Dalek dress/costume
I finally finished my Dalek dress enough to wear out in public (specifically to work) and there was some interest in seeing the final product in my previous metal wire/bead Dalek necklace post.
Apologies for the image quality. Non-tech savvy HR lady at the helm, crappy lighting, and I think she moved while taking it, lol.
The hat is made up of:
Dome:Cheap, clear plastic bowl with the plastic packaging from a touch-light glued on top, then spackled smooth with light-weight spackle foam. Painted metallic rust (3 coats) and a coat of clear sealant.
Dome Lights: Clear plastic toothpick holders, craft foam (cut to the cage shapes, painted silver, sealed, then stuck together), miniature clear Christmas bulbs sprayed with frosting spray, flickering LED candle light bases, white super bright LEDs, which are wired into a sound-to-light modulator stored inside the hat (along with the 9 volt battery), so they're voice-activated.
Dome cowl: Thin craft foam, the kind from the kids' projects section of craft stores. Cut out without really measuring, then krazy glued together. Painted (3 coats) and sealed.
Eye stalk: The inside connector bit is a foam ball shaved down with a dremel into a weird 'n||n' shape then glued in place. The stalk is a wooden dowel painted silver and sealed. The discs are from plastic "make your own picture buttons" that were trimmed down and sprayed with frosted glass spray. The eye itself was a process. The eye bobble unscrews from the stalk (so I can access the on/off button for the eye-light). The connecting parts were cut off from the top of a bottle of hand sanitizer and a piece of a CD spindle. The eye bobble is a plastic toy vending machine capsule (so I can open it to access the light to replace batteries), with the rubber ring from an old manual focus zoom-lens camera for the ridgy ring. The eye part is a small LED book light with a blue LED soldered in place of the white one and the lens assembler from the old camera. Hot glued together and spackled smooth. Painted black (about 5 coats) and sealed.
The hat is held on with lots of chaotic placement of foam padding and a chin-strap which is hidden by my hair.
The dress I made. I based the top part off a pattern for a prom dress. The very top section is a base of 'rust' taffeta, 4 layers of black mesh, the sparkly ribbon heat-bonded on and then the taffeta stripes heat-bonded on top of that. The choker (which you can't really see here) was made the same way.
The mid-section was the rust taffeta base with bronze taffeta 'panels' heat-bonded on, and the panels were all 'hemmed' with heat-bond around the edges, which gives them a certain stiffness.
The skirt was made using the Dalek blueprints from Project Dalek, scaled down to match my measurements. You can't really tell from the image, but the skirt is made of 11 panels. The "fender" trim at the bottom is made of 33 pieces total (3 for each panel).
The bumps are small soft foam stress relief balls, cut in half and hand-painted with bronze acrylic paint (3 coats) and then sealed. I attached them using "Steam-A-Seam 2" double-sided heat bond stuff.
The plunger arm I made using a silver glove (purchased), black gloves (purchased), and part of the cone of a witch hat. I took part of the metal wire that held the witch hat brim in shape, head-bonded it in place at the outer edge of the plunger-funnel and then head bonded the narrower edge to the black glove. I also lined the inside with a bit of black fusable interfacing to provide more support and hide the rough edges.
The shoes I bought for $7. The were already gold, so all I had to do was throw on a couple coats of the rust paint on the trim and seal in.
The little Dalek necklace (who appears to be inappropriately sticking a tentacle down my dress) was made from wire and beads. I have no idea how it happened; I sat down thinking "make a blob with tentacles" and 45 minutes later there he was.
The fishnet shirt was not a planned addition; but since the dress was intended for Comic Con (San Diego in July) and right now it's late October in Upstate New York, I needed to cover exposed skin.
It's still not 100% finished. It still needs a rust taffeta trim along the top and proper straps added. The straps there are a tank top. Also, not seen here is the mess that is the back; right now it's a chaotic mess of stick-on velcro and safety pins. I need to get a grommet tool and finish setting it up to be a lace-up backing.
I had attempted (and failed miserably) to make a gun-arm gloves. I'll be trying again before Comic Con, but for Halloween I think I'll just be copping out and making something simple out of silver pipe cleaners.
