Let's do some MATH.

So on the guitar front, some research into the process of resin casting determined that to properly hollow-cast the guitar body with something that would be strong enough to lug around but light enough to carry would be about 200$ just for supplies. I could do that, but it's not an optimal use of a budget. The new plan we embarked yesterday was to take the guitar apart (apparently my mechanic friend has put together guitars before. Who knew? Super convenient.) and plan to hollow out the back to make it lighter. The idea's a bit spooky because it's using the original--fuck this up and we're SOL. But I trust them. It'll also be useful because the actual Italia guitar Haruhi uses is a hollow-body anyway, and they're interested in--if I get/make a stencil--recreating the weird S glyph thing on the guitar. That would be awesome!

I treasure having friends who actually get excited and want to help with my weird projects. I'd be lost without them.

With that in their hands and taken care of, it's clothing time. My plan today was to work out making buttonholes to slide the black ribbon through for the ruched part of the top....but I can't find the buttonhole foot. AWESOME.

Plan B was to test out my memory of how to gather fabric. Good news: EASY AS HELL!! Bad news: probably doesn't make enough volume for the skirt to ruffle right. It gets kinda sad at the bottom. That means circle skirts, and THAT means math.

Let's math, shall we?

There's 3 ruffle skirtlayers:
1 chiffon
1 short satin
1 long satin

At the widest point, my hips are now about 39" (BITCHIN~ Used to be 41, back when I first started checking!)

the chiffon layer should be at least 10" long
the short satin later should be at least 14" long
the long satin layer should be at least 27" long in the back

those are approximate lengths, usually about the length I think I want plus 2" of leeway for heming and just being wrong. I can always make them shorter, although that'll be a giant pain I admit.

The rule as I understand it for gathering fabric is that it requires approximately 3 times the normal amount of fabric for a task. That's going to be a lot of fabric. I actuallygot the black satin today, I found one with a bit of 2-way stretch (eek) that just felt lovely...soft shine and with a nice weight to it. Hopefully I'll still like it when this is all done. (stretch + slick? hahah, dumbass.)

here is the tutorial I'm using for making my circle skirt:
http://taeliac.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-Circle-Skirts-90497598?offset=125
It has pictures, directions, and formulas. lovely.

I'm using the directions for a waist of 32" and up because this part of the skirt is going to basically start at my hips.

39" + 2"(ease) = 41" WAIST(for the purposes of the tutorial.)

so

X = WAIST/6.28
X =6.528 (which I will round to 6.5)

Oh but wait--I want this GATHERED. And that means it's actually 41" x 3 = 123"
X = 123/6.28
X = 19.585 (19.5 rounded) or 6.5 x 3, same thing.

Now, because of the gathering the skirt is MUCH too big for me to be able to just cut out normally. (Of course it is. Sigh.) So I gotta figure out how much fabric I need.....

4x skirt length + 4x X number + 18"

For the chiffon layer: (4 x 10) + (4 x 19.5) + 18 = 136" of fabric, or 3.77777 yards. So, 4 yards. Good to know.

For the short satin layer: (4 x 14) + (4 x 19.5) + 18 = 152" or 4.222 yards. The fabric I bought today had 4 and 5/8ths yards on it,so that's pretty much perfect. But it means this next calculation will HURT my pocket book something fierce...That fabric was on sale for 5.50/yard...there's more, but at 12.99/yard.

For the long satin layer: (4 x 27) + (4 x 19.5) + 18 = 204" or 5.6666 yards. Which means 6 yards for extra fudging. This is how I end up with loads of extra fabric, and I'm not sorry about it. I know the long satin layer is going to be much shorter in the front, but I don't know how much short yet and don't want to try and skimp or change the math. Math is NOT my strong point, so I have to work around that fact. And pay for it on occasion...like the 80$ that's going to go into just the long skirt layer. *wincing*

Next up will be making the belt and the arm things, I think, as I look for the button foot. And for a JoAnn coupon!!

~Raiphin

Breaking News: Guitar Update~!

So first off, two of my friends are the most awesome people in the world. Conveniently they date each other so I can see both at the same time. One, my best friend, has a theater degree and designs sets and helps with staging and stuff. Her boyfriend is a mechanic and skilled enough technically to be re-modelling their house by his lonesome. They have a shop in their garage that dreams are made of. My cosplay dreams, anyway.

I've enlisted the guy's aid in making the guitar more con-friendly--lighter, for the most part. He knows someone with a rotational resin-caster which just sounds sexy. My original intention was just to cast the body, but he's not sure the caster is big enough. If not, he'll help me with the process of making a silicon mold and the using fiberglass or plaster to make the body. Either way sounds pretty much awesomepants, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out~ (and what, no doubt, screws up.)

My goal now is to work on the costume itself as much as possible so as to be ready to spend time/money/effort when the call to arms comes for the guitar. Whee!

~Raiphin

Two months, and less than 100 days.

So, it's been a while and a lot's happened.

I've lost 23lbs, and would kinda like to lose about 5 more. But I'm close enough that I can start sewing, which is a damn good thing because I've got about 3 months until Sakuracon. How did that even happen? Oh well.

