Lucrezia Borgia at "Animatsuri"

This blog post is going to be about my first ever time participating in cosplay competition and my second time ever being in a convention.

So, I managed to finish the dress just as I was to fly to UK for a conference for a week. So, instead of packing my travel bag I also had to back everything I need for the convention. I was little worried about the wig, to be honest. I hold it on the foam mannequin head I forced into old broken tripod and the hairstyle felt so fragile so i was worried how it will survive the transportation (the convention was like two hours from my city by bus).

Anyway. I packed everything, flew to Northern Ireland, had great conference, got to met Game of Thrones dire wolfs and did many other great things and then, on Saturday morning I had my flight back. I never actually expected to arrive on time to go to the convention on Saturday despite by hopes that maybe.. maybe.. I will be in Tartu on time to go and listen few of the later presentation. Shappi was having a talk and I really wanted to hear about it.

The first leg of my journey went fine but then in Dublin airport my flight got delayed like almost two hours. So, that was all of my hope of getting to Tartu on time. Anyway, in the end, the flight took off and back at my country, I had my dad meet me with the other luggage and taking me to bus station. So, I just changed one briefcase to another one and took wig in a separate bag. And then, another 2.5 hours on bus. Jupii.. *irony*.

Anyway, in the end, it was 7 pm I think (I started my travels at 6a.m in UK timezone) when I finally arrived. I was tired, hungry and very sleepy. Off to a friends place, going out for dinner and off to bed. I had no more energy than that.

So, the convention for me only lasted for a day. I had actually bought 2 days ticket and in the end, I did not managed to do anything else than deal with the cosplay competition so I would think it was slight waste of money.

So, the doors opened at 11 or 12, I am not sure anymore. I was there slightly before but managed to get in to start with putting the costume on. The hardest part, I thought, would the zipper as it needed help to be pulled up. Somehow, there, at the convention, it was the only time zipper behaved. The real trouble was the wig!. I never actually tried it on after I started with styling. It was on the wig head, traveled to the paper bag I used for transportation and I took it out on site and put on first time. It looked brilliant and it had not suffered during transportation but... Because of the styling all the hair were at the back and the wig was very out of balance. I tried to use hair clips to control it but it was very hard to do by myself. I asked my husband to help me but he was slightly frightened by the request and did not understand what exactly did I needed. I also had the wig clue and I tried it on the lace and sides to keep it on place but it did not help either.

Anyway.. somehow the wig hold but it was falling back all the time and I needed to go to the mirror and fix it every now and then.

Also, I learned that I should probably do makeup not on site as they lack mirrors.But I thought I need wig before makeup.. Oh.. Anyway.. lesson to learn: try wig on before going to convention! Even if it looks so fragile!

Then, when the costume was on and makeup was somehow done (I think the lesson I also learned is trying to practice more makeup. I never wear makeup in real life as my skin just cannot handle it, but I can do it for a day (and suffering later)), it was time for meeting the judges.

I would be lying if I would say I was not nervous. Specially as I was in a wrong location first. Somone told me to go that way. It was actually the spot where cosplayers who have seen judges come out. Ups. Anyway, I found the right queue that was really long and there I stood and waited nervously. Some people were having trouble with their costumes that were falling apart all the time. I think my main worry was are my sleeves looking alright and does the under-dress give enough volume.

Anyway, it was my time to enter and I was greeted by three very friendly judges. It was much more relax atmosphere than I though it would be. They were very friendly and very impressed with my costume. I do not remember actually that if they asked me few questions. I think I just talked mostly myself. I do remember they asked me how long it took to make it and to be honest, I did not remember - months.. but it was never continues process. It was like having a mood for making the dress and then not having it..

