Well, my Kiyone costume was quite successful. My Gaga orbit… not so much. Between the heat and the time constraints and the stress, the costume fell apart. I was so crushed, but I’ve shelved it for another day. It will get done for next year’s con season. Anyway, back to Kiyone. I don’t have an amazingly clear photo on here of the guns, but Theresa and I took dollar store toy guns, shaped them with cardboard and covered them with Bondo body filler and acrylic paint. They were amazing. My wig was a bitch. I couldn’t afford a nice blue wig, so I went to the local costume shop and bought the cheapest, longest blonde wig that I could (24in for $9) and bought a tube of blue acrylic paint and dyed it myself. It took a lot of trial and error to get the wig remotely close to the color I wanted. I had to thin out the hair and trim it slightly because of the dying process. ugh… The costume was fairly simple, the vest was a modified simplicity pattern that I used blocking techniques for the chest stripes and applique for the black curves. The skirt and leggings were recycled from my Meryl Stryfe costume and the gloves and headband were made out of the t-shirt I used on my Mario costume and leftover yellow scraps. The black undershirt was drafted by me and I made it completely on my “new” serger (new to me anyway). Then I drafted a collar to attach to the undershirt and the red “tie” is red scraps stuffed with stuffing. The blue triangles on our shoulders were crafted by me out of sculpty.

I loved this costume. It was fairly comfortable. And as disappointed as I was over my Gaga costume, I was very happy that this one worked out. Most of the pictures above were found, so if I took your picture and you want credit please let me knpw.

You notice the title is plural? There’s a reason, I’m currently working on 3 costumes simultaneously. Yes, I’m crazy, I know. But this is what I love.

For some reason we haven’t gotten around to taking the photos of the Marowak costume because I’ve been to busy reorganizing my closet/room and constructing 2 costumes. Yeah, I’m busy. The earliest those pictures are being done is probably in two weeks.

Right now I’m constructing the cardboard base for my Lady Gaga orbit costume (Another reason I’m reorganizing my closet, to find as much usable cardboard as possible without buying any. Been successful so far.). The body is almost done, then I have to paper mache it and create the rings before bondoing and painting. I have almost 4 weeks left to finish it and it will probably take 3 1/2 weeks to construct it.

Along with the Gaga costume, I have 4 weeks to complete my Kiyone costume. I’ve gather most of the materials and once I get to the paper mache stage of Gaga costume, I’m going to start constructing this it. The Gaga costume is hogging my dressform and I need to use it to draft and fit the vest pattern for the Kiyone costume. I’m only making the vest, undershirt, headband and gloves (and maybe guns if there are any supplies left from the Gaga costume and time) and reusing the leggings, boot covers and skirt from my Meryl Stryfe costume because of time and money. I have to buy a wig and that money went towards that.

Now, the third costume. Last summer I made a blue Star Trek Mirror Universe costume. This year I had planned to go as Lt. Saavik to our annual sci-fi convention, however the Marowak costume set me back a few weeks and dollars for all of my costumes which are being made and used within a couple of weeks of each others (Or, like Kiyone and Gaga, the same weekend), I had to drop Lt. Saavik as this is the first week I’ve had to work on my own costumes. Seeing as the convention is next weekend and my costume form last year is still in good shape and barely worn, I’m recycling it. I am adding an accessory to it because I want something new for this con and there is something I say I’m always going to make with my costumes but never do, a matching purse. Every time I make a costume I always say I should make a matching purse so that I’m not carrying my yellow kitty bag or my guitar purse that doesn’t go with say the Slowpoke costume. AND I always have shit tons of fabric left over after every project that I just don’t know what to do with. Th only costume that I have really done this with (and forgot about…) was my Team Rocket Grunt costume. I made a small Pokeball purse to carry around, but it was really too small to carry anything. Well, I’m taking the scraps from my Meryl cape, the Team Rocket hats, the padding/pattern from my Gaga orbit (Yeah, despite it being made out of bondo and cardboard, it will have some fabric on it), and a random yard of remnants I found while cleaning to create a matching tricorder purse. It’s about the size of an iPad carrier with a small pocket in front. I tried to get it close to the actual dimensions of the toy ones you can buy in ThinkGeek. Of all these projects, this one will be done soonest. I’ll post pictures as soon as it’s done.

