Hi folks! Have you missed me? ;)Well I havn't updated for a long time now, but I have worked wit h the cosplay. Not as much as I should have, but I have an excuse for that. Because that I'm not that fortunate with money, I didn't feel to continte since I knew I couldn't afford the materials for the armour. However, I got motivated again some days ago, because a friends dad might have some materials for me, and I found some tools at my parents, so with a little bit of hope I might get finished for this convention I'm attending, Uppcon. That's about a month from now.
So onto the progress of the cosplay. The pictures my not tell you how much effort I've actually put into this since last time. 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 sensitive. And to tailorsew it isn't the easiest thing to do. I've never done that before so it's very interesting process.
As I said before the fabric (some kind of fake leather) is very sensitive, so "cuts" like this is all over the place, I think that the edges rip up when I wear 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.
I've done some of this too, ripping the seems up on purpose because they got wrong. However, havn't been forced to this that many times! and I'm very happy with that since that must prove that I'm getting better on this shit :P
Okey, 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 wits, the corsett, sew the seem tighter and tighter. (I think I've sewn every seem 5 times over again to make the coat tighter) All thi 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 .