Coat of Doom, Part II

Hello again! I am in the very long process of creating Alice's coat. I figured I'd start with the top piece first. This was tricky to plan out, but I managed it to be pretty decent. It's designed so the zipper is in the back, and runs up the entire length of the top part of her coat. The sleeves pattern was made separately from the front and back base of the coat which had its own pattern as well.

The kind of material I am using to sew is the same tan heavy weight fabric I mentioned in previous posts. The front of Alice's coat has a unique design to it, which I made first inside out, then pulled it right side out and pressed the seams flat. Then I attached the back piece via the shoulders and the side seams. I made a collar pattern separately, sewed inside out, pressed the seams, and sewed that to the top of the front and back pieces of fabric. Alice's collar is very similar to a mandarin styled collar. After that I added some pink bias tape around the collar and the front petal-like design, as well as adding a round button to the middle. Bias tape is very useful for edges of costumes, although some costumes require bias tape in unusual areas like Alice does, but is traditionally used in quilting for edges of quilts.

[pic of top]

Then I decided to do the sleeves next. These weren't normal sleeves because some parts poof out like her shoulders and the bottom of her sleeves. I decided to replicate that by added a series of tulle in the sections that needed more height and volume. I actually made the shoulder pieces separately from the rest, and joined them together later. The sides of her sleeves required more pink bias tape for the pink tear-shaped design, as well as a rounded button for each sleeve. I also added red vinyl belts to her sleeves in the appropriate places. There are some odd belt buckles which I made out of wonderflex which is a very handy craft material for almost anything. Here is a photo of some armor and claws in progress made out of wonderflex unpainted. Wonderflex bends to your will when you heat it up, so it is nifty for all sorts of odd shaped pieces of costumes and prop work. Anyway the wonderflex was curved around the belts so they would look natural, and adhered with super glue. They were spray painted gold to look realistic.

This is the top part of the sleeve.

And this is the bottom half.

So after both sleeves were completed, I created a sleeve cap and eased the fabric into the base of the coat...and voila! The top part of the coat is done.

The completed top half of Alice's coat.

Next I will update about the bottom half of Alice's coat.

Bundle Up, It's Getting Chilly Out! [Attempting the Coat of Doom #1]

With every experiment there comes a time to create a hypothesis, and brainstorm. So the next part of my Alice cosplay is this "coat" of Alice's. First off, it is not a normal coat. It's going to take a lot of improvising, experimenting, and a lot of patience. It looks like it will be painstakingly hard to replicate, but I'm sure I can pull it off. It's just going to take a great deal of time compared to the other pieces of her costume.

Alice's coat looks rather poofy toward the bottom. Also her sleeve tops and ends are poofy as well.

I know that this coat cannot be made in just one piece because it would be awkward and impossible to slide on or pull over head. The first idea that popped into my mind was, "why not just install a long zipper down the back like a traditional prom dress?" Nope, I can't do that because a significant portion of the coat back is cut out. So because of both these problems I deduce that it will be made in two pieces, the top part above the belt on her chest, and the bottom part of the coat under the belt that "poofs" out. As for what mode of keeping the coat on, buttons are out of the picture. A zipper would work for the top part of the coat, and perhaps some sort of magnetic snaps to keep both pieces together better. These need to be concealed because in any picture of Alice her coat does not have buttons or visible zippers.

Her coat stands out on its own accord. It moves with her movement so I know it's not rigid.

So I want to also mention how the bottom half of Alice's coat poofs out. Old fashioned dresses back in the Victorian era used to poof out a lot. A material called boning helps dresses and corsets keep a specific shape. I never used boning before, but now that is going to change. I will install it on the inside of Alice's coat to keep it in the rounded shape that it is. I will also make the coat seem fluffy and realistic instead of flat, like it would appear if it were just two pieces of fabric together. So to make the coat more volumized I will also stuff tulle fabric inside the coat pieces. Tulle is a sort of mesh plastic that helps dresses keep their body, and is also sometimes used for dance and ballerina outfits (sort of like the material a tutu is made out of).

