Frank: The Six-Foot-Tall Bunny Rabbit
My completed Hallowe’en costume (of Frank from Donnie Darko). More shots and details can be viewed here! Mwahaha.
Archive for Costumes
31
Oct 2010
Happy Halloween!
It’s been a busy October, riddled with costumes, work and sickness. Mainly costumes – there will be pictures in the near future! (and hopefully regular blog posts). I hope everybody has a fun and spooky (and safe) Hallowe’en!
Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
19
Jul 2010
One Busy Summer
In between Tasty Planet 2 work and wedding preparations and site development and story building and a hole slew of other things that will eventually get finished (siiigh), I’ve been helping my brother in law with some costume construction. He really gets into Halloween like me and my husband, and this year he decided he wanted a head cast so he could sculpt all kinds of masks and prosthetic pieces. The whole family pitched in and helped.
Plaster of Paris Head Mold,1st Layer
Doing a life cast is a whole lot easier with three additional pairs of hands. We changed how we did a few things – when prepping the mold for the ultra cal, we bound the old together with a few plaster bandages down the seam AND wrapped it duct tape,and my brother concocted a different type of stand for the ultra cal cast.
Casted Ultra Cal Head
It’s definitely not a process for the faint of heart – stick to buying an armature head or a foam head if you’re a bit claustrophobic. Or have problems breathing. Or if you have an allergy to vaseline. Please, be really careful if you do attempt a head cast (especially if you go the straws-in-nose method). For more in-progress shots, check out this.
29
Jun 2010
Live Long and Prosper
Star Trek Costumes
A Star Trek convention was in town, and needless to say, my husband and I were pretty ecstatic about it. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were both going to be at the Vancouver con on Sunday, so we decided to dress up and boldly go where we had never gone before! James already had a beautifully constructed captain’s jacket, made by my mom about five years ago, so he and I put together the rest of a Next Generation outfit for him. I decided to go with a original series dress (skant), complete with a tricorder purse and mile-high hair.
I think I was hitting 6’4” from heel to hair.
We had a blast; it was one of the smaller conventions we went to, but I liked how it was intimate, and everyone was really nice (and impressed with our costumes!). We got to see/listen to some fantastic writers and actors. I hope it comes back next year.
Sadly, our camera stopped working after the convention – we tried to upload our photos, but all of our images were corrupted. We tried ever photo-recovery-repair program there is, but only a few pictures were able to be saved (the photo I used in this post isn’t even one of ours, a friend took it). Feel free to check out (low quality) images of my costume on my cosplay page, or to read up on how I made the tricorder bag on a craftster post.
Going to a Sci-Fi convention was also very inspiring and appropriate for current game levels I am working on… 
14
Nov 2009
Milady
...It's a Wig
My costume consisted of a shift (undershirt), bumroll (to give me that early 17th century silhouette), three petticotes (aka skirts), a reed-boned bodice complete with a stomacher (that had a wooden busk in it, thanks to a generous friend of my parents-in-law), organza cuffs, collar and sash, fleur-de-lis necklace and earrings, poison ring, black gloves, black fan, black mask and black shoes with gold rosette bows. The cuffs, collar, sash, third petticote, bodice and mask had a gold lace trim. I wore a black cloak, but didn’t have at the time of this photo. I would love to revisit the pattern and make another costume – one that is a bit more fitted, and that wouldn’t be as rushed. Methinks I’d make a Constance outfit (better to match my d’Artagnan…that, and I wouldn’t have to wear that hot wig!).
07
Nov 2009
d’Artagnan
The Van Dyke is real
James’ costume consists of a linen (under)shirt, a slashed doublet, breeches, leather bucket boots, leather gauntlets, linen cuffs and collar with lace, a woolen musketeer tabard (or cassock/casaque or mandilion) with a hand-embroidered cross and pewter buttons and a wool felt hat with 5 ostrich plumes.
And twirled facial hair.
James came to my rescue and offered to help me with the costumes right before Halloween. So I had him sewing buttons for two days. There are 113 buttons just on the tabard.
The musketeer tabard that you have pictured in your mind never really existed. No one knows for sure what they look like, but the tabards you typically see in most movies and illustrations are based on Maurice Leloir’s rendition of a musketeer – he was the main illustrator for Dumas, and while he strove for historical accuracy, the tabard was likely inspired by the theatre, and based on a court pages outfit.
I used patterns from Reconstructing History (with some modifications – mainly to the tabard), and that’s also where I bought the (very fitting) collar lace from. I would say that you do need some sewing experience for these patterns – they are not for beginners – but if you ever get stuck or have questions you can email the pattern makers and she’ll get right back to you. The boots were James’ wedding boots (modified), and his gloves were from Leather Mystics.
