RB's motivation: FINAL THINGS FINALLY (PUPPY CAT)

So Daisho was where I debuted Puppycat and he has been my go to casual cosplay since. He was a surprise hit there and I just love him quite a bit. But for sure at Daisho I kept thinking, I don't have the right ears, or even a tail this is not right at all.

So with the new handy dandy sewing machine that got fixed. I used the old pattern of the ears Lulu game me, some brown fabric loaned to me by my roommate Shawna from her old art project (like flannel but thicker, try the material used for moccasins that's like dried animal hide)  , as well as the pink fabric the bell originally came from. Also clips bought from Walgreens and hotglue

Tail was really simple, same brown fabric as well as the flannel I never got to use to make the jacket originally. And  belt that is useless on a dress I own but has found new purpose just for this

Just basically rectangle sewn together, turned inside out, then a brown open rectangle sewn together then turned inside out and put on the tail portion. I rather hogtie the top then sew it on to get a nice crisp line. As well as a thing to attach it to the belt 

I tested the ears on my roommate first for adjustments. She wanted to know what i was doing here so i let her know

Here was the final look

As well as all the Sunday selfies. I really liked the way the lighting made my eyes look weird here so I went with it. Also new method for the eyebrows, clear brush on eye lash glue. It's made to be gentle so it's a real clean break off for clean up later. No pain and no weird residue

Also this was running on no sleep me, waiting outside a coffee shop

I got ignored by a Bee cosplayer sitting here, I asked for a picture, I told her I was puppy cat, she kept walking......like she was gonna find another one at all on a sunday of the con. GOOD LUCK GIRLY YOURE GONNA NEED IT

Good thing I have my Bee (lulu) 

Till the season starts once again/ I have a job and income/ schools not crazy/ we can fix things up again

-RB out!

RB's motivation: LIVE NOTEPAD LIVE C'MON

Okay so I did this beautiful test run of the final mock up of the headpiece, drapery, and wig coloration. Because at Daisho the main pieces here, went crumbling down, and were not up to my personal standard. SO just more fixing up again

I was feeling good about it, because this was the day I heard Monty passed and everyone was saying just do something creative and here I was.

I stayed in this shit for twenty fucking minutes, just walking around my dorm so comfortable with this extra two pounds on my head

Homes tucks from Daisho again gave me the idea, Magnets. I couldn't do strips or anything smaller but instead had to sew a 3 quarters thick magnet into the wig and then this giant block thing onto the headpiece.

I also had to put this toothy thing into the drapery so that it will stick into the wig effectively. I have to really dig it in, so that it does;t pull the wig down as well ( which happened). I had all these preparations and plans working so well in the test run

And still the outfit was pissing me off. No recognition again, was just looking for a regular notepad form earlier. But I learned from the trial and error that the headband needs some real digging into the wig to stay. And since the magnet in the wig is round, the head piece kept rotating upside down. SO just more magnets next time

BUT THIS TIME I WAS SMART AND MADE HANNAH HELP ME DOCUMENT

It seems ritual now that if I take off Notepad early and I'm still energized that I wear the makeup for the rest of the night

Through a night of panel jumping, werewolf card games and arguments, bonding, friends nearly crying, hearing about shitty people owing money, no food, and all out strange nonsense at a convention in general, the cherry on top was I almost get locked out trying to search for Hanna for my phone charger at 1 am before she leaves for the bus and I mistake this skinny guy in shorts taking a smoke in 1 degree weather instead of her. And my face is this

It's so ridiculous I just ask, CAN I TAKE A SELFIE MAN? SO I DID

Gorgeous Saturday. It never even ended. I had to pack like crazy and watch out for peoples shenanigans so I didn't get to sleep till 2 pm on sunday and then that final night

-RB out

RBs motivation: Itty bitty ruby rose details that give me anxiety still

So I felt okay about my ruby rose at Daisho, i was one of the few there surprisingly BUT the one thing that constantly bothered me was my fucking belt. It was incomplete and IT KEPT DOING THIS SHIT ON ME

I really wanted it to just stay like this, like in the show but it didn't so I figured out a way to try and replicate that effect.

VELCRO (stick on precisely) Just stick some on the belt as well as the waist cincher and there we go. Work to comfortable level and use amount to desire though 

Also her pack. I had had this idea for a while but only got around to it two weeks before AMKE. Old pencil box here

 Now cut into pieces. I only need the button part so ic ut off the bottom of the pink. 

 But I also need the bottom and the top of the clear part, so I cut out the middle. Here we are snug as a bug. But there is also the scare of the top flying off so pully system

hot glue string parts to clear and pink part so when I open the top it catches and I can remember to push it down immediately.

Spray painted it, and attitude it with hot glue and more velcro that way when packing away I can detach it easily. Same went for the flower

NOTE; I only had an art store to go to with nice fancy spray paint so IT SUCKS for actual props. For a silver color, use a PRIMER because it sticks and that's what it's made for. Plus that's probably CHEAPER. Go to the hardware store for spray paint, never art stores

So last i was really upset about was I didn't have bullets so i ordered some online. They are plastic toys

So they are light weight, but really cool was they were detachable so I could take out the excess easilly

As well as be able to spray paint them individually. Now again, MY STUFF WAS SHIT for what I needed to do. So I had a hard time, waiting for the stuff to dry as well as later that night trying to fit them back into their carrier

I had to shove them back in. The spray paint again made a second skin too thick for the carrier and it flaked all off. I had to go in and just repaint while the shit was in the carrier, exactly what I wanted to avoid. But it looked okay for the con, no one called it out. Plus now I didn't have to worry about them falling out

As soon as I got them attached my worries melted away for a good while. It was the very last thing for the whole convention and I was just ecstatic. Two straight weeks of just cosplay work had finally paid off. There was school but yeah I was a little free finally

Also nice selfies. Emma did my makeup! For no reason! She was a cosplay mother that day

And here was our group for the RWBY meet up which I thought was AMAZING. 