It was also quite quick process and off I was. Then there was another queue for stage trial. I mixed my potions, realized that there was no table that I asked for (but that got solved as another contestant had a table and she was willing to borrow it). I went on the stage, realized it is quite small, somehow managed to do all the dance moves as I planned them.. It felt great :)

Photo by: Visual Culture Club

Then I did have some time. I went and saw few of the market stalls but nothing stood out. I talked with few other cosplayers (including the ironic conversation with the girl who was going to win Eurocopslay category telling that there is no point participating in Eurocosplay as we all know who is going to win - hinting that there are two very strong cosplayers who are probably going to take the main prize) but I knew almost none of them and to be honest, none of them actually tried to make friends. It looked like few of them know each other and they all stayed as groups. So, as a total newcomer I fit to nowhere.

Random shot with few people I knew and their friends.
Photo by Triin Kolga

And then was the competition. I was on the second half so I could wait for a long time and got nervous again. I think I was more nervous off stage than actually when I was up there. Up there it all just went so fast. I was probably thinking about my next move rather than worrying how am I doing. Irony was that all the tests I did at home and the stage test on site, I never overmixed my potions (I had baking soda and vinegar for making poison) but there, on stage, I did.. so some of it spil on the stage and it does not have the best smell. Ups.

 

 

Photos by Visual Culture Club

Anyway, I was done, happy (and not crying as one girl - I am not sure even why. She did not have any visible mistakes, as much as I understand dancing) and relaxed. All done. The show went on for a while, then there was group photo and maybe hour and a half before the closing ceremony.

Some people got their costume on. I took it off, mostly due to the wig. It was just falling back too often. So, I think it was mostly people sharing their thoughts. I actually took few bakeries I had in the bag as it was first thing I ate after light breakfast and clock was like 5pm.

Anyway, then was the closing ceremony and awards. Was I nervous? Not sure. I thought, after meeting the judges and getting the feeling that they were impress with my costume (but who knows, maybe they did it to everyone?) that I am going to win something. But I was also very contempt with the idea of not winning as there were so many so great cosplays and this was like first time for me.

The first awards for cosplayers were actually defile category. And two of the main favorites actually got placed there (the rule is that you can only win once and if you win in lower category, you cannot win in higher category). So, for a second I was little panicking that really, did I win eurocosplay (I actually planned only to take part in defile but when I sent my application, they told me to switch because of the quality of the cosplay). Luckily, not. It went to amazing cosplayer who did DragonAge Inqusition and after I saw her in-progress pictures... just wow.. that costume, the details, the work. And she did really well in the EuroCosplay finals too. So, I totally think the right person won it! (And someone who was not in the main 2 favorites - I really think there should be some way to encourage people to participate even if there are few who have done this for like 10 years and are so much further ahead than those who just started. If those who just started will come and see that no matter how much effort they put, they just cannot compete with 10 years of experience, they will quite. I think people should be encouraged not pushed away.. Everyone loves to win. They do not have to win main price. I actually loved those judges favorites and other small categories. Maybe more of them next year?)


But actually, this year they also had three judges favorites so.. I did managed to win one of those for the "best sewn costume". I think I was little stunned on that moment that I actually won something that I was little off, maybe.. but it all sank in later.. I mean, my first ever competition. My first ever really complex cosplay project (that was more than just sewing magical girl like Irisiviel :P) And to be honest, I think, it got me wanting more. More complex costume. Even better skills.. Doing better next year (getting into defile winners or even.. girl can dream :D)

Still little shocked that I did actually won something
Photo by: Visual Culture Club

 So, after few days of settling in, and thinking over the whole experience again, I started to realize that this competition, for me, lacked feedback. Yeah, some people get awards, most get nothing. How could they know how to improve? I think in Eurocosplay final they actually release scorecards or something that shows you were you can improve. There was nothing like this about Animtsuri. So, I took my courage and I actually wrote all 3 judges and asked where could I improve. All of them actually answered to me within days and 2 of them gave me long and very detailed feedback. The main thing was that my makeup was not good. To be honest, I accept that critique. I think people who make up themselves everyday do not even think about the troubles I am thinking. Anyway, I went on to buy more stuff, watched tons of videos, took a course.. so I try to be better on this next year.

