oh hai LJ, how are you? Long time, no entry… do de do (which is now my catch phrase apparently)
this is basically the MARcon costume update, picspam later, when/if my sister uploads the pics…
so MARcon was an EPIC WIN! Marty, Jenn, and I have been officially going for a while but others have joined our group and then left. We ended up with Kaity (my freshie) coming which was uber fun. Because I’m smart, I decided to be in charge of costumes of the four of us for the three days… yeah… Friday was Doctor Who, Saturday was Firefly, and Sunday was Doctor Horrible.
Doctor Who was rather straight forward, Marty was 11 and I got everything from the shop, boots, jeans, bowtie, and coat, so I just had to find the suspenders and shirt. I found one at goodwill that kinda sorta no not really worked but about five days before the con I found a damn good checked one. The suspenders came from Hot Topic (don’t judge) and the sonic from Think Geek. Jenn was Jenny so she just used my River boots, some rather scary shiny pants from the shop, and a tee-shirt from Michel’s. The BFG was a $12 water gun that I spray painted silver and then black. The paint was scratching off like mad because the paint wasn’t plastic safe; it was from my basement so it was free. My goal is to take paint stripper to it and we do it with spray paint meant for plastic, thus it still looks like a BFG but can be used to ward off drunken college kids. She used my Alice wig but we had to lower the pony tail from a high to a low to help hide her hair. Kaity as Rose was super easy due to the fact that I pulled one together for Amy for ComiCon last year. She provided the shoes and jeans and we found a gray tee-shirt that we ripped the sleeves/neck out. The earrings and wig were mine as well. It took the poor girl about eight applications of eye makeup to get the spider!eyes right. I was really happy with her outfit, she looked like a tiny Rose (love ya Kaity, but she’s rather small) but some jackass came up and said that he didn’t recognize her because her boobs were too small. He just about died. Me as Amy was a fun one tho… I had no parts to her. At all. The shoes were our Doctor’s thus they were three sizes to large… but I had to choose between a sonic or shoes and because I’m a nerd, the sonic won. Tights came from Walmart and the mini skirt was a pair of rather frightening mom jeans from Kohls (thank goodness for my sister working there) that were originally $50 but I got em for $2. I then ripped out the inseams, wacked em off to about three inches above my knees, sewed down the crotch, and slowly cut my way up from there. The hoodie came from American Apparel down in Cincy, my BFF took me to New Port Aquarium for my birthday so we stopped by the store and got the last one! I assumes (cos I’m an idiot) that the necklace and earrings would be the easiest, I mean, how hard would finding an “A” charm and star earrings? Oh silly costumer, I still haven’t learned. After hunting for an entire month, I found some white star earrings at Walmart which I then painted gold. When I have some money I want to get some from Simply Wispers, a hypoallergenic earring site, because they are much closer than mine. Michel’s had letter charms, in sliver, but had no A’s (>_>) and I was about to give up hope until I went to Factory Card Outlet to pick up some red hairspray for Saffron when I found an A cell phone charm! SCORE! I paint penned it gold (yet again, I wanna re-do it) and got a gold chain (that turned my neck green… it was only $3 so what do I expect?) The wig came from cosworth (Rose in 130) and the headband came from Target for a dollor. Not great, but in the large scheme of things, it worked for what I wanted.
