I'm a slut for armour. I admit it. If I see a character I like, and they end up wearing armour at any point, no matter how brief, then I want to make it. I haven't even finished watching all of Twelve Kingdoms yet, but when I saw Youko wearing her battle armour in disk 3, I had to have it.
I started out by spending many days on the Tom Cruise's armour in The Last Samurai. They seem to have also faked the iyo zane look of Nuinobe do by creating strips instead of lacing together individual scales, so I feel justified. ^^
So, after spending a few days researching, planning things out, and taking notes, I decided to start working. Considering that this was an anime cosplay and not anything that would be used in combat, I decided to go for inexpensive as opposed to authentic. The material I chose for the scales was...posterboard! After reading armour making tutorials on Cosplay.com and Amethyst Angel and Featherweight's sites, I decided to give it a try. I bought a 16 oz bottle of Mod Podge, 7 sheets of posterboard, a can of beige spray paint, and a can of lacquer. I used one sheet to make the pattern. I really should have thought that process out more, drafted a body block and gone from there, but I was so excited about the project that I just started measuring and drawing, going off of pictures to see how wide the front and side panels should be an approximating it as best as I could. Yes, I was stupid, but it all worked out. ^^; I separated the panels into even numbers of lames and then separated those into five horizontal sections to create the look of the individual scales. The top design of each scale was freehanded after the design on the Last Samurai armour. Once the pattern was finished, I cut out the actual armour pieces from the posterboard, adding a 1/2" onto the bottom edge of each lame for the overlap (except for the bottom lame, where the "seam allowance" was added to the top edge). I cut out five of each lame and laminated them together with Mod Podge. After allowing them to dry, I sealed the top with a thin layer of Mod Podge. It added a nice lacquer look to the finished pieces, and even if the shine doesn't show through the spray paint, it still seals off the paper so it won't absorb the paint and warp out of shape.
Once everything was sealed, I went and added dots to each piece with a sharpie to mark out where I wanted the lacing holes to go. I took one piece out to the garage and started hammering holes into it. I found that the dots I had marked were far too close together and much smaller that the actual holes were turning out to be, so I quickly adjusted so that they'd be a good distance from each other. I'm very happy with the holes on the one piece I decided to work on, so I'll probably end up disregarding the holes on all the other pieces as well. At least the paint will cover up the sharpie marks, so there's no worry of it messing up my final product. ^^
I made the other panels in exactly the same way...five layers of posterboard laminated together and sealed. I originally only did four panels - front, back, left and right sides, because I thought I had made the pattern too large and wouldn't be able to include the final panel. But, when I did a fitting, I discovered that with a little bit of adjusting and only a minimal amount of cutting down, I could actually include the proper left side panel! I was quite pleased. I moved the left panel I had to the right side back, trimmed everything down so it would fit, and then drafted and constructed the proper left side panel.

During the course of all of this, I took a day long break to take a whack at making Youko's sword. As it's one of the relics of Kei and proves her right to the throne, I thought it would be an important prop to include. I had found a tutorial some time ago on how to make prop swords out of cardboard, a dowel rod, and aluminum waterproofing tape, and I had been dying to try it ever since. I hit the hardware store and bought all the supplies and came home to give it a go.
I used foamcore instead of actual cardboard to make the 'meat' of the blade. Let me now take the time to express how much I have come to despise and loathe foamcore. The stuff is a nightmare to cut. If you use scissors on it, it damages and crushes the foam. I don't have a craft knife or exact-o blade, so I had to use scissors to score the posterboard outer shell first, then I had to score the foam middle several times over, and only then could I finally cut through the bottom layer of posterboard and get the bloody thing cut out. Ugh. It was horrible.
I finally did manage to get the pieces cut out. I then spent the next two days applying, removing, cursing, and reapplying the aluminium tape. The stuff does NOT want to cooperate. No matter what you do, there always seem to be wrinkles and creases in the bloody stuff. The more layers you add, the worse it gets. I ended up ripping off my first few attempts and starting over. It didn't help that I had damaged the foamcore by trying to insert the dowel rod down the centre, so the tape wanted to show every minor warp that had occured because of it. I finally ended up ripping off all the aluminum tape, covering the foamcore with a layer of painter's masking tape (layering on several strips over the damaged section to make it level again), and then trying again with the aluminium tape. It still fails. I became so frustrated with it that I set it aside and attempted to make a sword out of craft foam, thinking that I had had such success with it before, it couldn't possibly fail me now! I made the blade shape in craft foam, covered it in layers of masking tape, and put on the aluminium tape. It was definitely smoother, and yet somehow not as good as the cardboard blade. -sigh- It just looks...squishy. So, I'm going to go with the cardboard sword and finish up the hilt. I started to draw out the pattern for the crossguard on foamcore, and I bought some paperclay to make the raised designs, but I'm so tired of working on this beast that I haven't touched it since. ^^; (Can you tell which blade is which in the pic?*)
When I talked to my dad about my prop-making woes he said he would help me try my hand at making a fibreglass blade. I've always wanted to try my hand at it, but have always been rather intimidated by it. But I think that with his help I can get a good final product. I don't really want to commission the sword, since the few quotes I've gotten range from $80-150, but if the fibreglass blade doesn't turn out I just might splurge and have Amethyst Angel make it.