The second problem that one judge brought out was the color of the fabric. The were given printed reference images and who knows the quality of the printer. The color they had on their paper was different from the color I had on my dress. All my hard work calibrating and printing before sewing was blown to pieces. The suggestion was that next time I will bring my own print out so I do not have to worry about that factor, especially if I did put so much effort finding the right color.

So, overall - being in a competition takes the whole day. No time to eat, sit or enjoy the convention. I did love the experience but I would love to enjoy the convention also. So, hopefully next year, I will not miss Saturday and can go to workshops (I would love to go to worbla workshop and learn new skills).

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

Lucrezia Borgia - sleeves

So, when main part of the dress was done,  the next step were the sleeves. When I started the project, the sleeves were the one thing I was most excited about but it was nightmare to make in the end. Any other kind of sleeves during Renaissance area would have been easier to make, I think.

First, I started with the bottom part of the sleeves that is solid and reminds common sleeves. I used pattern from another dress to make this. Then, i modified them slightly to facilitate the buffs at the sides. I tried the pattern on and it looked fine. I made first version of the sleeves, sew (by hand) the ribbons and silver thread on them, added lining and strips and tried it on to realize that the wrist area is way too small when trying it on with underdress and huge sleeves on it. So - REDOING!

I made the wrist area much larger and I was afraid it is too large (no, I should have made it slightly larger). I had limited supply of the green ribbon (I was so lucky I found ribbon with such a matching color), so I undo it from the first run of sleeve and sew it again on the second run. Silver thread took a lot of time, again.

For the lining I used the base fabric I used for printing (lightly yellowish) and I added adhesive fabric to it to make it stronger and keep the shape. I went to fabric shop and got myself the strongest adhesive fabric I could but that was way too strong and it did not stuck to fabric. I tried it on some other more natural fabrics and it worked very well there. But it was almost like a board. Very stiff. So, I used slightly stiffer adhesive than I normally do but not the super strong version I thought I will use.

So, the main parts of the sleeves consist of three layers - printed fabric, adhesive fabric and lining. It was still lightweight but nicely keeping its form.

Most of the time I worked with flat sleeves but in the end, I needed to sew together the some of the sides and make sure that the ribbon (using pattern to make sure it is straight was really good) and the pattern match on both sides was slightly tricky. I am just not good at all doing things very precisely. Again, basting.

The top part of the sleeves, around wrist, I sewed by hand - it was easier to control the hole situation that was slightly tricky.

Then, when the bottoms were done, I started working with the ribbons. As the main sleeve was lined, so were going to be the ribbons. I considered cutting the lining from the yellowish fabric I used for the printing but I was not sure it is stiff enough and could I be sure that all the ribbons are going to be exactly the same size. So, instead of using the yellow fabric and adhesive fabric for stiffening, I bough right color ribbon from the fabric shop. I had to visit few of those to get ribbon with right color and width. Again, I needed a lot of it. 12 stripes per sleeve. So, that made sure that all the stripes are going to have exactly the same width. Then, I cut out the main stripes from the fabric. Using the patterned fabric, it was easy to make sure they are straight. With mint green, it was trickier. In the end, I had lot of strips. Again - hand sewing! I needed to apply silver cord to all the sides. That was 24 meters and more I think. I managed to ping-watch another show while doing it (was in Narcos?). Then, I basted the main stripes over it and used machine to sew those together.

 

And when the cords were done, the silver thread came. It is visible from the reference images that the patterned fabric on the sleeves is covered with silver thread following the pattern. For one stripe it meant two silver threads that have to follow the shape - (not many straight lines). At one point, the both threads follow single line. I first tried to come up with a solution where there is only single thread on those places and two on others. But due to the material trying to unwind as soon as I cut and using knots was the only way to keep it in form, I decided to go with two stripes and trying to hide that there are double cords on the areas where only single line is visible.

Finished stripes with silver cord and silver thread

So, 12 stripes with 2 threads per stripe. Another show ping watched (I think it was Underground?).

