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.

Interestingly enough, most of my costumes this year require less sewing and more construction.

So, around the time of my birthday it was announced that Lady Gaga was adding extra tour dates and one of them just happened to be at my home! As a b-day gift to myself I purchased tickets for myself. Before I did this I had already planned a Lady Gaga costume for 2011. This:

However, as awesome as this costume is, it is too cumbersome to wear to a concert. But I plan to use it as my primary cosplay this year. For the concert I have already begun to work on this one:

As you can see, I chose some pretty revealing costumes this year so far. I’ve been trying to get into shape for them both. The concert is April 4th, so if I’m not in shape by spring break (which is two weeks before the concert), I might switch to the costume Gaga wore on American Idol. I didn’t realize until the other day that it is made almost entirely of zippers. It just appeals to the crafter in me.

I’m going to need to buy three different wigs this years because my anime cosplay for the year, much like Lady Gaga is above, isn’t a brunette like me. Theresa let me pick out our duo cosplay this year. I decided on doing Kiyone and Mihoshi from Tenchi. We had trouble deciding who would be who, but we quickly decided out of my financial necessity and lack of time. Theresa will be Mihoshi and I will be Kiyone as one of Kiyone outfits will basically recycle the skirt, leggings and boot covers from my Meryl costume. 

And finally, when I was in high school I had purchased a Lt. Saavik jacket pattern from Trek Expo. I finally have decided to do it (And I’m doing the Kristie Alley Savvik, not Robin Curtis’s). However, if I get into good shape for the Lady Gaga costumes, I may trade in Saavik for a more famous and daring Star Wars costume ;)