Also, I got accepted on this film internship program in Los Angeles and am leaving July 30th-August 7th. I’m so hoping a job comes from it, but we’ll see. (And either the week I come back or doing labor day week, I’m going to visit my sister in Minnesota as she is having a baby around the 10th) Anyway, I’m really busy preparing for that as well, I may open an Etsy shop here in a few weeks to help me moneywise and to sell some of the jewelry that I’ve somehow managed to squeeze out while making these insane costumes and organizing my room. I’ll put up some pictures of what I’ve made so far. I have a couple of button necklaces and a pretty rosary that someone might be interested in. I’ve been motivated/inspired to make accessories out of all the scraps that I’ve found lately, so I’m sure I’ll been making quite a few things to help get rid of it all and make a little extra money so look out for that.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to/going to be up to in the next few weeks and hopefully some pictures will trickle in.

I finished Marowak today, just in time to hand it over to Steven tomorrow before he leaves for A-kon.

Let’s see, I had a lot a problems since the last post. I finished the bone first and painted it as it was the easier piece to sand and paint.

Before painting

After painting.

I got a little too carried away and used the whole paint can on the bone. I also had problems getting the head sanded and smooth. I never got it completely smooth, I should have sanded it completely then reapply bondo to the pitted areas. However, I ran out of bondo a long time ago and didn’t want to buy more. I also had to buy a hand sander because the sander attachment on the rotary tool wasn’t cutting it. But all that aside, it got done.

Pre-paint

Painted

The paint made it look really beat up, so I’m going to say this marowak is battle worn.

Next for the eyes I used plastic canvas with a layer of organza sewn on.

Then I used sharpie to draw on the eyes.

Then I glued them in and put a felt lining in. Then it was done, see!

Tomorrow I should have pictures up of the completed costume.

I thought I’d post some more pictures. I made a bone prop. Here it is in the early stages.

I was kind of an idiot and accidentally bought fiberglass resin instead of body filler like I had intended. However, all was not lost because the fiberglass gave the pieces a little more strength but it was a bitch to apply and sand. I injured my hand sanding the pieces and sanding the bone, I must say, looked very suggestive. lol. Anyway, I ended up getting a small and cheap rotary tool with a sanding attachment to finish up. This was how the pieces looked earlier today after sanding and cleaning.

After this picture was taken, I coated the headed in body filler. I only had a small 14oz can and managed to cover only half the head. So, I went and bought some more. I got the head covered and half the bone. Now, I just got to sand it down and paint it. It’s almost done!  ^_^

My friend Steven asked me to make a Marowak costume for him. I’ve been slowly trying to work on it all semester, but with my crazy school schedule I was only really able to plan it out and start the base structure of his head piece. In the week I’ve been home, I completed the jumpsuit and the cardboard structure of his head piece and the paper mache layer. I also made some jewelry, but I’ll save those for another post. Anyway, the jumpsuit is made from the same pattern (and left over bias tape because I hardly ever use that stuff) as my Slowpoke costume with modifications. First, I had to draft a new belly piece and quilt it to create an “ab-like” appearance that Marowak has. I also had to create a custom tail. It’s larger than the one I created for the Slowpoke and densely packed with stuffing. It pulls badly in the back, but the once someone is wearing the jumpsuit, the tail holds up well without support. Seeing as this costume is made for someone who is taller and all around bigger than me (not everyone is 5’2” and 120lbs apparently), I had great trouble being pleased with my work and worried it didn’t fit. I visited Steven this past weekend and it fit him perfectly. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of him in it, so here is what I do have  (which doesn’t look very impressive).

Now for the head, I’m trying something new that I’ve been wanting to try. If it’s successful, I’m going to start my most epic costume ever after this one. Anyway, I’m making the head out of Bondo. Bondo is an automotive liquid fiberglass that you can buy at Wal-Mart fairly cheap. So, I saved up a bunch of light cardboard from things like cereal boxes and formed a head structure like this that was finished on Sunday.

It’s not perfect, but I’m very impressed with the results. On Monday, I did the next stage of the head; papermache. This smooths out the cardboard before the application of the Bondo.

The update on this costume I should hopefully have covered the head in Bondo.