Purple swirl ornaments - part 1 (Posted 15th October 2011)

Today I went and made the purple swirl ornaments that hand from the wig at the sides of the face.
The material used was basically chicken wire, bent into shape. After making it all sturdy enough that it wouldn't get loose easily, by bending the metal points over each other and twisting and turning them into each other, I covered them in electrical-tape. Afterwards it was time to paper mache them and let them dry. As soon as they're done they will be painted purple and attached to the horns so that it's one piece instead of three seperate pieces.
Before paper mache-ing them, I already attached the two gem ornaments to them at the points, so that they are fastened as well.

Making the wig and horns and wings (Posted 25th August 2011)

So with Abunai starting tomorrow, I stated for myself that I should use the convention to try the cosplay out beforehand.

All that was left to do was making the wig and horns. The most horrible task on this cosplay in my opinion.

I put the wig on a styrofoam wighead and pinned it down so it wouldn't move. I also had to use ductape to attach the wighead on the desk so that wouldn't move as well.

I started with sorting out the strands needed to align my face and tied them together so I wouldn't cut them with the rest of the hair. Afterwards I made two side-tails of the remaining hair and cut it off up to the point where the rest would fall down to cover the hairnet perfectly. Laying aside the hairs I started working with making a improvised hairband from iron-wire with foam plates over it. Bending it to my head's shape I attached it to the wig and continued working with chickenwire to make the base for the horns. A good hour later I had finished the base.
After attaching the horns to the 'headband' I started to use the cut hairs to cover the chickenwire. I placed the hairs on the iron and glued it first so that it would stick properly. After being finished with this tedious task I used several thin white threads to bind the hairs in certain places together. Because of the gaps between the iron the glue wouldn't work like I hoped it would and would eventually let the hairs fall through or down from it.
The final task and easiest if I say so myself: making the plated parts of the horns. At the end of the horns I measured and cut the plates from foam, glued them together around the end of the horns and painted them *cough*pink*cough*
I did the same for the top of the hairband and painted that in the required red and yellow.

After a total of 5 hours of wig work I was finally done with the wig. All that remained were the purple swirly parts that should go under the horns at the hairband, but what mattered more was that about 90% was finished so it was fit for a test drive at Abunaicon!

Now I went on to complete the wings in the last remaining hours I had left before I had to leave. Which went easier than expected.

The base of the wings are made from cardboard, cut down to give shape to the wings. At the middle part I put elastic and another piece of cardboard to cover it up. Then went the tedious task of arranging the different kinds of feathers (long - short - fluffy - twisted - curved - straight - etc) and glueing them one by one, layer by layer.

This task cost me about 6 hours total before I was satisfied enough with it.

Attach fur on dress and dye the area's neccessary (Posted 24th August 2011)

Cut and glued the fur parts for the collar. After the glue had dried I cut it down more and sewed it into place for extra sturdiness.

After that work I made the black and purple dye for the hands and the bottom part of the dress. It went fairly well, except for the hands. The dye didn't catch quit as well as expected, as the original fabric colour was dark red and it should've turned out as a violet. Instead it became dark purple. Will dye the hands further to match the original colours.

All in all a great day for cosplay making!

Started making the dress (Posted 23rd August 2011)

Went to one of my best friends to help me with making the patterns for the dress.

After 9 hours of measuring - drawing - cutting - pinning - sewing - scaling we finished the dress. I learned a lot from this, since it was the first dress I made. The help was really handy with this and my friend thought me a lot on this area and let me do a lot too!

Actually started (Posted 7th June 2011)

Today I started on the jewelry that I have to wear as Ultimecia, mainly her necklaces. Upon closer inspection I saw that she also wears earrings, which kinda are a problem to me. I don't have earrings, so I'm facing with a kind of dilemma here: get earrings or try skin-glue/clip-ons.

I also started on the skeleton base for the wings, so that when the feathers arrive, I have that finished already. I'm making the wings out of a base from chicken wire with strips of paper mache. That way it remains light and won't pull the dress back, and I can move the wings in different positions for poses i.e. wrapping them around me. The strips of paper mache will be painted black so that is a few feathers fall off it wouldn't be noticeable immediately.

First journal (Posted 5th June 2011)

Started in looking for the items needed to make this cosplay.

Found the fur for the collar, feathers for the wings and the wig on Ebay after a few hours of browsing and bid/bought them immediately.

Now waiting for the items to arrive so I can fully start on them.