4 posts tagged “rose bernstein”
Lo and behold it is done (mostly). Okay, so I need to make the bow in the back and my attempt at styling the wig like her hair looked craptacular so i opted for this untainted wig instead of the gnarly-gross wig. BUT I still totally dig this costume. And OMG the shoes were absolutely ripping apart my feet. There is a reason Ms.illiara does not wear heels and instead sports her combat boots daily. :P
Remaining Tasks
- Wig (style)
- Bow
The minor changes I made that seems like small things, but make all the difference have mainly been made to the over-skirt. The farthingale underneath was causing me to have a very squat shape so I took in the waist cincher part a bit more to give me more contour as opposed to looking like I have a 2-inch torso. hee hee hee. Also, the waist cincher wasn't connecting with the top as ideally as I would've liked and kept slipping down so I resolved to baste it into place. This is actually something I may hand sew in the car on the way down because god knows that I will have ample time o the drive to Arizona and with only a few short evenings free for working on this available before the con, I need to utilize my time to the best of my abilities.
The under-skirt showed a bit of ribbing from the farthingale sneaking through texturally so I made a 2nd layer. This also helped hid seam lines in a tidy manner, which I am more than pleased about. The elastic waist that I had planned was thwarted when it occured to me that no matter how wide my zig zag stitch was set to, the fabric simply did not have enough give to merit using elastic effectively. A simple solution to this was adding a hidden zipper. Hurrah for fast and easy solutions!
Lastly, I would like to add a flounce to the lower hem of the over-skirt to allow for a slightly longer skirt length. When I walk around you can see red peeking out when the over-skirt raises slightly. A flounce should stop that dead in its tracks. AND (dare I say) help to hide the seam lines, which is like my all time favorite thing ever; the more hidden seam lines I have the better!
I think a stop to the hardware store is in my immediate future so I can get the needed items for the successful styling of the wig and a wire frame for the gianormous bow on the back. No wimpy, drooping bows here! I also hope to have all but the gloves completed fro Adelheid by tonight. Phew! Only 15-20 hours available in my schedule to finish these! I wish I had access to a camera for AMPLE picture updates.
- Underskirt (10% complete)
- Waist Cincher (90% complete)
- Wig (style)
- Bow
Wow! Almost finished! And just in time for Anizona! The only thing that bugs me about the costume are the drastically varying fabric choices that I see in my reference pictures. Some feature a rose pattern and other do not. I opted for not because when I initially began fabric shopping I bought plain red fabric and then found more pics and saw the discrepancy. T_T Ah well, no big issue.
Making that waist cincher was a lesson to be sure! It was my very first time working with boning (as I had previously mentioned) and I didn't think to consider that it would not fold when I had to finish my hem lines. >_< It turned out to be no big deal though because all I needed to do was make a few careful snips and be on my way. The cording brought my waist cincher and my over-skirt together without a hitch, I am pleased to report. However, It doesn't come to as sharp of a V as I would've liked. Perhaps there is something I can do about this. Hmmmmmm. Also, My farthingale turned out to be just slightly longer than my skirt so I merely added a flounce and TA-DA problem solved!
Her top has the added detail of rouging simply because I dig it. Considering I am not working from solidified details, I see no problem with taking a few slight liberties in the construction of this costume. Besides, Rose Bernstien is such an appallingly obscure character that no one is going to chastise me for rouging the top. :P I bought her shoes at the Fashion District on Saturday. And because there are absolutely ZERO pictures of her shoes, I opted to buy an adorable pair that I thought best suited the costume. I think they go rather well.
Lastly, I finished up my tiara. I took the spray painted base that I had previously done and measured out the metal that was to be cut and adhered to the backside to get the red interior. It took a few attempts to get the measuring right. Mainly, it was just a lot of eyeballing. I spray painted the interior and let it dry before hot gluing it to the back of the tiara. Realizing that hot glue is utter shit, I quickly removed it and super glued it instead. This came out with a far cleaner finish. Yay! Last thing to do was to change my cubic zirconium from white to red. Success!