Then, when the stripes were finished (I would say the stripes took longer than tiles on the skirt), I needed to make sure I have them in right length. Because I had no pattern for it, I did some research and the way people seemed to do those were that they used usual pattern for sleeve and just enlarged it (mostly to the height). So, it was just gathering the stripes, basting then to the ribbon and testing to make sure I have normal looking sleeve. I realized that most of my stripes were too long. Even now, when I cut them, I think I could have cut them slightly more.

Preparing the sleeves. Gathering at the connections points and sewing them all to single line

When I had perfected one sleeve, it was easy - just undoing the basting and copying it to the second set of stripes. To keep the ribbons on place, I used machine to sew the gathered stripes to the green ribbon. I got those kind of flat sleeve looking things. Then I needed to connect them - at first, again, I did not thought about the underdress. They were fine on their own but the underdress and its sleeves actually add a lot of volume. I only discovered it when I already had some pearls added (I needed a break from the sleeves at one point so I went on adding the pearls. It was more fun than dealing with those nightmarish sleeves)  - so it was not very comfortable to redo it. Luckily I had enough ribbon at this point.

The second problem, again, me not thinking, was that the sleeves were sewn to the main part of the dress and did not used ribbons to connect as I first had assumed. So, I had to undo the armpits of the main dress and sew the ribbons to the lining and then, carefully, handsew the green fabric to its place. The result was nice :)

Sleeves connected to the dress but they are not holding the shape

One problem arose - the sleeves were losing their shape when I put it on. I did some research and It seemed most people sew the undergarment sleeves onto the main dress and connected it to the sleeve to keep the shape. I wanted to have the fluffy feeling so I had two options - have three layers of fabric (stripped sleeve, fluffy undergarment and base sleeve) or have two layers and use stripes to keep the sleeve shape. I went with the second. But that mean that I was going to redo the underdress (as the itchy fabric was horrible to wear, it sounded like good prospect). I removed the sleeves, sew them by hand to the main part of the dress, fixed the fluffiness by basting it to the ribbons connecting the stripes on the sleeves. Then I added to ribbons per sleeve to (one at the top, another at the bottom) to keep the sleeve in the pace. It was lot of inventing but it worked.

The final step of the sleeves were to hand sew the bottom part of the stripes with bottom sleeves. I made the undergarment sleeves slightly narrower at the end so that they would fit into the bottom sleeves. I loved the volume they added to the stripes but it was too much extra volume for the bottom.

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

Lucrezia Borgia dress - main part

So, I started the main dress with modifying the pattern. The pattern I had, had totally different frontal section that I wanted. There was another option with the pattern that had continues front so I combined both of those options and made the first version of the bodice.

The references images show that the dress has very low bodice. I was never going to go that low as I wanted to be comfortable while wearing it. Sorry, I love details and trying to copy every aspect of the original dress but that was just something I was not going to do. I wanted not to worry about the dress all the time when I am in con. So, to figure out the bodice, first I made the underdress that is visible under the bodice. I used nice fabric meant originally to make curtains. It had right color, very nice pattern with golden threads on it and it was very quick to make. All the first images have this underdress with them on the mannequin. At the later stages of the project, when I actually tried it on, I realized it was horrible fabric to wear. It was so itchy. I should have thought about it before as the fabric was meant for curtains. So, at the end, I made a new underdress with even nicer fabrics.

I have tons of strong linen that I used for lining. So, first, using the continues pattern, I made the lining, and then, with colored fabrics, I made the main part. The straps came out really nice but the first version of the bodice was too high. So, I just had to take it part again and do it again. it also had boning on the lining so that made undoing harder. It took me three tires, if I remember correctly, to figure out how to position the pattern, how to get right height. Also, first I planned to put the fastener at the back but then my sister suggested to have it on the side for convenience. More undoing but it was the right choice. I think I have not very good fastener as it is horrible when pulling it up. It comes down very easily but whenever I try to put the dress on, it is always horrible fight with lot of strength involved to close the fastener. After I discovered it, I just did not wanted to undo it all again. So, I had to live with it and so far I have managed.

