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 

Jacob Frye from Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Two years ago I made a uniform like coat for a friend so he could wear it in a maskball he was going to attend. He actually won the "king of the ball" title in that event and he was back this year (2015) to ask me for another costume to wear in this year event. As the ball is organized during anime convention and there are lot of cosplayers, he wanted to become Jacob Fyre from (then) soon to be realized Assassin's Creed game.

At that point of time (summer 2015) there were very few shots from the actual game. There were few screenshots, some official promo materials and amazing cosplay by someone from Netherlands who had direct access to Ubisoft. I was stuck with working with refrence materials I can get from the internet.

 

The first concept art was good but a lot of details had been changed by the time videos from the game started to come out. So, I used it only partially and mostly used screenshots from the videos as a refrence.

For the base I used Victorian men costume pattern from McCall's

I took the trousers completely from the pattern but modified coat and vest.

For materials I bought last meters of really good fabric I found that also had similar pattern as the wool in the screenshots. The problem - I could only make coat or trousers out if. For some reason I chose trousers hoping I can find similar pattern. And by pattern I mean this on the fabric:

Anyway.. trousers came out fine and I managed to find really neat steampunk buttons for them but I could not find any more fabric with similar pattern or texture.

So, after many unfruitful trips to different fabric shops I gave up and brought random dark wool fabric and some artificial leather and stitched leather.

The stitching was smaller than I wanted but it was the only one they had in quantities I needed it. Anyway.. I could now start working on the coat. It was a lot of fun - I liked all the small details the costume had. Adding rivets. I had some really useful small women bag rivets from old times (when I made the Marie Antoinette dress hat) and they were so useful now. Sadly, I could not find them in any shop anymore so in the future when I might need them, I am out of them. I also made a leather belt with different kind of rivets. Finding so small rivets was hard but in the middle of horrible rainstorm I ran into a small fabric shop and they had small rivets in stock. Lucky me.

Sadly I do not have any images of the process, only this one really bad quality shot done with a phone when I tried the coat on my sister:

With the vest I had much more trouble - mainly due to the fabric. I tried to find something that is green and has "same looking" pattern. Soon I realized this is hopeless. I started to look anything in right green tone with pattern. Again, nothing. So, in the end I decided to print the pattern by myself. I did some googling and somewhere people made stamps and used those to apply pattern. It sounded little complex so in the end, I drew the pattern and printed it out in old fashioned slide film (you know, the ones that were used before powerpoint). It was strong enough to enable me to use carpet cutting knife to cut out the pattern. Then I used piece of fabric and white fabric paint I got from local craft store to apply the pattern, one stripe (few repetitions of the pattern) at the time. It was a long process and the slide and the cuts lost their quality more I used them but:

First tries. Getting the paint consistent right was little "trial and error"

More fabric filled with the pattern

After spending two nights on the floor and watching tv while applying the pattern I had enough fabric for the vest. I then tried it at midday's sun and later user iron to make sure the color is not going anywhere. It stands the ironing and washing.

What to say: it was very time consuming process but I did not know better option back then (now I know a company that can print on fabric using custom files, so I could have had this printed...). It was cheap at least. It took time and the quality of the pattern application was varying but it looks all right.

Finished vest. Both the vest and the jacket have their sides covered with really nice dark silver bias tape.

Anyway. Quickly I made the tie and added a ribbon to the top-hat as I was off to Japan for 4 months and I needed to finish the costume before it. So, I actually never saw him wear it before in September he sent me the pictures from the convention where I wore the costume:

Photo by: Sabīne Tarando, Elīza Eikert

Photo by: Kristiina Saar

Civil Era Dress - at "Hell on Wheels"

So, my flight was without problems and I managed not to forget to take the last hook with me. So, I ended up in Prague. I found the right spot where another 70+ people with cowboy hats and huge bags waited a bus and we took our ride in the middle of the Czech Republic to "Stonetown". It is actual Wild West village build by a man who actually lives in a house in the "Stonetown". He rents the place out for different types of events, like a LARP I was participating in.

