Show off.

Also, some perty photos :D

The hood sits nice and loose around my head now :) (and my body paint didn't apply as smoothly this time, and didn't stay on as well. Please excuse the patchy skin)

The back detailing of the cloak is a work in progress. I would like to go for another 'misty' and 'aged' look, hence the faded paint.

 Midna and Zelda. She is my faithful friend who originally cosplayed with me in 2009 when we first made the costumes. We have been cosplaying together since 2006 :D

 

 Twirl! The black detail of the inner cloak will also be done at a later date, when I have money. Why is this time of the year so expensive? *sigh*

Twilight. (thanks to photoshop)

Update!

So now I am home from my holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia, I can update this.
It is late, and I am sorry.

But good news is that the re-designed cloak worked wonderfully!
I wore it to a small get-together I arranged at the botanical gardens in the Hunter Valley.

I got my hands on some more of the green fabric that I loved (and didn't have enough of) and designed it so there were 2 halves of the green, just as there are 2 halves of the black that will be sewn together.
(I will upload some piccies to explain next post)

But the hood. I brought my dilemma to my sister-in-law, who is a seamstress, and asked for her wisdom. Long story short, and several pattern trials later, we got it! It's loose around my head, doesn't pull on the cloak or my wig, and sits wonderfully.
We discovered we needed to increase the amount of fabric around the opening, but not change the measurements of the back seam and height of the peak.
Here is the finished pattern...

CB: Centre back. CF: Centre front.

1) Measure out the distance of the top of your head, to about... 3cm past your neck.
(remember to have the fabric folded, as this is only one half. the opening is on the right hand side)
2) Play! Play around with your fabric and judge where you need the back seam (on the left of the photo)
(also, ignore those little folded bits, that was so we could add distance to the front, but not the back)
Make sense? Then you are one step ahead of me! (bwah hah hah)

I also, with very minimal time and money, made some anklets and a belt. It was very easy and a good in-between prop to wear whilst I focus on making the anklets and belt proper.
This is the step-by-step on how to make them out of fabric.
Firstly, the belt.

Take your chosen fabric (I think they call this ribbing? It's usually found on plastic holders, with the curtain things)

I used a large wavy light grey as the base of the belt with a thin dark grey rope to wrap around.

Find a trusty glue gun and get it heated! But beware, as expected, the glue gets very hot. It will burn your fingers so please be careful.

Find a thin wire and the light grey base fabric and create the curled ends of the belt by folding and bending. Expect a few pricks to your finger if you aren't the most patient or careful of people, like me :D

  Next! Take the smaller rope fabric and start to wrap it around the base, using the glue gun to hold it down at the ends and along the belt. I glued it every 5 'waves' so it still moved around naturally.

(I hope that makes sense) 

Then you are done! It's easy!

It doesn't look ohmygoshamazing

but it is a good stand in while I have yet to find the clay (and money) to make the final belt. 

 As for the anklets, I found a dark grey fabric (again from the curtain section) which had a geometric sort of pattern on it, measured it to fit my ankle and tacked on a press stud.

DONE!

So the things left to do are the skirt (sew and decorate) and put a slit in the hood, at the top.
And those silly little 'tick' thingys she has as a pattern on her skin.

Midna, why are you so detailed?! (cause she's rad)

Progress is halted.

I had the clever idea to line Midna's cloak entirely. 

Sleeves.

Hood.

The whole sha-bang.

But naturally, I didn't buy enough fabric. I didn't even buy enough to line just the back. 

SADFACE!

I will update when I have sorted out this minor issue.

IT'S ONLY OUT BY 25 CMS! RAWWWWWWWWR!!!

*angry mutterings* 

Just a note...

I forgot to mention Midna's skin. 

I used a dancer's leotard with arms, and added a single black legging to the left side. Thankfully I have a friend who has A LOT  of experience sewing and altering leotards, so she removed the stomach and back of the leotard.
I then use a blue body paint over my skin to create the black and blue pattern Midna is so recognisable for :)

I know another method a lot of people use, and that is a full body suit. You can buy body suits off Ebay in all sorts of colours for a decent price. The only difference is you paint the black and blue detail on the body suit, not your skin. Check out pattasy on YouTube for a tutorial on the body suit, and other things :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYZN0eEGB0&list=UUDDSiezGjXIjaGuBeHu9XwQ&index=15&feature=plcp

Midna's Skirt

It's simple. 