But I've been busy with more than exercise.

I have purchased:
criss-crossed pantyhose
fake silver hoop earrings, 2"
64" of belt blank, 2" wide
64" of folded silver pleather, 1 3/4" wide
1yd of remnant ivory satin
2yd black suiting
black & white thread
1 gathering foot for a Viking sewing machine
1 hemming foot for a Viking sewing machine
1 strapless Le Mystere bra, nude (because it was cheap)
1 pair black Sanita mary janes w/ buckles

I still need to purchase black satiny cloth for the skirt, smoke-colored chiffon for the skirt, and black velvet rope for varying bits of the top. I may also purchase corsetry boning to stiffen up the top, if necessary.

So as you can see, I'm pretty close to being able to start. My first task will be to fashion a pencil skirt out of muslin and then black suiting. It will probably be about 20" long. I'll be cutting it down from there to the low-rise v-front of the skirt and raising the hem so that it doesn't show under the ruffles. I may look for biker's shorts to put underneath, but until I make the skirt I don't know what I need them to look like.

More updates and pictures when I have them! I promise not so long this time.

~Raiphin

sketching, a dream of what may be.

I have currently lost 13 lbs, and none of my clothes fit. Go me! I'm aiming for 15-20 now, we'll see how that goes. It almost means I can't quite start sewing yet, which is a shame. But it gives me time for planning, which is good!

I've been looking around the internet recently, seeing how other people have attempted this costume. I'm kind of worried because while some people have done really well, no one has 100% NAILED this costume. When I did Lina Inverse, there were 3 or so people on DeviantArt who had done an AMAZING job, and what I wanted to do most was catch up to them. When I looked at Daitenshi Finn (which I still want to do) there was a girl in...france, possibly? Who just looked phenominal. I'm not sure what that says about the Rock Star Haruhi costume, but it's worrying.

I've started doing sketches so I can figure out the best proportions of things for my body.



The top I can kinda figure out, the bottom...well, that's a bit more haphazard at the moment. In reference pictures the sheer layer is half as long as the top layer and the bottom layer is shorter in the front and longer in the back. That looks weird to me. I'm thinking about doing a skirt that looks more like this:



in terms of proportion, I think having all the tiers longer in the back will look more flattering to my ass. It will also make it harder. See the things I do for cosplay?

I'm studying up on ruffles too, for the skirt. I haven't done much (read: ANY) gathering/ruffling in previous costumes so this is all new territory for me. Horrifying, really. I think I need to make a double (at least) circle skirt for all the layers. That will make ruffles. I am worried about making them bounce and lay right and have volume....perhaps some kind of stealth tulle petticoat/crinoline between each layer. But how do I make it invisible? Or will it just look weird? I don't know yet.

The good news is that I managed to find a cheap honest-to-god Italia guitar. Victory! But it's like, really heavy. Much heavier than I can carry around on a bare shoulder for any length of time. I'll talk more about how I intend to deal with that next time. This weekend my boyfriend's out of town, so I've got a whole weekend to work on this!

(naturally I'll probably do something else entirely.)
~Raiphin

Afternoon in Fabric, a photostory.

Today was something of a reconnaissance mission. I've lost 9 pounds since I started this fun, but still have 6-11 to my goal weight. I'm having visible changes now, and need to buy all new pants. Sigh. But while I can't start patterning or cutting fabric quite yet, it does give me time to research what fabric I want to use for the costume.

If you scroll down and stare at Haruhi's costume, you'll see I've got several different kinds of fabric I need to work with, and I need the colors (shades of black, mostly) to be friendly with each other.

There's the bra part of the top, which is white and needs to be gathered top and bottom and be able to have little buttonholes where the black rope will pass through in the top. I'm thinking white suiting for this, and basing it all on a white bra I need to buy but again can't until I'm the right size and all.

There's the base black fabric for the top and the part of the skirt which is not a ruffle. I think these should be the same fabric to sync the two pieces together. I was thinking of thick swimsuit fabric--slick and with a bit of stretch--for the skirt but I realized I don't want that much stretch in the top--I need to get that to fit right and stay put. I want a little 2-way stretch, but I don't want to play with much I found this today, but it was WAY too stretchy...

I may end up just using black suiting for these portions...it's thick and 8$/yard, has a bit of stretch and irons like a dream. We'll see.

I knew what I wanted to use as the top fluffy transparent layer for the skirt, and that's smoky chiffon. I'd like to find one that's brown/black but smoky seems to be what's available. I found this but wasn't sure how much I needed. I just get a foot for my sewing machine last week that finishes chiffon and other things nice and neatly which I'm kind of exciting about getting to break out when the time comes.
Snap, I lied, this is organza. But I'll probably end up with chiffon.


I'm torn on the big ruffly part of the skirt. I looked at duchess satin, (more structured but heavier) and taffeta (lighter and stiff, but too light? would it look silly?) but couldn't pick one to be really good. I'm considering the possibility of doubling the taffeta, and putting a stichery row along the edge of the ruffles and running cord or wire through it to make the ends heavier and maybe sway when I walk....not sure.