Saturday was Firefly and this is where the horcrux dress of death comes in. Marty was Simon, all that needed was a vest and he provided the dress shoes, dress pants, and dress shirt. Bata bing, bata boom, ya have a Simon. Kaity was bed sheet!Saffron. Dress/shirt was one mom made for my sister years ago to go under a Meadville dress for school, the apron was a pillowcase chopped up, and the shawl was a table runner that I chopped up into a triangle. I sewed the living daylights out of the edge and then shredded the extra fabric to make the tassels. River was easy as well, I had fixed this up for Amy for SDCC last summer, thus I had the skirt on hand and a sweater that would work but I really wanted a better one. I ordered the yarn from dev back in March and she ended up getting it done at 12:30 Friday morning of the con… yeah… but hey, it was finished and that’s all I cared about. I went through three tank tops before I was happy and I used boots I got back in 8th grade. I think that all in all, I’m going to end up re-doing the costume, I think I’m going to make it into a dress, thus the lines will be cleaner. And was there another costume? Ah yes, the horcrux dress of death. Jenn wanted the purple dress that Inara, I wanted Jenn to be Kaylee but nnnoooo, she just HAD to be Inara. I ended up modifying a Simplicity pattern to work the way we wanted, I extended and widened the straps so we could do the folds in the bodice. We made a muslin out of purple quilting fabric which then turned into the lining. I’ve sworn off brocade… again… it wasn’t that bad, I just had to deal with the fact that it likes to shred like mad and is a pain to work with but I think I’ve come up with a way to work with it the next time I’m forced to work with the stuff again. So the dress was rather straight forward, I just fitted the pattern, cut it down to size and then cut it out of the real fabric. The insert was just the reverse of the purple. Everyone was freaking out about it and saying how epic it was but I still don’t find it as such a big deal… I don’t know, it could just be me undermining myself… the accessories were another kettle of fish tho. The belt was made of wooden disks that were painted gold and then attached to the chain with epoxy. The gems were clear stones that were painted purple and attached with more epoxy. The slave cuff started out as three pendants that we popped out of their casings and used a crapload of epoxy to attach the chain… and then the fun begins… we ran out. So I had to attach it to the bracelet with hot glue. Jenn ended up not liking the way the chain was set so she re-hot glued it; only problem is that it then made the chain to short. The necklace was another chain, cut it in two parts, attached the claps and clipped the rings open to attach the disk. The pendant itself started out as a wooden disk which Jenn dremeled down to the right shape. The stone was one left over from the belt. Add in some temp hair and bata bing, bata boom, you’re Inara.
Sunday was Doctor Horrible which was, once again, rather straight forward. Marty wanted to be Doctor Horrible but I put my foot down. I told him that unless he could get the outfit himself, it wasn’t happening. So he was Caption Hammer instead… we reused the Doctor Who boots, found some cargo pants at Good Will (after a month of searching…) and the shirt was a youth large with an iron on transfer of the logo. Yeah, I know it’s backwards but I thought that it was a reverse transfer. Ah well. I kinda also almost murdered the printer doing this project… I went to print the first page and it made a really angry sound, went kerthunk, and then stopped working… daddy was not happy… but we got it working in the end. The fangirl shirts were as simple as taking a pic of Marty, cutting it out on paint (because I discovered the night before at 1am that I didn’t have access to photo shop… fail), printed, cut it out, add copious amounts of SQUEEEE and you have instant fangirl. Penny was fun… I wanted to do shrapnel!penny but it wouldn’t stick. It took me forever to find a dress that would work, I gave up trying to find fabric, and it cost me $50 so there was no way in hell I was cutting up the dress. I just basted the sash on so it could be removed later for use as a normal dress. The spaghetti strap was kidnapped from my mom’s closet. The sweater started out as a scary mom sweater with a… ruff… thing on the bottom. I cut that off and gave it a lettuce edge, cut the sleeves down to 3/4ths, removed the buttons and switched em around with rose ones. One of my future roommates was going to paint on the flowers but she decided that studying for finals was more important than that. Lame. I wasn’t recognized on con day because I kinda forgot my shoes at home, decided not to wear my wig, and had my glasses. Wasn’t a big deal because everyone liked the outfits that were made rather that just pieced and by then I was so tired of being in a dress for three days in a row, something I haven’t done in over a decade. For a reason.
All in all, it was a huge success, especially considering that all of Kaity’s outfits were put together in under three weeks. Next year I’m gonna be a buttface and make us do Doctor Who on Saturday, just cos I’m a bigger Who fan than Firefly (I know, I know, blasphemy to the Joss). If we do Doctor Horrible again it’s gonna be Penny w/ jeans, if nothing else so I’m in pants for at least one day.
