Finished prop

Hello all! I finished my prop now, the one I was working on in the last post.

90 degree angle of the prop.

Side view of the riding crop rapier hybrid prop.

What I did was I spray painted the entire riding crop with primer. Since the primer was white it helps to create a base coat for other colors to show up nicely. Next I spray painted the handle red, let it air dry. I used painter's tape to cover up the top and handle part of the crop. I didn't want to spray unnecessary parts. I used a gold color for the dome part of the hand guard, and then sprayed the bottom tip of the red handle. I added the support piece to the side of the dome and handle, and some smaller pieces on the inside of the dome for extra support. And voila! It's as simple as that. I have very minor detailing I will paint by hand, but it's basically finished now.

Prop Work #2

Props are necessary to complete the character. Alice's weapon is a combination between a toy rapier and a riding crop.

This is character art that has Alice with her rapier.

I originally purchased a riding crop from a local equestrian store. Using wonderflex I plan on creating the hand guard portion of the rapier. The shape was very difficult to create, but I managed it.

This is a good shot of the highly detailed hand guard.

I am in the process of applying gesso to the wonderflex surface to give it an even, durable surface soon to be painted. I will use very small brushes to paint all the detail on the hand guard, and to paint the handle and whip portion white. There is a red gem that will be affixed to the guard as well. I also need to create a base portion of the rapier for support because as it is right now is sort of unstable. I don't want the prop to fall apart.

This is the in-progress prop. It still has much work to do!

 And that's it for now, folks.

Side Note [The Birth of A Convention]

Since my Alice costume is finished ahead of time I would like to spend the time here talking about another very important aspect of cosplaying: the convention. Most often cosplay are exhibited at convention halls, hotels, and other large buildings. These are usually areas rented out for the entire weekend, with events starting Friday through Sunday. Some conventions even start officially on Thursdays. This past weekend I've gained the experience of staffing a small-sized anime event. And believe me-- it's not easy!

A convention takes a lot of hard work, and many staff members and convention attendees to make things happen. A lot of organization of scheduling, coordination must happen. I experienced creation of a brand new event this year in 2010, called Gobble-Con in Milford, CT. It took a whole lot of planning and money to make it happen. Not only that but the basic necessities are needed for it to be a convention: adequate staffing for all rooms, successful scheduling of events, organization of costume contests, craftsmanship contests, prizes, creation of certificates, scheduling special guest appearances, setting up, maintaining and returning necessary AV equipment and video game consoles... and lastly, the contacting of promotional business supporters like GameStop, Bandai, Funimation, and so on. I've seen a lot of hard work put in, and with a great success as an output.

Even though I had only minimal role in the convention I still experienced through other volunteers and staffers how much work and the level of caliber and leadership is needed for a convention to get on its own feet. There needs to be the creator, the person who helps contact guests like voice actors, artists, musicians, companies, businesses, vendors, and so on. Once the guests are situated they also need to be sure of when their panels will take place, and if anything else is needed for their time spent at the convention (like audio-video equipment or help with hosting their panel in general). A resident photographer/recorder is necessary for further promotion of the event. Competent and hardworking staff willing to spend their time to make sure things get done correct are also a must. A web designer to help promote the event, and business cards and other advertisements are also a bonus for getting word around for a small 1st year event. Forums on the web site is a must in order to help establish long distance contact of questions & answers, along with planned meetings. Some attendees will be travelling from out of state so it is important that conventions should be held in or near hotels for those who do not live nearby. Equipment not inside the hotel such as TVs, projectors, and video game consoles are "rented" out by companies like GameStop which take a lot of planning, as I had stated. Staffers need to insure that people do not damage anything including the hotel as they will be held accountable, and no drinks be near electrical equipment. The judging of contests must be fair and concise, along with prizes to be award to the positions of 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and so on. The staff need breaks eventually, and rotation of staffers is critical in order to make sure there is fairness with the area unless they specifically request to be in one field of their specialty (ie: audio-video panels).