First try - underdress is visible but the central fabric is off and bodice is too high

Then, the next step was the skirt. I had pattern for it but I made my own as I was going to make 12 tiles. 6 with pattern and 6 green mint. That was the easy part so far. Now I needed to start to have details. Between every tile there had to be silver bias cord with piping. I could not find right quantities from local fabric stores (I needed a lot of it!!! Almost 50 meters were used) I had to order it from ebay and it took some time to arrive. In the end, I actually had to order more of it as I ran out of it before the end. Also, I needed small silver thread to go with the bias cord. Again, for the quantities, I ordered it from ebay. I used that for more than 70m on the whole project!!!

Then, when I had the cord and silver thread, it was hours of hand sewing. I knew I would never be able to sew the cord between two tiles correctly without basting before hand. Every tile was more than a meter long. So, 12 meters of basting at least. Then, it was carefully sewing the cord in place with machine. In some cases, the basting was not done well enough, so I had to undo some parts. Lot of work and hours went into adding the cord between the tiles.

Then, when the cord was in place, the silver thread came into play. Actually, the cord gave me extra nightmares. It was very easy to unwind and started to disentangle from its shape as soon as I cut it. I tried to used candle to melt it slightly (like I usually do with ribbons) but it was not plastic but I am not even sure. The cord did not melt very well so there was not much to connect (and I ended up burning myself more than stopping disentanglement). I then tried using sewing thread to stop it and it worked better but the unwinding gave me a lot of troubles, specially when I tried to overlock the edges later.

Silver cord inserted between tiles

So, the silver cord. Every green tile had two silver threads at the sides. Again, more than 12 meters of hand sewing. The silver thread was narrow but not that narrow that I could just sew over it. I had to use the needle pierce through the thread that was not easy most of the time. Anyway, it took hours. While doing the cord and thread, I managed to ping-watch 3 seasons of "Black Sails" (so 30 hours?) (actually, more like listen - as my eyes were on the project).

Silver thread is also added to the green tiles

The silver thread had also the unwinding problem but I just made knots at the ends and it worked fine.

When all the was finished, it was overlocking the top and bottom and doing the bottom part, by hand again, so that it would be almost invincible. It was long process but the result looked really nice.

Then, I realized that I have the zip at the side and I should split one tile so that the zip could be added. Luckily it was the mint green tile as I was worried I may ran out printed fabric.

The next part was connecting the skirt to the bodice. The skirt, as you can imagine, had much wider width than the bodice. The reference shows really nice ruffles and gathering. So I did my best to mimic it. The front part of the bodice had to fit the first, central, tile so there the gathering was slightly more intense than on the rest of the dress. In the end, the zip was added and the main part of the dress was done.

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

Lucrezia Borgia dress - start

So, I would say that my first ever really big and complex cosplay project is Lucrezia Borgia dress from Borgias. I missed one year of Animatsuri due to being in Japan duing my research for PhD but as I came back in the end of 2015, I knew I can come to Animatsuri in 2016 and I really wanted to take part of the cosplay competition now when I had seen the event once (2014).

Back then I did really simple cosplay just to wear (and blend in more - as I felt totally out of place) - Irisiviel from Fate/Zero. (The first blog post in this blog is actually about this costume.. I never actually finished that series )

Photo: Kristiina Saar

I loved the char, I loved the anime and I loved the costume but it taught me a lot about cosplay. It does not matter so much how precise they details are if the costume itself is very simple. More elaborate the costume, more attention it gets. The first event taught me that attention actually matters and details matter a lot. So, for my first real try with cosplay I decided to go with Lucrezia.

Why her? First of all, anime is actually not my thing. Animatsuri and all the anime fests, they are great places to wear costumes but that's it. First I thought that you can only cosplay anime but more I learned about cosplay I realized I can do whatever I want. It doesn't have to be anime nor connected with Japan at all nor from game. I can also cosplay movies and shows.

