Amira's jewelry

I think the jewelry was probably the hardest part for me in this whole project. I know the embroidery took ages and there were many challenges but I felt I managed to conquer them. With jewelry, I am  not sure.

Anyway. I started looking at the jewelry from the start of the project and it was always constantly happening in the background. The first step was dealing with the coins. The costume has really nice set of coins in different elements. My original plan was to find one nice coin and use it as a master for molding. I ended up finding antique bracelet of coins so I used that instead of making the coins myself. (The coins actually came from correct region. The were slightly newer than Amira's time, the first half of 20th century.. )

The first piece of jewelry I did, was the red necklace. The main challenge was figuring out the size of the red pearls and find the right color. Using wood pearls came from my research. My first idea was that they were probably metal. Then I read that metal was common in jewelry but not in big elements. Then I found an article that was taking about wooden elements and I think it made sense. So, I tried to figure out the diameter for the pearls and then I found French online store that had right diameter. I had no idea how many of them I need, so in the end I got twice the numbers. Happens.

Anyway  the necklace itself was very simple - color the pearls, put them in a wire with coins and add closing at the back. Most modern day jewelry use those clips? I am not sure how they are call. Again, nothing like that existed back then as the jewelry was also "simple" as patterns in the area (when I say simple, then the construction. The details were breathtaking). So, I found this round closure thing that worked nice.

Somehow I never took a picture of this part of the jewelry while making. This was done much later when I was afraid that I will ran out of coins and was molding them.

Here is a better image of me actually wearing it

Anyway.. This was the first jewelry I did, I think on the same time I was working on the blouse. So quite early. Then, I was off to earrings and the locket in the other necklace. First it was figuring out the shapes. The common problem - they never look the same in manga. So, this was probably the step I went with the front cover and tried to copy them from there. Then I made the design in Photoshop and printed it out in many sizes to find right propositions.

It was easier with earrings but little trickier with the locker. In the end I had my "choices" and then came the modeling - clay! Again, haven't used clay for ages and it was harder than I thought. I think I came out with nice options, then I backed them and molded but getting the new versions of of mold and keeping them in desired shape was not easy. Some masters were done using termoplast. I had this weird little bag of very small pieces of termoplast that could be heated and then modeled. The problem was that when they were heated, they stuck to everything and they cooled down very quickly.

I think I played around with those pieces of jewelry for months. Just trying to figure out how to get nice shapes.

The locker was trickiest. I managed to see real historical locker (I am not sure if it actually the right name to call this central piece but I think I saw it somewhere called like that) in a museum of Islamic art in one of my work trips (the good part of traveling lot due to work - going to museums. Honestly. After I started this project, whenever I was somewhere, I googled around to any museum in the area that could have something from similar time and region on display. Sometimes it was museum on something else but they had small display on right kind of items. So, I saw some national costumes in museum in Athens. And jewelry also in Islamic museum in Athens. Shoes and boots in Budapest. Some more clothing and jewelry in Italy. Something in UK. I mean.. thanks to museums a lot of stuff has been moved around the world and I did not had to go to right region to see things. I think the clothing museum in Athens was very eye opening (the same way the shoes exhibition in Budapest). It cured me from my misinformation that ribbons could be used on clothing. Yes, in Ottoman Empire but not in Central Asia and in woman costumes) and it (locker) was hollow from inside. That makes sense and metals were expensive and you would not want to spend much on the jewelry for girls. Also, the weight! I knew from the beginning I will not be able to make it hollow. Also, I found from my research that the jewelry making technology in the region was different from europe. So you cannot see this kind of clear smooth surfaces as in jewelry in europe as they used "cold processing". It means things were worked after they had cooled down making the surface "scratchy"/"uneven". (I am very thankful for that as I would have never managed to make it as smooth as it should have been).

The first locker was done with mold of half. I used my printed guideline and modeled the one half. I made the side pieces separately and also modeled the "stone holders".

 

 

Then some molding and baking and the first result:

To say slightly, it was not what I expected. It was something but.. much less than I expected. It wasn't round as putting the two halfs together was hard.

So, I did my second try. I made round "base" from clay and added details with worbla. Never used worbla before. I always wanted to attend worbla workshop in Animatsuri but never made it was the one time it was ran and I was attending, it was on Saturday. I only managed to arrive on Sunday as I was flying back from a conference and when I got to Tartu, it was Saturday very late :( I was waiting for the workshop this year but it did not took place. I think I have lot to learn from that material.