In summary, a lot of hard work, time, effort, and money is put into a convention to bring it to a start. Then great guests, plans, panels, and entertainment follows. It is also important that anyone who registers for the convention to a) pay for an identification badge, b) fill out a waiver for possible accidents or property damage, and c) adherence to all rules and regulations or else they may be disqualified from contests, or banned from the convention without refund. A very important rule is for anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult when registering, and anyone under 18 to wear a special band so staffers know they are underage and therefore have restricted access unless parental supervision is met. Strict monitoring of every room and attendee activity is necessary to insure safe conduct at these events. The convention events and guests make up for all the usual boring rules and regulations. In conclusion I had an excellent time volunteering at my first convention, and it is a great experience to see a convention from the other side! :)

Coat of Doom Finale

A while back I created the top part of Alice's coat. I'm not yet finished with her coat because what is left is the bottom piece. This is going to be very tricky to recreate the coat from two pieces into one whole one (pictured above). I have several methods I'm going to apply.



First off, the connecting point of the two coat pieces will be Alice's red belt. The bottom piece will be actually connected to said belt, and the top piece will be tucked under it. This is the mechanics for it; simple, right?

So I sewed the bottom coat the same way I did the top part of the coat. I used the same heavy bottom weight fabric for it, and heavy layer of tulle between the outer and lining pieces. The tulle would give the coat volume. Now in order to make the coat curl, and stand out on its own instead of being flat against my body I need to employ use of boning. The kind of boning I used was the simple plastic kind, not metal. I should add that boning is used in all sorts of fancy dresses and gowns because it helps garments have a rigid shape (such as boning inside a corset which you can see here as all those lines running up and down). In my case I am using the boning to give the coat a more round shape. For the large red belt I used the same materials that I did for the other belts in her costume. However this belt, both the top and bottom belts of the lower coat piece, need what are called "eyelets." All belts have eyelets which are metal holes. These holes are used for closing belts and what have you. The middle of her belt has a gold insignia which I made out of wonderflex and spray painted gold. Moving along the front of the coat part has a pink pattern that goes along the edges. This pattern was created by use of pink bias tape. The back of her coat also has a similar pattern.

Great reference picture of the back of her coat.

So after I finished the bottom coat piece I had to attach it to the top. This was not an easy task at all, and was actually the most difficult to accomplish. What I had to use was two pair of magnetized clasps at the area of the belt underneath where my arms are. I also used velcro fasteners for the back to ensure that the back of the top coat piece was secured under the belt. Surprisingly it worked well enough to withstand two wearings. I think I'm in the clear!!

This is Alice with all the pieces finished (minus contacts on)! Hooray!

Gates To the Soul [Gold Contacts Are Hard To Come By]

As with every costume accuracy is very critical. Alice is a fictional character who has golden eyes. They are not cat pupils, but regular pupils. This is not natural at all, so I need to be able to pull it off as natural as possible.

So where do I start? Well these lenses are going to be purely theatrical (called plano lenses) because I do not need any sort of prescription for vision. Secondly I need to look at only opaque lenses, and not "enhanced" lenses. Enhanced lenses are only tinted semi-opaquely which mixes with your original eye color, so it does not mask it fully. Lastly I need to find out what brands are reputable lenses, and then narrow the choices between price ranges from there.

Alice's eyes are not hazel. They are more gold than anything else.

 

 

Another shot of Alice's eye color.

So I did a little web surfing for possible contact lenses. This forum on cosplay.com was very helpful because they frequently review all sorts of contact lenses. I weeded through the list for reputable brands and websites to order from. So now that I have a list, I analyzed each for the best pick.

The first website I found was called Eyesbright. They have a good selection of all sorts of lenses, and seemed very reputable. I was looking at their UV colored lenses which can be found here. I decided against them though because they looked too yellow and fake.

Color-My-Eyes is also another website that I've seen many people order lenses from. I was interested in their Europa brand hazel contacts. I wasn't very happy about how brown they looked in the photo. I was also a bit weary of website's images being altered by Photoshop because they all look so similar posed, and only the color changed. Also I could not find a review of the Europa lenses so I decided against this brand for now.

