obi ties, and make the mask to finish the obi. I will be purchasing the stockings and boots.

tales from the orient, another alice (1)

Well of course I started working on another Alice:Madness Returns cosplay! I have a couple huge projects lined up for next year so I had to choose a costume that would be relatively "simple" to make, but not so simple that I would be unmotivated to work on it diligently. I love the colors from the "Oriental" dress from the game-- this Chapter was my 2nd favorite, I really enjoyed the side-scrolling levels and those samurai mosquito enemies, lol. The environment was just gorgeous, by the way, if I could cosplay as that entire Chapter I would, but that's... just not physically possible, no.



image from deviantart, via albertorayman

So this dress will suffice. I already knew which fabrics I wanted to use for this costume--a silk charmeuse for the exterior, because I read that the silk from this dress was supposedly made from the silk spun from the Caterpillar. Ok well I wasn't aware that he was a silk-spinning Caterpillar, what a strange world Alice lives in. But I couldn't very well use polyester charmeuse on such a gorgeous dress, so let me believe that the Caterpillar spun silk from his butt and this is the material that Alice wore in the Chapter.



First sample that I always cut for fit reasons.

And of course the silk charmeuse I ended up having to paint.... using Jacquard Lumiere pants again. I think I should have used the Neopaques, which are not metallic, but this effect is not bad. I used weights while cutting out the silk pieces because my silk had a bit of stretch. The pin holes are too obvious as well, they don't disguise as well on silk since it is so delicate.



 You need to use a lot of painter's tape so the silk does not shift around while you paint.
Had to paint everything...

For the "petticoat", I wanted to use organza. I thought it would look more ethereal if the fabric was slightly sheer, so I chose 2 different colors of organza for a more interesting effect. I actually used polyester organza because I needed something very stiff. Silk organza would be too pricey and it would have too much drape. I did not want drape.



 I used two colors for the effect I wanted, here's the yellow, looking kind of pink..
 The pink organza...
The two put together, you can tell the yellow is on top, and it's kind of hard to see because of the wonky lighting in my apartment, but I'll take better pictures when the petticoat is finished and you can see how the color changes depending on where the light is hitting it/movement of the skirt.

For the obi I wanted to use a slightly more matte fabric that still had some kind of sheen and interesting texture to it, so I used silk dupioni again. The light pink is 100% silk, the bright pink is rayon/silk blended, the texture is smoother and it has better drape. I was very fortunate to find the colors I was looking for! This obi would also use a snap closure as per the previous costume, and I wanted it to keep its shape so I added a backing to the underside of this obi as well. At the front of the obi are 2 bright cords in blue and turquoise. I just bought white rattail to dye for this.



Double-faced because that's how the obi looks in the reference photos.

The apron, I decided to make it as a separate piece. Because I think of every costume I make as "actual clothing", I would assume that the apron is not attached to the dress, what if she wants to wear the dress without the apron and obi? To me, it looks more realistic when certain pieces of the costume are not all sewn together, but are separate/different components, as if this character was truly putting on each piece to create this outfit. Anyway, that's just what I think, so I made the apron its own piece with tie and everything. It closes with snaps as well so that it is not bulky at the back, underneath the obi.



AND MORE PAINTING. I painted this 3x before I actually found it acceptable. You'll notice it's not perfectly symmetrical and my line weight is uneven. I was okay with this because the lines aren't straight or even in the concept art.

The designs were all painted with my favorite Jacquard fabric paint, as always. These little jars aren't the cheapest paints ever but seriously if you're going to put time into a costume you're making you gotta use the best materials when you can. These jars are about $5-$6 each, and depending on how much paint you use, each jar can last you a while. Luckily for me I already had a turquoise leftover from my Xianghua costume last year! Hurray for obscure colors! I wanted the apron to have some kind of texture, so I used linen again; it doesn't look completely shiny or completely flat, I just thought it would look kinda cheap if I used a basic cotton fabric.

The sewing on this costume will not be extremely difficult but working with silk is kind of a bitch so it will most definitely be time-consuming. Not gonna lie, this costume has already cost me a little over $100 because I decided to use an entire family of silkworms.