 

It was slightly better but I was not totally happy either. So I made a third try but it was worse than second, so the second remained. Priming, coloring.. the rest. I had the locker.

The stones. I used craft pieces that were in totally wrong color. The ovals were white and the circles where.. weird red. So, I painted them using class colors. They are actually meant for class and you need to "cook" them but I could not do that as I had plastic bases. But they were fine. They add this kind of "membrane" over the base so painting them on paper (using newspaper as a surface cover) was not the best option as getting them off was hard but using kitchen film? (that transparent thing you can cover things.. some people also like to wind themselves into it to make patterns with tape?) it was quite easy to remove those stones.

this was not the smart thing to do

This as better

I was painted them quite flat (covered everything with red) but then I realized that they should have some dimension so I repainted most of them and after Animatsuri, when I redo some aspects of the jewelry, I redid most of the stones also, covering them with stones where highlights and shadows were painted to the stones.

Rest of the pearls. I used pearls from shops. I ordered tons of different shapes, went over the manga, trying to find what kind of shapes were used. I needed to make one of those pieces myself as it was clearly visible and I couldn't find suitable pre-made pearl. In the end, I just looked how the jewelry looks on the main image and tried to copy it with pre-made pearls sprayed silver.

Just spray, no weathering yet

Second necklace with color and stones

The earrings took few tries too. Figuring out how to handle different materials. First I tried air-drying clay on pvc. Clay cracked and did not stick to pvc. Then I used pvc and worbla for master. Better.

Clay of PVC

Worbla and pvc, the master used in the end

Baking different pieces

Putting the earrings together

 Then the paint. I actually broke one of the earrings while sanding :S They clay was not as strong as I expected and therefore I had to put some horrible "strengthening" clay at the back to fix that one and I was not able to sand was much as I would have loved.

The major problem I had with earrings was that they were heavy. They felt light but as I do not have holes in my ears, I had to use clips and they just tended to drop off over time. I actually planned to clue them to my ears during the competition but did not. And I lost an earring during the stage show :P They were fine all the other time. I managed to catch it so it was hardly noticed but yeah.. having holes has advantages but I wasn't going to do it just for this costume :P

The bracelets. PVC with worbla.

 Took some time to figure out how to with it. I also learned that using graphic knives works very well with pvc. The material is soft enough for the knives to handle. So, all the small details were added with knives.

 And then random beer bottle ended up being the "base" for heating.

colored result

So.. in the end, I think they are "something" but not as neat as I would have loved. I feel I just do not have the skill for worbla :(

After animatsuri and before eurocosplay, I decided to redo the jewelry. At least part of it. I kept three of the bracelets and redid  the second one from the bottom that I felt was the weakest. I also got a really good hint about glading wax for better silver effect from one of the judges. So I got the wax and tried to work with it :S It was a mess. I ruined some of my stones.. I did got slightly better shine than before but not what I hoped for. I think the problem was that I did not had so "smooth" surfaces". Also, I felt after covering the jewelry with gloss or sealing wax, the shine actually dropped. Without it, I could not have left it as it was "leaving silver marks" on everything. My hands were more silverish I think than the poor jewelry, I think.

Trying to protect the stones from glading wax

 So.. I think the jewellry was now slightly better than before. I was very happy with the new bracelet despite it giving me so much trouble. The last one was built on pvc base and then worbla was used to add the dimension. Now I build it from two layer of pvc but I had some trouble cluing them together. And i the end, it was allright.. until the evening before flying to eurocosplay.. I was practicing my stage show with real bow (as the costume was was packed.. and I actually own a long bow..).. and I was just readying the bow for shooting the eagle.. and I felt I did something wrong as my arm started to hurt.. When I let the string go, I had gazed my hand.. I had some blood as the real bow has a lot of strength (and I mean, I have actually very weak bow, in average standards..)  and when I looked on my wrist I saw that the bracelet was broken.. I was shocked.. I had to actually look around in the room to find where the piece had fallen.. Damn..

So.. I should be sleeping but.. I just used some superclew and that granul termoplast inside to fix it..I wore this when I met judges but I planned to use the old (not so nice) one on stage.. in the end, I dropped two bracelets on stage as two were enough trouble to handle around on stage :P

In the end, I think they came out alright but I do feel there is lot of room to improve for me.

