Brunette Eowyns and Human Heras: Thoughts on Cosplaying

Cosplaying is fun. I admit, I spent a good chunk of the last 5 years, saving pictures of really cool cosplays to my computer. I like dressing up, and I like stories. (Full disclaimer, despite spending hours of my life saving & researching cosplays, I have never actually been to a conference, or even a midnight showing, alas)


However, something I realized, sorting out the cosplays I particularly liked, is there are 2 things I value if I did cosplay--to look like the character, but also, to also be kind of like the character---if they were me. Sort of like capturing the "ethos" of the character, translated into the modern day me.


For example: An hours worth of make up on Princess Leia? Totally. Princesses have to keep up appearances. Princesses need to be careful how they dress, how they walk, how they look. So a princess would totally spend a lot of time on make up. Yes, Princess Leia is cool and independent. So that means she puts on her own makeup, and doesn't drag along a make-up assistant before battles. She's still a princess, you know.

So if I was pretending to be Princess Leia, then yes, I'd put on make up.

More than a minute's worth of makeup on Mara Jade? Think about it. Her idea of looking presentable when Luke was coming, was to wash her face in an icy creek when she hadn't had a shower in 2 weeks. (Specter of the Past). If Mara used make-up at all, she probably wouldn't put on any more than took 60 seconds....unless she was impersonating a duchess or something like in Allegiance. But most of her work seemed to be of the hijacking pirate ships and leaping over roof-struts to rescue hostages type of things.

I like this picture of her I found on the internet. Red gold hair on a blazingly idealistic 18 yr old.

So if I were pretending to be Mara, I wouldn't bother with make-up. (And whomever illustrated the cover of Choices of One should have thought about that triple-applied mascara....)

So for portraying an alien (like Hera Syndulla), a human girl wearing a realistic & weathered aviator suit feels much more "authentic" to me, than one wearing hours worth of make-up and prosthetics to look like a Twilek. (Because a Twilek wouldn't need prosthetics.)

That said, I think when I do get round to making Josh a Grand Admiral Uniform, we will go the whole 9 yards with the blue skin and red eyes and all, because Josh basically is Thrawn already. (minus the superhuman IQ. And Josh is a Christian. And a sort of imperialist libertarian. So not the totalitarian part either.) But when we do give Josh blue skin, we will do it authentically. So I will feed him colloidal silver, to turn his skin bluish-grey naturally.

That was a joke.
We will use make-up.

Ok, back to my pointless ramble....

When trying to be like Tolkien's characters, I feel like it somehow isn't really the ethos of the Elves of Middle Earth to be wearing lots of make-up or wigs.
To me, Tolkien's world is about the natural beauty of things, the grain of the wood, the rustle of leaves, the tangle of rocks and trees and stars, elven maidens clad in simple dresses, water bubbling over rocks from a mountain brook. (As much as I love the complicated velvet gowns of the movies, they don't seem to really match the people in the book). When cosplaying Lord of the Rings characters, I like it when cosplayers just showcase the beauty of their natural hair (even forgoing their "usual" modern hair products, straighteners, curling irons, etc) go light on the make-up, and leave the artificial wigs alone.
To me, a brunette Eowyn or a blonde Arwen is so much more "authentic" than one with a wig. And an Arwen or an Eowyn climbing a tree or making breakfast feels more "authentic" to me than one at a convention playing dress up (which I imagine would be very very fun, hanging out with like-minded people, and I would love to do some day. However, it's not capturing the "ethos" of the elves).

this cosplayer "Mela"dress made by "Gen", captures more of the "ethos" of the elves for me than any of the elves in the movies did with their make up artists and fake trees.

Same for medieval looks. I feel more medieval by trying to capture the ethos of it in my everyday clothing. For me, that means having Isaiah wearing a medieval tunic with his jeans as he climbs a tree, and wearing cotton tunics & belts with my modern day pants, as I play with the kids in the back yard, make dinner, and pray. Also while learning how to shoot. But we haven't got there yet....