As for the rest of the coat: I will be using pink bias tape to line the edges of her coat, as well as work with more red vinyl like I did with the leg warmers. This will also be my first time working with an eyelet gun to make eyelets in her belts (top and bottom red belts for her coat). It doesn't look too hard to put in eyelets anyway. More details to come once I start working on the actual coat of doom!

A Fancy Hat For Your Head [More Progress]

Hello again! This update I bring you Alice's hat. It actually was more difficult to make than it looked. I never made a hat before, so this was a new experience.

Front shot of Alice's hat I'm making.

Side shot of her hat. Notice the "ear" pieces are pink on the inside.

I tried several times to make a workable pattern out of paper, but this took a lot of improvising and experimenting than I thought. I finally got a semi-circular pattern for the top piece, and I made the pink front and side "bands" for the hat separately. I also made an elaborate "curtain" piece for the back of her hat. I finally made 2 separate pieces for her "ears" of the hat. The pattern pieces sort of looked like this....

Sketch of how I made the pattern and where I made seams to join fabric.

So all pieces are made out the tan colored heavy bottom weight fabric I mentioned using for the legwarmers in an earlier post. The "ear" pieces on the inside are a combination of this bottom weight fabric sewed to an inside piece of pink cotton fabric. So anyway I sewed the top circle and the back piece seam, making sure to keep the shape of the hat as circular as possible. Then I added the side "ear" pieces, and lastly I positioned the side and front bands for the hat. After everything was sewed I added 2 gold metallic buttons to the side bands, and I cut out very slowly and agonizingly each hole in her back and side pieces of the hat the same way I did for her shirt.

Here are some finished shots.

Side shot showing the back nicely. I added buttons to the side bands, too.

Front shot showing the "ear" pieces and the front bands.

Alice's Shirt [Detailed, but delicate]

A quick update. I had sewn Alice's shirt together now. I used a simple pink cotton fabric, alongside some elastic band to keep the shirt from falling down. Since in any reference picture I have, Alice's shirt top isn't shown, I decided to make it act like a halter top.

I enlarged this picture so the detail could be seen better.

I created a paper pattern before sewing the shirt that wrapped all along by torso, so it was just actually one continuous piece of fabric that I used. I created the bottom of the shirt to replicate Alice's which looked kind of like a flower petal design. All of the holes near the bottom of the shirt I had to be a bit creative with. What was the best way to cut a hole in the fabric without cutting through any unnecessary parts? Well, I poked open the fabric with an x-acto knife to get a nice, clean cut, and then shaped each and every the hole in her shirt. This took a lot of time to do and finish, which actually stretched out across a couple of hours every few days until it was complete. I sealed up the raw fabric with an alcohol-based fray guard so the open holes won't come apart later. Then the runes embroidery I hand stitched with red thread; it took me three hours to finish it. Voila!

Another Update, Keep 'em Comin'! [Who Wears Short Shorts]

Okay so I managed through my busy week to do the next piece of my costume, Alice's shorts. They actually look like bloomers, if you ask me, but anyway those are the shorts she wears. I think Alice's style of clothes borders on a style of Japanese Lolita because of the frilly and lacy bits throughout the costume.

See all the bits of lace around her coat, and shorts, and the frill on her hat and shirt? This is influenced by the Lolita style.

Anyway the shorts were actually quite easy compared to making the leggings, and they were much less time consuming. I doubled up the fabric because I made them out of white cotton. Every sewer knows white cotton is actually very transparent, so I don't want transparent pants! Haha. I had to create a sort of pattern to go by because this is the first time I made shorts. I had created 2 pieces, left side and right side, and sewn them together. After this I created a seam for the bottom of each leg opening, pulled the thread so the fabric would bunch together and create a frill effect. Neat, isn't it? It's not as big as a frill as I'd like it to have, but it will suffice. Then I created holes every so often for the lace to be strung through, and placed the lace so it would sit atop where the frill started.

Here is the final product:

I think it looks very well for a first try. Next piece of the cosplay I'll be making is Alice's pink frilly shirt that she wears under her poofy coat. Oh, joy. This next one will need a bit more time to work out all the finer details!