And did I mention how I lost earring on stage on local qualifier? Mm.. I never lost in anywhere else.. expect when I was on stage in Eurocosplay.. during my performance.. and.. when I went on stage to get my price.. like.. it was a curse.. One of them only dropped off on stage :P

Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Lucrezia Borgia - Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls

So, when sewing was done, the dress was not.

The first step was the pearls. When you look at the reference images, there were a lot of pearls. So, again, it was much cheaper to order them from ebay than to buy them locally. I did not knew which size would be best (or which white tone), so I ordered few different sizes of green, two different colors of green and two different colors of white. Pearl white was perfect with my yellowish main fabric and the moss green worked fine with my mint green fabric. It was not perfect but close enough.

I started adding pearls to the bodice. I followed the reference image as closely as possible but because my bodice was slightly longer I had to do some creative modification. Then, I added silver stripe to the bodice and pearls there too. Even though it took some time, I actually loved adding the pearls. It was that kind of relaxing activity. Not very complex, things going all right and the result was really nice.

Then came the pearls on sleeves and it was trickier as I had to make sure that the pattern I had for the pearl groups would fit into the circle around the sleeve. So, I did not follow the pattern all the time, trying to hide the "mistakes" to the not so visible areas. (and then I discovered that sleeves have to be slightly larger and I undid the stripes and pearls..)

And then the dress was mostly done. As I removed the undergarment sleeves from the undergarment and sew those into the main dress to make sure they stay in place, I also decided to do something similar with the undergarment visible under the bodice. I used pre-gathered lace for the most part and in the front, I sew rectangular piece of fabric, with elastic ribbon and pre-gathered lace. All done by hand. Worked well enough.

Then came the accessories. The main thing was the wig. I ordered two different blond wigs - one with lace front, other without it but slightly more yellowish tone and slightly longer. While they were on post, I started to work on the netted caul. The pattern I used for the base dress came with a guide for the caul. I thought it was going to be short, considering the refrence for the headstyle I had.

 

So, I made it larger at one end. I used a pillow as my base for working and used pins to position the same silver thread I used in the dress to make the net. When the base was set using pins, at every junction, I had to sew the pearl and sew the junction together. Again, it took ages to do it. But in the end, I actually had the net and pearls. It tooks lot of pearls. Then, I used the same green ribbon I used thousands times with this dress again to do the sides. It is a nice little piece of caul that I got but it took hours to make.

 Then I got my wigs. I decided to go with the lace one as I thought it will be easier to do the hair line as the hairstyle was drawn back. I did few not so successful tries trying to figure out how the hairstyle could be made (I mean - I saw it on the reference images but it was not so easy to redo it. I started to get quite desperate at one point. I mean - I can sew. I have learned so many new aspects with this projects but hairdressing.. I now need to learn this).

Oo my.. it looks almost brownish on this photo

So, again, few hours of research and I decided not to start with the braided hair at the top but to curls at the bottom. Then I just tried to add a lot of volume to the wig and figure out how much hair I can use for the braids. I handsew the caul into the wig to keep it in place and it most have been 101 try with the braids when it started to look like it actually reminds me what I see on the reference. To be honest, wig was nightmare. And I have no idea what I can do to gain more skill in the field. I guess it will be testing and testing and testing.

 

I also added two small ribbons of green with pearls at the bottom of the wig. i did not sew them in (as it thought it will not work). So, on the con, acutally, i was losing one of the ribbons all the time.. somehow I always found it and asked someone to put it back.

The jewellery. I did not made the details myself. I spent hours in web trying to find close as possible components. I think I am 99% happy with what I found. Not all of those components were on the right color. The jewels were most off. So, I bought some transparent glass colors (the jewels were plastic but I thought it will work) that were meant to stick after you heat them in oven. I could not heat plastic in oven so I just hoped it will work and add this kind of more bluish feeling to the color. It worked brilliantly. And due to the fact that I had multiply colors (blue, black, white), I was able to mix different shades and the result was much better than it could have ever been with purchased colored items.

I colored the jewels and beads, I put it all together using small wire, clewed in the endings, tried it on and realized it was too long. Damn super clew! It was hard to take it a part, remove few beads and do it again. But the result was good. I am super happy about the earrings as I do not have piercings I managed to find components that look like piercing but actually are not


The final element that I missed was the ring but I was off for a conference just before the con and I did not managed to deal with it. Luckily, while on conference, I managed to do some shopping and find very similar ring for just few pounds.

Final set of jewelry

• Start
• Main dress
• Sleeves
• Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls
• On convention