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-------A long ramble on the subject of hair, probably of interest to very few-------------------------------

I prefer dark haired Eowyns to Eowyns with yellow wigs. (Practically, because you have to drop a good bit of money into a blonde wig for it not to look fake.) But also, I don't think Middle Earthers wore wigs, at least, not the rough-and-tumble early-medieval-Saxon-esque people of Rohan, living in wattle & daub halls (maybe flax or hair extensions, but definitely not wigs. That would be Roman).


For Star Wars, their technology is obviously very advanced, so wigs definitely existed. Princess Leia would be following in a long line of royal tradition to be wearing hair extensions & hair rats/padding. (Also, hair extensions have been around for as long as women have been able to cut off and save their own braids.)

Cosplaying realistic red hair is an issue unto itself. Sadly, a good chunk of awesome women in fiction have red hair :(
Black Widow does obviously dye her hair all sorts of colors, so dyed red hair for her makes perfect sense. (But why she straightened it in Cap 2, when they were running for their lives and hiding at Falcon's house, no one knows. She probably used an actual iron though, because she's awesome like that.)
However, with Mara, I wouldn't use dye. Firstly, because for a dark brunette to pull of red-gold, it would take something far far beyond my skill (probably professional chemicals at a salon). Secondly, because Mara would never have bothered to dye her hair, even when it would have been practical for camouflage (When she gets caught flat footed by a bounty hunter in Dark Force Rising who recognizes her by her hair). She wears a hood, though (Choices of One),so I would be a brunette Mara with a hood. But if you have blonde hair, and can pull off natural-looking red-gold hair......

Stencil Making Tips (for Stenciling Fabric Paint)

BIG STENCIL MAKING TIP
I love embellishing things. I love stenciling, because its gives a really big "bang" for the time invested.

Recently, I stenciled the embellishment on the girls' elven dresses, a process I outlined here.
However, my hand was cramping up at the end of all that cutting. But now I have a solution!

BIG TIP: Use an old pane of glass as a cutting mat!

I spent wayyy too long laboriously cutting out stencils and my hand hurt for 2 days. It was because I cut them on wood (or layers of poster-board) as the cutting mat. The point of my utility knife cut through the plastic stencil into the soft wood/poster-board, giving it a lot more "drag" as I pressed and pulled the knife.This is what wore my hand out.
I have heard "self healing cutting mats" also give a lot of drag to the knife (because they are a kind of rubbery texture) and do this too.
I went through utility knife blades quickly, 1 edge per stencil, because cutting through all that matter was dulling the blades. I also had to pull really hard, resulting in parts where I accidentally jerked and cut more than I intended.

GLASS AS A CUTTING MAT IS SO MUCH BETTER!!!(An old picture frame works great)

I researched cutting mats, but from what I read about the "self healing" ones, it just would be the same problem. Then I read about glass ones. So I went to the thrift store (they sell them at the dollar store too, but you can get bigger ones at the thrift store) and got a big glass picture frame (with a picture of giraffes btw) for $2. Cutting on it was like a dream. The utility knife just cut through the stencil plastic, and barely scratched the glass (it will scratch the glass, so don't pull a picture frame off the wall). There was very little "drag." And so much less pressure on my hand.
If I had done this before, I probably would never have bothered buying the electric stencil cutter....

My analysis and tips of the 5 main methods I have tried of stencil making. I will be doing a post on each one.

1. Freezer Paper cut with a Utility Knife
2. Stencil Blanks (Showoffs at Hobby Lobby) cut with a Utility Knife
3. Stencil Blanks cut/burned with an Electric (Heat) Stencil Cutter or Woodburning Tool
4. Overhead Projector sheets cut/burned with and Electric (Heat) Stencil Cutter or Woodburning Tool.
5. Cheap Screen Printing ideas

Arwen's Bridge Dress: Analysis and Planning

Analysis on Arwen's Bridge dress. (Analysis on Arwen's Bloodred dress here)
So here are some thoughts on making a cowl-neck, Arwen-inspired maternity dress.