Also, if you made it all the way down here then WOO! You get a cookie! Picspam IF MY SISTER EVER GETS THEM TO MMEEEE!! Also, please stop spazing, *cough*Jenn*cough* they’ll get here when they get here!
so MARcon was an EPIC WIN! Marty, Jenn, and I have been officially going for a while but others have joined our group and then left. We ended up with Kaity (my freshie) coming which was uber fun. Because I’m smart, I decided to be in charge of costumes of the four of us for the three days… yeah… Friday was Doctor Who, Saturday was Firefly, and Sunday was Doctor Horrible.
Doctor Who was rather straight forward, Marty was 11 and I got everything from the shop, boots, jeans, bowtie, and coat, so I just had to find the suspenders and shirt. I found one at goodwill that kinda sorta no not really worked but about five days before the con I found a damn good checked one. The suspenders came from Hot Topic (don’t judge) and the sonic from Think Geek. Jenn was Jenny so she just used my River boots, some rather scary shiny pants from the shop, and a tee-shirt from Michel’s. The BFG was a $12 water gun that I spray painted silver and then black. The paint was scratching off like mad because the paint wasn’t plastic safe; it was from my basement so it was free. My goal is to take paint stripper to it and we do it with spray paint meant for plastic, thus it still looks like a BFG but can be used to ward off drunken college kids. She used my Alice wig but we had to lower the pony tail from a high to a low to help hide her hair. Kaity as Rose was super easy due to the fact that I pulled one together for Amy for ComiCon last year. She provided the shoes and jeans and we found a gray tee-shirt that we ripped the sleeves/neck out. The earrings and wig were mine as well. It took the poor girl about eight applications of eye makeup to get the spider!eyes right. I was really happy with her outfit, she looked like a tiny Rose (love ya Kaity, but she’s rather small) but some jackass came up and said that he didn’t recognize her because her boobs were too small. He just about died. Me as Amy was a fun one tho… I had no parts to her. At all. The shoes were our Doctor’s thus they were three sizes to large… but I had to choose between a sonic or shoes and because I’m a nerd, the sonic won. Tights came from Walmart and the mini skirt was a pair of rather frightening mom jeans from Kohls (thank goodness for my sister working there) that were originally $50 but I got em for $2. I then ripped out the inseams, wacked em off to about three inches above my knees, sewed down the crotch, and slowly cut my way up from there. The hoodie came from American Apparel down in Cincy, my BFF took me to New Port Aquarium for my birthday so we stopped by the store and got the last one! I assumes (cos I’m an idiot) that the necklace and earrings would be the easiest, I mean, how hard would finding an “A” charm and star earrings? Oh silly costumer, I still haven’t learned. After hunting for an entire month, I found some white star earrings at Walmart which I then painted gold. When I have some money I want to get some from Simply Wispers, a hypoallergenic earring site, because they are much closer than mine. Michel’s had letter charms, in sliver, but had no A’s (>_>) and I was about to give up hope until I went to Factory Card Outlet to pick up some red hairspray for Saffron when I found an A cell phone charm! SCORE! I paint penned it gold (yet again, I wanna re-do it) and got a gold chain (that turned my neck green… it was only $3 so what do I expect?) The wig came from cosworth (Rose in 130) and the headband came from Target for a dollor. Not great, but in the large scheme of things, it worked for what I wanted.