Emmie was having some serious sensory and fandom uncomfortable overload but I was real happy we got this nice little ladybug selfie in.

-RB out

RB's Motivation: AMKE Elsaba cape/dress !!

Alright giant mass post for AMKE in the next few updates so we'll go chronological order and start with Elsaba which I wore for Friday. There is so much that went into prep for this con that I can only break down into certain parts. I worked my ass off in last two weeks before AMKE thanks to a refund check I splurged on a sewing machine that WORKED FUCKING MAGIC. I had no idea I would even get a refund check and let me a tell you I would not have been able to finish this outfit if not for it. I was delusional to have thought I would have been able to do so

So onto it then!! This is the fabric I used for the cape to start, I didn't really have enough but I was in no place to buy anymore seeing as the closest michaels and joannes are waaaay too far by bus now. 

But I tried to make my own pattern using math. By taking a rectangle of fabric to turn it into a cape, just cut the part into more diagonal shapes. It kind of worked but I cut too many shapes and so the effect didn't make much of a different

Follow this pattern people, unlike me who didn't take advantage of a dramatic cut.

SO then I sewed all the pieces together to get this which was a much better outcome than I thought seeing it laid out on the floor. This was just the first layer for sure I wasn't even thinking of how to attach it yet just MORE DRAMA  MORE FLOW MORE DIVA.

But this was a hybrid of the sparkly web fabric and more wrinkly soft veiny fabric. Hard to describe and unfortunately hard to photograph. it starched more and was much longer so i just sewed that on without any cutting unlike the web fabric

Next was handling the details of the shirt. I made the shirt myself so it was kind of hard to deal with, but it worked in the way it was form fitted in the sleeves like I needed and stretched everywhere else thanks to the beautiful mesh fabric a great great great Joannes fabric employee directed me too. I had so much excess for my tiny size too 

I based the shirt pattern off of an existing compression shirt and went from there. This is the front and I used a lot of left over fabric for details and improvising like my prom fabric seen in the ruby skirt and shirt details. What can I say I had a lot of it leftover and it's kind of become a signature thing so far.

I made use of the sewing lines from the machine to try and incorporate some of the nordic designs in Elsa's shirt as well as the feel of Elphaba. Also my favorite part as the leftover lace for the shoulders my roommate gave me from her own leftover school project. Since I chose to boost the neckline, for body paint coverage reasons as well as Elphaba reasons I lost the off the shoulder effect of the lines on Elsa's design and had to improvise with this lace aspect. I was feeling pretty unsure about the shirt UNTIL I put on the lace and everything else came together much more

Also a very bad picture of the back. 

A lot of the reference I used here. I looked at concept art a lot because the artist would know exactly the motions I am going through. 

Also there are never enough cape references to look at. But the big thing was taking all these details and translating them into Elphaba's style and colors, and then into what I had on me

So I remembered I cut up a shirt for a Pearl reference and pattern. This was the design that was on it. It was one of those sheert top, peplum shirts sold at Body central on the clearance rack. I cut it down to the essentials and knew this thing would come in handy. 

I think the design really screams flying monkey, wicked and further more elphaba's glamour

So here's a giant finished result. The rest really was just a lot of layering and improvising on the train and cape so it goes without saying, what is best to your idea. It was grueling to say the least. I actually put myself into decommission and had to slow down for school because I puked in class after this was all done.

But also I decided to attach the train to the shirt permanently. As I knew people were going to step on my train, I didn't want to deal with a sloppy velcro job. It made the costume pretty hard to put on, almost got stuck at the con but very much once it's on, it's second skin which I do enjoy.

ALso I very loosely sewed the symbol onto the back of the shirt by the top meshing and none at the bottom so that way the peplum prt would flow as much as possible

Also you can see the peplum cam out so much I was able to sew it to the fronts I could solve a lot of the hanging parts of the train I thought were messy edges

I used the very last bit of the red lace prom fabric to do a dripping ascent that mirrors the long snowflake in elsa's cape. I still think it stands out way too much compared to the blunt black peplum  so I might find more black mesh to go over or just with black fabric paint wash. I still like the tear and rip effect though.

Look at that sparkle glitter!!

Speaking of fabric paint. I wanted the symbol to pop more so I went in the red and watered it down slightly

It got kind of a rustic feel which while I like I might one day go in and amplify more with jewels or something else in the future

Also it fit very well when the whole thing was put on. It goes, skirt, leggings (yep can't be seen but I was wearing green leggings), shirt +cape, and then corset to seal everything inside. 

No one recognized me much but I was still so happy with the result cuz it was comfy, workable, and I felt fucking fabulous with this train.

I know for sure I want to put a high slit into the skirt to show off those leggings and get the full diva effect.

-RB out