I have now come to really like this dress, even though initially it was not my favorite from the movie. Maybe it was the fact it only showed up in a smooching scene.

Watching people kiss...especially when us as an audience is forced to be right up in their faces....is just, so, awkward for me. I mean, if its sillhouetted against a sunset, and we're kind of watching from a distance (like an unscrupulous 14 yr old might, say, watch the neighbor boy and his girlfriend kissing in his front yard, in this completely hypothetical situation...) then its kinda sweet.
But when we get camera angles like we're watching from 3 ft away while they're kissing....well...I'm pretty sure the hypothetical neighbor boy would have minded that....

Um, I love cowl necks.


This cosplayer made it so beautifully, she convinced me to try to make it.

Farothiel on Deviantart "Arwen's Bridge Dress"

Farothiel on Deviantart "Arwen's Bridge Dress 2"

Maybe its because the way she made it reminded me of my dream wedding dress (that, alas, I had neither the funds for nor the skill to make when I got married.)

From Carpetina.com here

from carpetina.com here

 Some other cosplayers who did a decent job...

Therese on the Alleyscratch Scrapbook

by Eryndis-Waldlichtung on Deviantart

Sidhe on the Alleyscratch Scrapbook

Sidhe on the alleyscratch scrapbook

Looking at all of these, I know I really like the cowl neck. 

I also like the look white chiffon hanging down....even in Therese's example with the little bit of chiffon, its still beautiful. I'll probably do sort of petal-like half sleeves...maybe removable...we'll see.

I think I prefer fitted bust, and empire line for this one...actually, I think I end up preferring that for all of Arwen's dresses....

While the exposed shoulder top looks lovely on these folks, I just can't get used to it on myself. Firstly, the tops of my shoulders BURN LIKE CRAZY (I don't even know why. But they do). And secondly, it looks (on me) a little too night-gownish, I think.

So, onto practical construction...

Ta'anit Isis made some cowl neck shirts, and made this handy infographic.

from Ta'anit Isis HERE

As you can see from her pictures, her cowl extends under the bust. 

As my bust will be full of milk, I don't think I want it accentuated any more...so I will only slash my pattern (the red lines) to above the bust apex point.

My favorite part of her design, is how the back shoulder extends to the front, where the cowl actually starts. This is an ideal way to add in a gathered shoulder, without having to worry about the shoulder, or the cowl, becoming all untucked, because they are actually separate pieces.

The other thing I love about this design, is I can make it nursing accessible by having 2 layers of "fronts", the under-front is just there to form the armhole and keep the shoulder line, its neckline will go under the bust. Then the over-front layer will be the cowl, but where the pleats are, its actually just hooked (2 sets of skirt hooks?), making it simple to open and nurse, and hook it up when you are done.

I will make my own infographic at some point to illustrate....

Baby Elven Dress and Baby Tunic Writeup; Small Human Being Sewalong Wrap up.

So, the Small Human Being Sewalong is over, and I accomplished at least half of my goals.

I am going to do a write up on the Baby Elven Dress that I made (I had written scattered posts on it, which I link to in this article)

I drafted the patterns for all of these things, just tracing (generously!) off of onesies and dresses that fit. I just sort of freehanded the bell sleeves.

I cut it out of a green men's T shirt that I got at the thrift store for $1.

It was not very stretchy, a stable-ish knit. (there's a slit at the back neck for a button and loop closure).
The belt is from (surprise) a brown T shirt I cut up from the thrift store. I hand-cut all the stencils and used Tulip gold metallic fabric paint (sponged on with cosmetic wedges from dollar tree) to make the trim.

The dress is actually a 6 month size, for the yet-to-be-born baby girl residing beneath my heart right now. But because I couldn't wait, I crammed it onto her almost-13 month old sister, and took some pictures.

There are more glam shots of her in the dress (sans belt) here. After I did that photoshoot I sewed on the belt, which I think really makes it "pop" more, and did a 2nd photoshoot here.

For myself, I also made a Gondor-Ranger Inspired Mei Tai Carrier with the write up here.