Start From the Legs Up! [Slow But Sure Progress]

I finally got around to starting Alice. I figured I'd start from the bottom up with this costume, at least with the smaller articles. I think it'll be easier if I work on the layers of clothing from the outside in. With the way I see it, if I work from the outside-in then I can accurately gauge how big other articles of clothing, like Alice's poofy coat, need to be sized in contrast to the rest of the costume ensemble.

Anyways, for a majority of the costume I will be sewing with a heavy material, a bottom weight vaguely tan-colored fabric. I chose this kind of fabric because it's very durable and helps give structure and rigidity to clothing. Alice's coat which I will ultimately make will be very difficult to recreate the poofy shape so I hope this kind of fabric will aid me. In addition to the bottomweight I've also bought red vinyl to make belts with. Vinyl is a kind of fake leather material, as real leather is a pain to work with in general, but vinyl gives the same effect the costume needs. The leg warmers are made of the bottom weight, vinyl for the belts, and some red cotton fabric for the lining inside.

Here is a shot of the leg warmers from the front.

Wonder how that bit of red fabric stays put so neatly under my shoe? It's actually staying put because of adhesive velcro...I used velcro so I can easily undo the leg warmers when I want to take them off.

And here is one from the side.

I've also bought very similar shoes that Alice's costume requires. I've taken the liberty to rip the bows off the front so they would be more accurate.

I'm not completely finished with them yet because I need to add some accessories like buckles to the belts, and also create and sew on the emblems that Alice wears on the front of her leg warmers. I will come back to these once I finally create the buckles and emblems. I am considering making them out of a material called "wonderflex" which bends and molds to whatever shape you want it when heated. It works miracles for accessories and prop work.

Designing Process [Sketches and Imagination]

So as with every costume I work on, I first need to plan it out. I study the character's design very carefully with reference pictures. For example if the character is from a TV show, I watch the episodes and pause them to sketch out detailed pictures. So for Alice I created a digital collage of many different reference pictures I found of her design in the video game and in the official Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World artbook.

These are usually what my design collages look like, complete with my own handwritten notes.

So after I compile a sufficient collage of front / back/ side shots I then proceed to create rough sketches of my own drawing. These sketches are to aid me in sewing the costume. For example often I draw the costume with seam markings that help me visualize how I should cut the fabric, and sew it together as the correct clothing article. These sketches usually are in the multiples, and are of various poses and angles to help me visualize the design process fully.

This is a very rough sketch of the character's costume alongside my notes of colorization, and using specific kinds of material for different pieces.

Since Alice's "coat" looks very complicated to successfully recreate I've sketched out 3 different methods I may or may not use.

In the above picture there is an example of brainstorming. I have 3 different ideas for creating Alice's "coat." I guess I should mention that when I refer to "coat" I'm talking about the fabric that covers her chest, extends from her shoulders to her arms, and also includes the poofy part below her red "belt" that covers most of her body. First off, I will make the coat in 2 separate pieces, a top and a bottom, because that's the best way possible for slipping it on and off now that I think about it. Physically and realistically speaking there is no other possible way that the article of clothing - if sewn in one piece instead of two - can be put on overhead or slipped on without any added modifications like zippers. So I can't just put a long zipper down the back of her coat to step into it  because there is an upside down triangle shape cut out of the back of the coat. There is also a big red belt that separates the top of the coat with the bottom of it, so this is where I will have the 2 pieces of her coat meet the belt. So my ideas are to add a very short zipper in the back and neck area of the coat so I can actually get the top piece of the coat over my head and on. This will leave the bottom part of the coat being separate from the top part. How will I keep these 2 pieces together? Well another idea is using concealed velcro/snaps on the top part of coat to create better adhesion to the bottom part of the coat, and to reinforce the two fabrics. And a final idea was to use some sort of elastic band in between fabric so I can have the bottom piece of the coat slip on easier when I pulled it up and onto me. Elastic bands help create a snugger fit for certain materials. :)

My last rough sketch of Alice's "bloomer" shorts, her funky hat, her leg warmers, and shoes.

This concludes the brainstorming part of my costume. I hope my ideas were clear enough! Next I will start the sewing process. :)