I have always wanted to do renaissance dress almost as badly as I have wanted to do English Elizabethian time period costumes. When I had made up my mind that it will be one of those time periods, I knew it is going to be Lucrezia from The Borgias. I always loved that show for the costumes. Even when I knew the characther and show, the exact costume was much more complex.

Lucrezia wears so many fancy costumes during the shows three seasons that I had hard trouble finding my favorite. You can see and read about all the costumes here. My choice in the end was down to three dresses (the one I chose, the wedding dress and I am not sure what was the third one.. blue dress from season2 maybe). The main factor was that I really liked the ribbon sleeves. So, in the end, I went with the dress she wears in the end of season 2 and the start of season 3. It is this kind of mint green dress (I think) with lovely sleeves and lot of pearls as decorations.

So, now when i knew which dress I want to make, the next step was finding the pattern and fabric. Pattern was easy. I went with simplicity's Renaissance pattern.

I used the main pattern (on the left on preview) as a base but to be honest, I needed very little of it and I could have done it without it. The bodice was the only thing where I used the pattern and I modified it heavily to fit the pattern of the Lucrezia's dress.

The next step was the fabric. The problem was the color of the dress. There are three good quality stills:

 

 

So those were my reference images. In the top images, (season 3) the dress looks goldish, in bottom image (season 2) it looks greenish. There is another dress that looks to be the same dress with slightly modified sleeves worn also in season 2 that looks totally blue (shot during the day). So I had no idea should the dress be blue, green or golden. Also, as green is hard color to photograph and the silk reflects a lot of light, I did a little trial and error with different fabrics and light conditions and took photos until I got a fabric that gave me the most similar result to the dancing image (that i think as yellow but more neutral lightning than season 3 images).

So, I had my green fabric but the pattern was problematic. I tried to find something with similar pattern. I actually even found something but it was silver fabric. So, it would have gone with bluish tones but not with the nice warmer mint green I had. So, I decided to make the pattern myself and I do not regret that at all! This is the only way I could get exact copy of the pattern used on the show.

Pattern tile cretaed in Photoshop

So, I just used the middle reference image as it had largest resolution, zoomed in and recreated the pattern in Photoshop. I used a company that can print your own fabrics. Its not very cheap but much better than using the stamping method I used with Jacob Frye costume. The result was amazing but...

Two size tries and first test-print - totally too brown so I added more blueishness

Drawing the patterns was just time consuming and despite having good resolution sometimes it was quite hard to see the exact details and figure out the exact size. i think I managed to get close enough. (Also, in the end, I needed to transform the drawing to vector so there was extra task of learing how to use vectors and modify them)

First print - it was brown on test run and now it is totally blue. Nooooo.. But it was so nice to get a block of your own designed fabric. Loved it :D

The mint green I used in the end and another jade color fabric at right. I considered using the jade fabric but it did not fit with the blue either. So - I spent twice the money to do another print (fabric was cheap but the printing :S Lesson learned: do test prints until you are happy despite it takes time)

It took me two tries to get the right color. I used the exact same kind of fabric for the base of the pattern than the mint green. It is not pure white but has slight warm yellowish tone. So, thinking of printing technology, I first made the pattern slightly more bluish (after testrun that gave me brown instead of green) thinking the yellow will have an effect. The answer was - the yellow had minimum effect but the blue came out so so strong that it did not fit at all. I had just printed almost 3 meters of fabric that I could not use. I was not happy at all.

Plenty of test runs and final fabric with right kind of green

So, I had to go back (that was effort by itself as the company was off the beaten track) and the lady there did many trial prints to get the right color. Despite having the color guidance and printout on paper, they looked different on fabric. Anyway, in the end I had the right color. It was maybe slightly stronger than I would have liked but the printing machine had limits and as I have seen so many times with design works before - printing green is nightmare.

Anyway. Now I had both green and pattern fabric and I was ready to make the dress:

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