 AND, because mass-production is my new motto in getting anything done, while I was sewing up the baby elven dress, I sewed up 2 toddler elven dresses too (Although being greater than 12 months, they do not techinically count as part of the SHBsewalong).

(The red one is 3-4T, dark green one is 6 months, purple is 12-18 months) All ready for the 3 sisters to have a photoshoot when the mulberry leaves are golden in January...

The construction for the toddler dresses was very similar to the baby layout, except that I just cut the bodice and the skirt as one piece (really just an A-line dress), and for the red one, I had to cut into a second shirt to add 6" of length to the bottom of the dress.

I also used heat-n-bond ultrahold to back the belts on the purple and red dresses. In retrospect (and a few dull/broken needles later) I realized I probably should just have used the heat-n-bond "lite" instead of the "ultrahold". (I did not interface the sleeve bands, which would have made the sleeves too hard to get into. I did not interface the neck yokes, which only seemed to end up being a problem for the 3-4T dress)

The purple and green dresses I was happy with, but the red dress turned up to be looser than I wanted, and I had to sort of scrunch up the dress and sew the belt tighter in the back. Also, the red dress kept sort of slipping off her shoulders when she's running around. (I had made the neck scoop wide enough that it didn't need a button loop closure). Part of it is she's only 2 1/2, and I made it bigger as she's really tall, and I wanted it to fit her next year.

see the neck is too big?

I don't know how much of this is just a problem of the dress (Arwen's version looks like its falling off too), but I think whats going on is that I traced off a neckline that was for wovens, and this knit (the red t shirt this was from was more stretchy) is not as stable, and the weight of the sleeves kind of pull it down.

Next time: I would interface the neck yoke,

OR, if I'm sewing things for greater than 2T, I would prefer to make this in a woven material (or a VERY stable knit), with better fitting in the bodice and a real back closure (zipper), so that the belt can be snug if its sewn to the dress.

OR, I would make the belt separately, out of canvas or something, with some sort of button closure in the back, so it could be snug and she could still get into it easily. Then I would merely tack it to the sides of the dress to keep it from falling down.


I also made a little baby tunic (size 6-9 months, traced from a onesie) pieces cut out here...

Sewn up here (on the left).

I left a little opening in the back neck as well, to accommodate a big baby head.
The pants I simply used the Little Leggings free pattern.
All of this is cut out of green and brown T shirts from the thrift store.

As my motto is mass production, there is a size 7T t shirt, really meant as a toddler tunic (for my very tall 3, almost 4 yr old boy, who refused to model it for me), to match.

I never finished my goals of the baby ranger boots or the baby jerkin, partly due to the flu, partly due to finding out this baby was a girl, and losing some steam for the ranger outfit, alas.
But thinking about it, the Dunedain (wandering rangers) had families, and so there were definitely girls and little kids wandering over Eriador in ranger clothing....so I am going to finish it at some point.

I never got to the baby elven cloaks, mostly because I got frustrated with being able to find the "perfect" materials....

I also never finished (or started) my goal of my nursing-accessible & maternity friendly Arwen dress, but that was due to the flu, and it will happen at some point in the future.

All in all, here are the SHBsewalong + toddler stuff that I sewed this month,

and I am really thankful to how the SHBsewalong (and especially the boards on flickr) encouraged me, gave me a sense of camaraderie, gave me the push to sew it all up.

Cost: 
$6 for the used T-shirts from the thrift store
$3 worth of sewing machine needles
$3 for the heat-n-bond (I only used a little bit of it though)
$4 for the gold tulip fabric paint (although I bought it 4 yrs ago, and just finished off half the bottle)
under $1 for utility knife blades use up.

So that comes out to roughly $17 for 3 elven dresses and 2 tunics.

The stencil blanks (Show-Offs from Hobby Lobby $7) Utility knife ($2 from Home Depot) and re-positionable spray stencil adhesive ($6 from Hobby Lobby, it worked for fabric!), I am not counting since I have over 90% of all of that left.