So, I think, in the end, with the organizers and NPC there were around 100 people, all in amazing costumes. There were people all around Europe, maybe even from further.

Anyway, few very good shots about my costume were taken:

Photographer: Tomas Flankey Felcman as EXPit thru lens

Main shot of me in front of the company building. The costume looks stunning, I think :)

photographer: Erik Pihl

Another shot, showing the back of the dress. I do not have my hairstyle yet, so it is probably early in the morning.

This one was taken with my camera and you can see the hooks nicely here. You would not believe they were originally red.

Photographer: Tomas Flankey Felcman as EXPit thru lens

This is one of my favorite shots from the game. It was amazing action scene and very emotional scene for my character and this photo caught it all so well.

And some more great shots from the larp:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To sum up, I can say it was amazing LARP. I would play it again, in a heartbeat. I got many compliments for my costume and I was very happy with it. It was maybe little too warm during the midday when sun was out (on the first day) but it was all rainy and misty rest of the event so it was perfect - some point I had to even wear a cloak to keep myself warm.

So, another project very successfully done :)

<< Previous

Civil war era dress - trouble with the jacket

So, a while ago I wrote the trouble I had with the jacket. I wanted to have that kind of bottom extra length but as I did not had the pattern, I tried to make it by myself. I managed it but I was never fully happy with it.

 

After finishing the skirt and trying it all with the pannier and petticoat, I realized that I had not considered the way skirt is expanding and the sides of the jacket (over the skirt) were looking very weird.

So, I decided to scrap the whole idea and just make similar ruffle at the bottom of the jacket as I had at the bottom of the skirt and use another line of black ribbon above it. This worked much better and looked neat:

 For closing the jacket, I used lot of snap fasteners. I think there were more than 20 of them but it made the jacket close really nice. In the end, I actually sew few fabric made hooks at the top so that it would look like the hooks are actually used for closing the jacket.

The hooks I got from fabric shop were redish but not the same tone as the ruffles and they did not matched. Therefore - I had to make them more purple. I got purple silk paint that was in right tone and then I just soaked the hooks on it. It was all in the very last minute and it took a day to try. The paint said that to make the paint stick, I had to iron it but the hooks also had plastic pearls on it, so I actually couldn't iron it very much as they started to melt.

Anyway.. I ruined one hook and had to color another one. So the night before leaving for the larp, I had four hooks on the jacket, the last one was drying and I hoped I will not forget it to take it with me early in the morning when the plain goes.

Anyway.. Time had ran out. "Hell on Wheels" started tomorrow and my dress was mostly done. Yay :D

<<Previous || Next>>

Civil war era dress - Bonnet

Okei. Next challenge - bonnet. I think at first I was seriously considering buying it as despite my luck with tricon hat foor Robe a'la francaise, hats are scary.. Hats sound like very complex things and I have no honest idea how to make. And the last hat - I mean, I actually had the base. This time there would be nothing.

But again, I decided to brace the challenge, google around and then I found a blog post how someone made bonnet out of cereal box. Apparently the creativity was the key.

I started with newspaper and trying to make myself the patter (as I was running out of time and if I had ordered a pattern it would not have reached me on time). Then cutting it out and trying the "paper" bonnet. I found a very small pattern out of internet and I used the "square method" to enlarge it.

Then, I had artificial leather that I thought to be heavy enough to support my main fabric. I was totally wrong. I spent some more time in google and I learned that originally those were made using wire. Luckily I had wire in my basement that I once used to make chainmail. It was strong and I used tuck tape to "tape it" in place. The result was quite sloppy but at least the bonnet was holding its shape.

 I then added some extra wired to the "middle" part of the hat to help those parts also in shape.

Then, it was back for sewing, that I felt more comfortable. I used the main fabric for the outer layer of bonnet and then the lining for inner layer. I got pregathered laced and added a layer of it into the lining and two lines of the black ribbon I used everywhere on the outer layer to match the style.