Next up was fashion-contactlenses.com. I heard that they were reputable, but they may also Photoshop their images too so I was skeptic. A possible lens pair I could order was Honey Total Colour lenses. However I felt they looked more brown than the gold I wanted. They also had a gold specked lens pair but they were enhanced lenses, not opaque colored.

Lastly there was a shop called You Know It. They have a variety of costume and daily wear lenses. I was looking at the Avatar lenses here. I think I've found the best match so far. These aren't brown, and they aren't a BRIGHT yellow like the first brand. So I suppose this is my best bet.

Hair, hair, hair!

A great cosplay always needs an accurate wig. Wig shopping is very important to a costume because most of the time the wig needs styling and cutting. When I say "wig" I do not mean wigs from party stores. Party store wigs are made of cheap plastic. The kind of wigs used for great cosplay are professional grade high-quality wigs that are either made of Japanese kanekalon or toyokalon fibers. A helpful website that has tutorials wig styling and know-how is Katie Bair's Petting Zoo Wigs. Katie is a professional costumer and has been working on wigs for as long as I've known.

Here are basics for wig working. First off wigs are not human hair. They do not have their own chemistry or natural oil to them, so hair products that work with hair oil have no effect on wigs. The best product to use on kanekalon or toyokalon wigs is alcohol-based hairspray or hair gel. Waxes, pomades, conditioner and other greasy products do not work at all. The second best thing to do while styling a wig is to have it pinned down to a wighead. If you can have the person who is going to wear the wig actually wear it while you style it that would be even better, but that's not necessarily going to happen. So the option of using a wighead base is the safest bet; you can purchase these at beauty stores that sell hair products. When cutting a wig you can use sharp scissors, and be sure to cut less than what is needed and then try it on, and adjust from there if necessary. If a wig is curly or wavy and you want to straighten it DO NOT use a hair straightener. This will cause it to melt the fibers! Remember these wigs are not human hair. So Katie Bair has a tutorial written just for straightening wigs which can be found here. It basically straightens via very hot water and air drying. Also please note that just like hair straighteners and flatirons, hair dyers can also melt the fibers too. so please stay away from them!

My Alice wig for the costume required minimal work. I bought the wig from a very well-known online cosplay store called Amphigory. This is a picture of the wig style I purchased...

As you can see the wig has the perfect color for Alice's hair.

All I needed to do was trim it to the desired length which was just above the shoulders, and straighten the waves out of the wig. After I cut and straightened the fibers I styled the front bangs and set it with a light coating of hairspray to keep the style in place.

This is the wig pinned to the wighead.

This is me wearing the wig and the hat.

That's all there is to it.

Prop Work [An Intermission of Sorts]

I'm taking a break with sewing Alice's coat for now. I decided to help work on my boyfriend's prop for his costume. This prop is actually a 6 foot tall sword made out plywood that is 3/4" inch thick. Initially we made the original design as a cardboard cut out to help create the dimensions. I transferred the design from a reference photo, like the one shown below, onto the life-sized piece of cardboard.

This is Decus from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. The prop I'm working on is that gigantic sword.

This is Decus' sword from another angle.

 Then after the cardboard replica was finished, we used it as an outline to trace onto the plywood. This was where things started to get complicated. After the outline was created, I added the inner details of the sword to the plywood. In order to get the actual sword cut out of the wood we had to use several tools including a dremel and hacksaw to get the wood pieces out evenly. Basically we extracted the pieces surrounding the sword out by cubed sections.



After all the wood was cut, next we had to color the replica sword. We used a silver spray paint as a base coat. After it was dry we applied black foam to create a raised effect to the sword like in the reference picture. The golden arm bone and finger bones were added last after being spray painted gold. The skull portion of the sword we had to get very creative with: we found a similar sized skull at a party store, cut it in half, and glued it to the front and back of the sword. For the skull's eyes blue gems found at a craft store were inserted into the skull's eye sockets. Lastly the handle was created as realistically as possible, by using a length of PVC piping, foam filler inside it to keep it sturdy, and a cap at the end.

This is a pic of the sword without the skull added. It's taller than me!

And that's all there is to making the sword!