All that is left is the underskirt, which should take me all of 30 minutes to complete and the bow, which should take me about the same amount of time. Oh yea, errrr, and styling my wig, which actually has me rather intimidated. T_T Wish me luck! Pics to come when I borrow a friend's camera! Failing that there is always the terrible quality of my camera phone. T_T
- Underskirt
- Overskirt (10% complete)
- Waist Cincher (50% complete)
- Tiara (80% complete)
- Bow
- Wig
Sadly, my room mate left the digital camera in the men's bathroom of Downtown Disney so there will not be any suitable picture updates for a little while. :( As much as this makes me one sad panda, it is not enough to stop my rampage of progress! This weekend I progressed on three costumes!
Next we browsed around for both the red and black fabrics needed, which we found with relative ease. However, locating suitable piping that matched the color of the red fabric proved slightly more difficult. In the end, I found some beautiful corded piping that was just the right thickness and color at the back of one of the last fabric stores that we popped into before the district started closing up shop. I'm going to deviate from the chronological order of events for a minute so I can discuss the progression of items as they come up. I think it should be easier to follow that way. ; )
Later that night, I created my muslin mock-up for the waist cincher and subsequently cut the fabric for it. This was my first time working with boning (the name at which my friends incessantly displayed their mirth when I declared that I had run out and "needed more boning") and I found it to be far less intimidating than I had initially thought. I decided to sew the boning to the interfacing rather than to the fabric so I could hide the seam lines and work on a more solid foundation. It worked. : ) In my haste to complete the waist cincher, however, I finished the edges on the lower portion when I had meant to do so to the top. Needless to say, that lead to seam-ripping goodness. : P Tonight I plan on attaching the outer skirt to the waist cincher and finishing up the eyelets and piping. But I digress.
Now back to the day at hand! Finding a suitable base for the tiara was far more difficult than I would have imagined. There was an over abundance of Quinceañera tiaras displaying their shimmering "15" smack dab in the middle. I would have preferred to have gotten one without a "15" emblazoned on the front, but if all else failed, I always had my power tools handy. :D Luckily, we ducked into one final shop before heading out and found what we were looking for! I brought it home and spray painted it the correct color. Now all I have to do is replace the old cubic zirconium with the correct red color as the entire tiara had initially been entirely white/silver. The search for the tiara was mighty frustrating because I swear that vendors in the LAFD act more like car salesmen than they do shop owners. Ugh!
Remaining Tasks
- Gloves (attach gauntlets)
- Tie (prototype complete)
Following our exhaunt of the Fashion District, we headed over to an army surplus store where I bought an old ammunition box and medical rucksack to convert for my Aprile cosplay. I got some nicely textured, matte spray paint to give it more of a grungy feel rather than having it gleam with fresh paint. All that is left to do on that is the detailing! For the rucksack I went through four bottles of So-Soft Fabric Paint and have still yet to complete the painting! I anticipate getting that all wrapped up tonight though. :) Which means that the only thing remaining for my Aprile cosplay are the gauntlets (which will also be used for both my Delta and Alpha Cammy) and the shortening/thinning of the tie. Can't wait until completion!!!
The last cosplay that I vigorously pursued last weekend was one of my few "secret projects". Shhhhh!
>_>
<_<
I focused primarily on the dying for that project, after three separate dying sessions came out utterly fabulous! This Secret Side Project of mine is now completed and ready for shooting, which is scheduled to happen this weekend. All that is left is picking up some blonde hair extensions and I'm good to go! This project is never likely to appear at any con; it was more something that I did because I found it too humorous to pass up. Besides, I think Stefan will get a huge kick out of it, too.
COMPLETE PHOTO SET SCHEDULED TO BE UPLOADED MARCH 19, 2007