I also found satin taffeta at another store, which looked pretty good:


this was a cheap black satin that was 50% off, but there wasn't enough to get to play with. For 3.50/yrd I'd just like to have seen how it did, you know?


in the end I bought 10 yrds of the cheapest muslin I could find and will be playing with draping that on my dress form when I can get the right dimensions on it. I'll take pictures of that amateur hilarity when it happens.

So, the other part of the costume which I've been thinking about is the belt. It looks like an impossibly wide belt that will probably need to be in 2 pieces and glued together to get the angles right. It's got two layers, a gunmetal gray or silver layer on the bottom and a slightly smaller black layer on top that has diamond cut-outs every few inches along the middle. Those are going to be a bitch.

I looked at 2 helpful things today, a thick cord thing that vinyl in the right colors cold be wrapped around, and a thick silver belt-looking thing that is probably too thin, but looks really cool.



The last thing I found may actually be super cool. I found it in the fabric store closest to me which is awesome, but there were a million people in the store and didn't want to deal with it twice (once for the muslin before I found this.)
One of the things that worried me was that on the top there's black that goes up in between her boobs. What the hell is that? How does it attach?
So what I fould was a black velvet...tube. I'm thinking of ransacking an old bra for the underwire, sliding the underwire through the velvet tube, and then hand-sewing it to the top.
Should I mention now how very VERY bad I am at hand-sewing? well, it's all a learning process.


So that's what I've been up to. I'm also working on the guitar, but there's a thing in the works that will very probably fall through but would be super-awesome dance around crazy good.
That's why it probably won't happen.

~Raiphin

Rock Star(t) Haruhi

So you get to come with me through my next big project, which I'll try to write about as it's in progress and not just at the end. There may be a lot of swearing.

So as I mentioned, for Sakuracon 2010, my big new costume will be Rock Star Haruhi:


I'm starting now for several reasons. The first is that I'm working on losing 10 to 15lbs for this costume. It's the first midrif-baring costume I've worn since Black Rose which was a BAD decision at the time. I want to do this RIGHT and that means flatter tummy that jiggles less.

It also means I have to lose the weight, make the costume, and then STAY that weight for at least as long as I want to wear the costume. Sounds easy, right?

I'm in the losing-weight part right now, in addition to gathering supplies and searching for the right guitar componants. The guitar is an Italia Mondial Classic and she uses both a red version and one called "Tobacco Sunburst." They look pretty much like this:


Only, y'know, red and/or brownish black. The problem? That's a $600+ guitar there. For the record, I cannot play the guitar. So that's good! It means I lose nothing by having a guitar that doesn't actually play. Which is good since I think I'm going to jimmy the hell out of the thing anyway.
My plan right now is to buy a guitar neck that has that shiny inlay (or something that mimics it, like reflective tape maybe...?) and attach it to a guitar body. Now, I've discovered that NO OTHER MAKERS have that exact style of body, but some look like this:



Now, that pink one instead of having two horns, one on each side, has the complete curve o the left side. BUT I've got friends with powertools, and I'm thinking we could just slice on through that bit (carefully) and get something about the right shape. Guitars are mostly made of wood because that's the only thing that can withstand the stress of the strings, so I know more or less what I'll be working with. I'll talk about that more when I have the actual guitar to work with.

More on skirts and fabric and belt options later!
~Raiphin

Cardboard Tube Samurai v2: Work in Progress

The costume I'm working on at the moment is for PAX 2009. It's actually a revisit of a costume I did in 2006, but it was so popular (and comfortable and fun) I just had to do it again...

The costume is Cardboard Tube Samurai from Penny Arcade. Appropriately, PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo. I've been reading Penny Arcade (penny-arcade.com if you're amazingly oblivious) since I was 16. For anyone who's counting that's about to be 10 years.

reference pic:


my 2006 iteration:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2504/3695750031_bec1bfd835_o.jpg (hint: I'm not the Gundam.)

It's a simple costume--I'm using a basic karate gi pattern right now with gold ponte for the main. I'd bought black ponte knit for the bands and pacman(s) but it somehow looked really cheap so I've cut out JUST BARELY enough from the black suiting material I used for Lina Inverse's cape. The good news is if it's not enough, black suiting fabric is easy to come by.

I bought an L/XL pattern and have cut out all the fabric. I sewed the gold part of the pants together yesterday, and then discovered that somehow it was not only weirdly short (and I'd added an inch or two to the bottom anyway.) but the CROTCH was INSANE and yes I want Project Runway, shut up. If I haul the crotch up to where it should be the top of the pants is, like, under my boobs. WTF?
So I took the sides in tonight, and tomorrow I'll either cut the waistband down or sew the shirt instead and wait to figure out what I'm going to do about the pants. I think I can cut down the waistband and that'll make them a bit short on the bottom but I'm attaching huge black cuffs anyway, it'll be easy to add an inch or two to the bottom and no one will ever know.

Except you, but you'll keep my secret, right?
~Raiphin