TL;DR: It's been a chaotic process and I've been working on this since August. This is the first major thing I've ever made a pattern for, sewed, soldered, or generally had to do this much creative thinking. But it was worth it! :D
Apologies for the image quality. Non-tech savvy HR lady at the helm, crappy lighting, and I think she moved while taking it, lol.
The hat is made up of:
Dome:Cheap, clear plastic bowl with the plastic packaging from a touch-light glued on top, then spackled smooth with light-weight spackle foam. Painted metallic rust (3 coats) and a coat of clear sealant.
Dome Lights: Clear plastic toothpick holders, craft foam (cut to the cage shapes, painted silver, sealed, then stuck together), miniature clear Christmas bulbs sprayed with frosting spray, flickering LED candle light bases, white super bright LEDs, which are wired into a sound-to-light modulator stored inside the hat (along with the 9 volt battery), so they're voice-activated.
Dome cowl: Thin craft foam, the kind from the kids' projects section of craft stores. Cut out without really measuring, then krazy glued together. Painted (3 coats) and sealed.
Eye stalk: The inside connector bit is a foam ball shaved down with a dremel into a weird 'n||n' shape then glued in place. The stalk is a wooden dowel painted silver and sealed. The discs are from plastic "make your own picture buttons" that were trimmed down and sprayed with frosted glass spray. The eye itself was a process. The eye bobble unscrews from the stalk (so I can access the on/off button for the eye-light). The connecting parts were cut off from the top of a bottle of hand sanitizer and a piece of a CD spindle. The eye bobble is a plastic toy vending machine capsule (so I can open it to access the light to replace batteries), with the rubber ring from an old manual focus zoom-lens camera for the ridgy ring. The eye part is a small LED book light with a blue LED soldered in place of the white one and the lens assembler from the old camera. Hot glued together and spackled smooth. Painted black (about 5 coats) and sealed.
The hat is held on with lots of chaotic placement of foam padding and a chin-strap which is hidden by my hair.
The dress I made. I based the top part off a pattern for a prom dress. The very top section is a base of 'rust' taffeta, 4 layers of black mesh, the sparkly ribbon heat-bonded on and then the taffeta stripes heat-bonded on top of that. The choker (which you can't really see here) was made the same way.
The mid-section was the rust taffeta base with bronze taffeta 'panels' heat-bonded on, and the panels were all 'hemmed' with heat-bond around the edges, which gives them a certain stiffness.
The skirt was made using the Dalek blueprints from Project Dalek, scaled down to match my measurements. You can't really tell from the image, but the skirt is made of 11 panels. The "fender" trim at the bottom is made of 33 pieces total (3 for each panel).
The bumps are small soft foam stress relief balls, cut in half and hand-painted with bronze acrylic paint (3 coats) and then sealed. I attached them using "Steam-A-Seam 2" double-sided heat bond stuff.
The plunger arm I made using a silver glove (purchased), black gloves (purchased), and part of the cone of a witch hat. I took part of the metal wire that held the witch hat brim in shape, head-bonded it in place at the outer edge of the plunger-funnel and then head bonded the narrower edge to the black glove. I also lined the inside with a bit of black fusable interfacing to provide more support and hide the rough edges.
The shoes I bought for $7. The were already gold, so all I had to do was throw on a couple coats of the rust paint on the trim and seal in.
The little Dalek necklace (who appears to be inappropriately sticking a tentacle down my dress) was made from wire and beads. I have no idea how it happened; I sat down thinking "make a blob with tentacles" and 45 minutes later there he was.
The fishnet shirt was not a planned addition; but since the dress was intended for Comic Con (San Diego in July) and right now it's late October in Upstate New York, I needed to cover exposed skin.
It's still not 100% finished. It still needs a rust taffeta trim along the top and proper straps added. The straps there are a tank top. Also, not seen here is the mess that is the back; right now it's a chaotic mess of stick-on velcro and safety pins. I need to get a grommet tool and finish setting it up to be a lace-up backing.
I had attempted (and failed miserably) to make a gun-arm gloves. I'll be trying again before Comic Con, but for Halloween I think I'll just be copping out and making something simple out of silver pipe cleaners.
TL;DR: It's been a chaotic process and I've been working on this since August. This is the first major thing I've ever made a pattern for, sewed, soldered, or generally had to do this much creative thinking. But it was worth it! :D