And as you can see, I added a black rose and velvet ribbon.

The tricky part, I would say, was putting the fabric over the frame. As I had that white pre-gathered lace at the end, I had the only option that the "opening" will be at the back end. Sewing the "circle" into the place was another nightmare and in the end, it took a lot of sewing by hand to fit it there. Also, I then basted the edges by hand to make sure it would not start moving. A lot of hours. Trying to get the needle through that thick artificial leather and tape was a nightmare.

Result:

 

 As you can see, the back is not perfect here. It took some time playing with the fire to get rid of that fold. But overall - I made a bonnet.

(But I never thought how to wear it.. when I actually got to the larp and put the dress on with proper hairstyle, the bonnet was falling off my head all the time. I tried hair clips to hold it but no.. so, in the end, I just put the bonnet over my bun but I was not sure it was meant to be worn like that)

<<Previous | Next>>

Civil war era dress - undergarments

As this dress was made not for the re-enactment but for larp, the "correctness" was not so vital. I think proper undergarments are important for the dress to have right "shape", so I still try to make them but I am not so worried how they look and usually I am quite sloppy when I make them. They have to be easy as the main costume will take most of my effort anyway.

So, for this dress the undergarments I needed were the pannier, petticoat, shirt and corset.

For the a knee length shirt I had  piece of really fine cotton and nice cotton lace for the sides. It was sloppy without a pattern shirt I made. Took hour at maximum.

 

I opted the easy choice with corset - I ordered one very cheap pure white corset online. I was looking at more authentic ones but I had put already so much money into this project that I was just trying to do rest of it as cheap as possible. I was ready to receive some horrible "made in china" corset but to my surprise, it was really nice. The fabric was not as reflective as I thought. It wasn't cotton but it was matte.

For the pannier, also, a cheap way around. I have that kind of very simple and quite cheap modern wedding dress pannier that I bought like 10 years ago and never really used. It has been sitting in the closet but it was perfect. It is little bit too weak as the main fabric for the dress is very heavy but it was fine. It hold the dress perfectly and saved me the trouble of making the pannier.

As the pannier had three rings that were very visible without petticoat, I decided to make extra large petticoat. So It has a lot of ruffles, lot of fluffiness. I got really nice black cotton fabric for amazing price for it. Again - main effort went to working with the edges.. but I could use this petticoat with other dresses and I think it was time well invested.

<<Previous || Next>>

Civil war era dress - skirt

So, the next step in the project was the skirt. Compared to the jacket, this was easy. Easy but just time consuming. Just make the pleads. It took a day.

Then, as I had those skirt and jacket separately, I needed something that would be able to hold all this massive fabric that made the skirt. I tried to make "more neat" looking waistband but it could just not hold it.. so I went with this massive ugly solution but as it will be under the jacket, it will be fine.

Then the ruffles. I first had got myself some lace as on the sleeves and I thought I could use it. I tried. Main problem: it was totally wrong color. I got myself a silk color (as it was best I could find) and I did a try with a small piece of lace. Yes, I got it to better shade that would match the lace on the sleeves better. I think I had like 9-10 meters of that lace. I just started to calculate how much silk color I would need and how much time it would take and how much would it all cost.. so, in the end, I dropped the idea of using lace and went to cheap fabric store and got really nice and really light fabric that cost like 4 euros per meter and I could get so many ruffles out of it. I was just mad that I had spent something like 40 euros on that lace :S I still have the lace.. I could use it with some other projects but.. I was just mad as I had the fabric idea at first but then I thought it would take so much time to work the edges..

Anyway.. so it took my I think at least a day to deal with the ruffles.. most of it being zik-zaking over the edges with very small step. But the result with that kind of very light fabric is always amazing. Then I added two lines of black ribbon over the ruffles and opted out of making another line of ruffles. I think the one is fine. Totally happy with the result:

Skirt done.. At least I had the dress.. now everything else was up to me how much time I can put into this costume before I have to wear it.
<<Previous || Next>>