It's basically a square piece of fabric that sits on your hips, at a slight angle. The best way to figure out the length for you is to either...
1) use a bedsheet. (SEE?! they are brilliant)    OR...
2) get a skirt you already own that falls to your feet. Measure the distance from your hips to the floor. You may need someone to help you with this.

Don't forget to leave an allowance for seams. I have left a 2cm for each of the pieces of the costume. It doesn't really matter if it's 1cm, 1.5 or 4. It's what you are comfortable with really.

So basic method;
1) Fold your bedsheet in half! Measure out your hip-to-feet distance on the sheet along the fold.

The top right left hand corner is where it will sit on the right side of your body.
The fold in the bedsheet/fabric is on the RIGHT.



   2) Measure out the distance from hip to floor on the open side, and a little bit extra. In the 3D game render of Midna, her skirt sits higher on the right side, or open side, of the skirt. As I am going for a more practical costume, I haven't worried too much about it. I simply added some length on the right/ open side of the pattern.

 

3) Test the bedsheet on your body. It should sit nice and high on your hips on the right side, and nice and flat on the left. If it isn't sitting flat, a small dart will fix this.
 

 4) When the skirt is sitting nice and fitted to your hips, pin it to your fabric and cut!

Voila! It is a very simple skirt to make. I will be adding a press stud to the skirt where I currently have it tied. It looks tidier and the belt will sit flat. Rather than having a bump where the tie would be. :)

Happy Sewing! xx

Progress!!

So,
That darned cloak/cape/backthingy. After designing my very own pattern, lovingly taping newspaper together, taking over the back and front rooms of my house and cutting it out of a bedsheet...
It didnt work.
(ProTip: ALWAYS use a bedsheet to test out a pattern, particually for something this large)

Sad face.

BUT! I designed a new pattern. This second one sits higher on my shoulders and is a better fit around my arms. Plus its more swooshy. Swoosh is better than swag... so they say. So I say.

The pattern itself is very simple. It is just two halves pinned together! Follow these simple directions to create your very own Midna cloak! ><

1) Get your bedsheet. Lay it out folded in half.

2) Lie down with the fold of the sheet along the middle of your body. Grab a marker and ruler and place a dot just past your shoulder blade, close to your neck. MAKE SURE You need to have enough material above your head to make the sleeves.

3) Mark out a cutting line from the top of the bedsheet to your shoulder dot and cut out that rectangle, leaving a small (think 3-5 cm) for attaching the hood.

4) Fold down the remaining part of the sheet to create a rectangle on top of your sheet. If you were to pin this now, you would have simple, square, flowy sleeves! Yay! 

5) Grab your marker again! Place a dot at the very end of your fingertips with your arms stretched out perpindicular to your body. (at a right angle for non-mathy people)

6) Place another dot just past your elbow.

7) Draw a nice curve from the fingertip dot to the elbow dot and cut this out.

8) If you havent done already, cut out the other side. By keeping the bedsheet folded and cutting both sides at the same time, your final pattern will be nice and even. Unless you can't seem to cut in a straight line... like me. :D

9) Pin the sleeves to the cloak and Voila! Put the cloak on carefully and test it for size, comfort, length etc. Again, make sure the top seam of the cloak sits nice and high on your shoulders, even a bit over, as this will stop the entire thing from pulling at the sleeves and hood.

 

TIP: try to find a king bed sheet, not a single, as the single wont have the length you need to create a full pattern.
If you do use this method, let me know! I would LOVE to see how it turns out for others :)
I will also upload a scan of my pattern, with measurements and all that jazz. Happy sewing! 

Heads are rolling... :|

Literally...

But only foam heads. It fell off my desk whilst trying to comb The Wig. (I say The Wig as it seems to be sentient.)

So after gentle persuading and sticky tape, I succeeded in securing the wig head to my desk. And the following 'styling'.

It involved a lot of moouse, combing and again, gentle persuasion.

 

  
I am aiming for a less static wig. One that doesn't look like it has been hit with 6 cans of hairspray and some Gel for good measure. I want the wig to look real. As much as it can anyway. 
So I decided (with a designers help. yay for connections) to wrap the hair around the fringe, instead of it just... ending. It looks more natural. And the bangs will move around, like natural hair.
Huzzah.














Update complete. bed time. x