Saturday was Firefly and this is where the horcrux dress of death comes in. Marty was Simon, all that needed was a vest and he provided the dress shoes, dress pants, and dress shirt. Bata bing, bata boom, ya have a Simon. Kaity was bed sheet!Saffron. Dress/shirt was one mom made for my sister years ago to go under a Meadville dress for school, the apron was a pillowcase chopped up, and the shawl was a table runner that I chopped up into a triangle. I sewed the living daylights out of the edge and then shredded the extra fabric to make the tassels. River was easy as well, I had fixed this up for Amy for SDCC last summer, thus I had the skirt on hand and a sweater that would work but I really wanted a better one. I ordered the yarn from dev back in March and she ended up getting it done at 12:30 Friday morning of the con… yeah… but hey, it was finished and that’s all I cared about. I went through three tank tops before I was happy and I used boots I got back in 8th grade. I think that all in all, I’m going to end up re-doing the costume, I think I’m going to make it into a dress, thus the lines will be cleaner. And was there another costume? Ah yes, the horcrux dress of death. Jenn wanted the purple dress that Inara, I wanted Jenn to be Kaylee but nnnoooo, she just HAD to be Inara. I ended up modifying a Simplicity pattern to work the way we wanted, I extended and widened the straps so we could do the folds in the bodice. We made a muslin out of purple quilting fabric which then turned into the lining. I’ve sworn off brocade… again… it wasn’t that bad, I just had to deal with the fact that it likes to shred like mad and is a pain to work with but I think I’ve come up with a way to work with it the next time I’m forced to work with the stuff again. So the dress was rather straight forward, I just fitted the pattern, cut it down to size and then cut it out of the real fabric. The insert was just the reverse of the purple. Everyone was freaking out about it and saying how epic it was but I still don’t find it as such a big deal… I don’t know, it could just be me undermining myself… the accessories were another kettle of fish tho. The belt was made of wooden disks that were painted gold and then attached to the chain with epoxy. The gems were clear stones that were painted purple and attached with more epoxy. The slave cuff started out as three pendants that we popped out of their casings and used a crapload of epoxy to attach the chain… and then the fun begins… we ran out. So I had to attach it to the bracelet with hot glue. Jenn ended up not liking the way the chain was set so she re-hot glued it; only problem is that it then made the chain to short. The necklace was another chain, cut it in two parts, attached the claps and clipped the rings open to attach the disk. The pendant itself started out as a wooden disk which Jenn dremeled down to the right shape. The stone was one left over from the belt. Add in some temp hair and bata bing, bata boom, you’re Inara.
Sunday was Doctor Horrible which was, once again, rather straight forward. Marty wanted to be Doctor Horrible but I put my foot down. I told him that unless he could get the outfit himself, it wasn’t happening. So he was Caption Hammer instead… we reused the Doctor Who boots, found some cargo pants at Good Will (after a month of searching…) and the shirt was a youth large with an iron on transfer of the logo. Yeah, I know it’s backwards but I thought that it was a reverse transfer. Ah well. I kinda also almost murdered the printer doing this project… I went to print the first page and it made a really angry sound, went kerthunk, and then stopped working… daddy was not happy… but we got it working in the end. The fangirl shirts were as simple as taking a pic of Marty, cutting it out on paint (because I discovered the night before at 1am that I didn’t have access to photo shop… fail), printed, cut it out, add copious amounts of SQUEEEE and you have instant fangirl. Penny was fun… I wanted to do shrapnel!penny but it wouldn’t stick. It took me forever to find a dress that would work, I gave up trying to find fabric, and it cost me $50 so there was no way in hell I was cutting up the dress. I just basted the sash on so it could be removed later for use as a normal dress. The spaghetti strap was kidnapped from my mom’s closet. The sweater started out as a scary mom sweater with a… ruff… thing on the bottom. I cut that off and gave it a lettuce edge, cut the sleeves down to 3/4ths, removed the buttons and switched em around with rose ones. One of my future roommates was going to paint on the flowers but she decided that studying for finals was more important than that. Lame. I wasn’t recognized on con day because I kinda forgot my shoes at home, decided not to wear my wig, and had my glasses. Wasn’t a big deal because everyone liked the outfits that were made rather that just pieced and by then I was so tired of being in a dress for three days in a row, something I haven’t done in over a decade. For a reason.
All in all, it was a huge success, especially considering that all of Kaity’s outfits were put together in under three weeks. Next year I’m gonna be a buttface and make us do Doctor Who on Saturday, just cos I’m a bigger Who fan than Firefly (I know, I know, blasphemy to the Joss). If we do Doctor Horrible again it’s gonna be Penny w/ jeans, if nothing else so I’m in pants for at least one day.
Also, if you made it all the way down here then WOO! You get a cookie! Picspam IF MY SISTER EVER GETS THEM TO MMEEEE!! Also, please stop spazing, *cough*Jenn*cough* they’ll get here when they get here!