Time:
I don't have logs on all the projects, but I think from cutting out all the elven dresses/tunics and sewing them up it was probably around 12 hours total. The Mei Tai carrier was 8ish hours total.

I made time by sewing in 15-30 minute snatches of the kids snack times (the sewing machine is in view of the kids high chairs), and 20 minute chunks of quiet play when the baby was napping. I really only made use of only a few donutman videos (probably totally under 5 hours for the whole month, never more than 1 hour in a day, I think).
At first I would get up a little early and get half an hour of sewing in in the morning, but due to the almost 13 month old deciding she was now an early riser, I just switched to sometimes sewing a little when all the kids were asleep.

The key for me, to get sewing done, was being able to walk away from my project. If a kid started to cry, if they lost interest in the video or wanted a book or something, I just quit and covered the sewing machine, knowing I would get back to it later, be it the next day or next week.

 In the past, I have this drive-drive-drive to finish, and I would sew while the kids were screaming, "just finish this seam, just 10 more minutes...." resulting in bad feelings all around for me (guilt) and frustration (I made a lot more mistakes with a background of unhappy neglected children), and anger (the kids would be mad), which would then lead to me having subconscious negative feelings about it all, and I just wouldn't sew, and instead waste time on pinterest....

The second key for me, to get sewing done, was to intentionally cut out pinterest/blogs on "sewing days". I realized often in my 15 minute chunks of free time, I would just waste it on pinterest as I felt it wasn't "long enough" to really "do" anything. But those chunks add up. Or then after we put the kids down, I would browse pinterest/blogs, then get inspired, but be too tired and sleepy.
So I realized, if I wanted to sew that day, I had to choose not to connect my computer to the internet, or better yet, not turn on the computer at all. I would pick (depending on how I was feeling) some days as "no interent" days, and I would get sewing done in my snatches of free time instead. Then, being tired, I would spend the next day's free time on the internet. I think this month my sewing days to internet days (subtracting out the flu days, in which I didn't even have energy for the internet, just for praying not to throw up...), was probably around 2:1.
So, all in all, I found probably 20 hours of sewing time this month, broken up into smaller chunks, never more than 2 hours in a day total, probably closer to 1 hour a day.

As a mom I don't have the 8-hr sewing sprees (I can't stay up much past 10pm anymore, I need to wake up at 7), but I also find that this sewing-in-little-chunks method, of being able to walk away, also means I spend ALOT less time frustrated and undoing mistakes with a stitch ripper.


:)

And the things do get done, just in lots of little chunks, and perhaps a little slower, than my old ways of sewing-sprees followed by burnouts.

And nothing beats the emotional satisfaction of seeing the kids in things I made...

She insisted on carrying around the empty saltine bag which she filled from the wading pool. I think she was amazed she could 'bag' water. It is quite cool when you think about it....even if it did somewhat ruin the photoshoot...

Baby and Toddler Elven Dresses with Belts

Here they are, actually finished.

They just really needed belts. (Making of posts, here, here and here. I made Keziah's elven dress out of a dark green Men's T shirt, and Jenny's out of 2 bright red T shirts.

Things I'd do differently next time:

1. Interface the neck on Jenny's....the weight of the sleeves kind of pull it down.
2. Use heat-n-bond when applying the belts onto 2T and under dresses.
3. Make 2T + belts out of canvas or something firm, and just slip stitch the sides onto the belt.

Baby Elven Dress Almost Finished

More pictures of the dress with belt here.

So I finally sewed up the little elven dress. It was made out of a men's T shirt, so the edges didn't need finishing.

Previous mosts on the making of, here, and here.

I'm pretty happy with it, just wish I'd lined the bell sleeves so they drape better.

Keziah (13 months in a week) was not happy about being crammed into a 6 month sized baby dress for pictures. It's ridiculously short (for an elven dress) on her.

A PICTURE WITH HER SMILING!!!

The Outtakes. She did not want to wear the circlet. And she thought this whole picture taking adventure was silly to start with. Keziah does not like being in photoshoots....

This is my favorite Outtake....

Her expression says it all....