Whew! So, that's where I am right now. Over the next week or so I'm going to drill all the holes into the lames, and paint and lacquer them. I had orignally thought of using shoelaces to lace all the pieces together, but someone said that you can buy the same sort of lacing by-the-yard at Joann's, so I'm going to check it out to see if they have what I need. I'm debating between dark blue lacing (very popular for samurai armour) or white. Considering the reference shot, I'm leaning more and more toward dark blue, since it's the colour of all the accents and what have you. I don't anticipate the actual clothing to take much time at all...it's basically a short kimono with a pair of blue pants and a white skirt (which may actually be an underlayer of some sort). She wears the same clothes throughout most of the first three disks of the show, while she's disguised as a boy, so there are plenty of reference shots of the underlayers that I'm not worried about figuring out the construction. Until next time!

*left is fun foam, right is cardboard

So, I posted my bodice dilemma on the Panniers Livejournal group. There was only one response, but it was very helpful. The type of bodice I've been looking at is simply called the Grand Habit. It's laced up the centre back, no pleating of any sort. Here's a page of pictures and research (in Danish) : Den Franske hof stil (the link at the bottom goes to his reproduction of a Danish court gown, with lots of wonderful pictures)

After a bit more research, I've found these portraits of Queen Marie Leszczyńska, which I think may have served as inspiration for the gown in the anime :



She certainly seemed to like this style of gown, I've only seen one or two portraits where she's wearing something different. Anyway, as you can see in the second portrait, the way the cloak is falling gives a sort of false impression that there's pleating to make a saque back. In almost every portrait, she has a cloak of some sort that she's wearing with the gown, even when it's not the cloak of office. (Notice how there's always a crown in the background, the ermine cloak, and the fleur de lis? Just in case you forgot she was queen. )
So, I've decided that this is the way I'm going to go, the grand habit with the cloak. Maybe I could pin the cloak to the waistline to keep it out of the way and give the same impression as the anime gown? I haven't decided yet, but I'll probably leave it loose.
I look forward to getting started on this. Next step is choosing the fabrics!

So, I've recently gotten into Le Chevalier D'eon. It's not your typical froofy anime with your teen romances or giant robots duking it out in the desert. Sure, I like those anime just fine, but sometimes you just need something different. Chevalier D'eon is different, and it's definitely not for everyone, but I've really come to like it!
And of course, when I like a thing, I want to cosplay it.
So, I've been thinking of making Queen Marie's outfit. But, I want to make it historically accurate. While the gown in the anime is very pretty, the reenactor/SCA crazy person in me wants to make it period. So, I've started to do some research to see if there are any historical precedents that I can use as a jumping off point for Marie's dress.
Here's the original dress :

Front :


Back :



And here are the paintings I've found that I'm going to use as sources :


Mademoiselle de Chateaurenaud
Jean Marc Nattier

This picture jumped out at me immediately. It has the same wide neckline and sleeves as Marie's gown, and is even in the same colour range. It doesn't have a stomacher like Marie's gown did, but still, it's very close. Here's another example of that kind of bodice and sleeve combination :



Theatrical Scene
Nicolas Lancret

None of these gowns have stomachers, but they do tend to have some sort of decoration down the centre front, be it ruching, flowers, etc. In the painting of Mlle de Chateaurenaud, the decoration seems to create a sort of false stomacher, mimicking the look of a centre panel when it looks like the centre front is all one piece. However, in the second painting it does look like there are some seamlines that follow the same lines as the ruching on Mlle de Chateaurenaud's bodice, so maybe they were actually cut that way. I need to do a bit more research before I decide which direction I'm going to go with seamlines.

I haven't found any evidence that the saque back was ever used with this sort of bodice, but when looking at Marie's gown it almost looks like en fourreau pleating, except that it isn't sewn down all the way to the waistline. It's sort of a weird en fourreau/saque gown mutant ropa stepchild. It makes no sense, and there's nothing that I've found that's like it. I haven't decided what I'm going to do in the back. The back of Marie's gown is sort of iconic, it's the part that everyone notices and remembers, so I don't want to mess with it too much. I guess there's only so far I can go on historical accuracy, but my research isn't finished yet.

Okay, so A-kon foils my neatly laid plans again when someone suggested an Avatar:The Last Airbender meetup. It seems to have been just enough of a kick in the butt to get me back on researching The Painted Lady, who I've been wanting to cosplay for some time. After looking at the few available pics from the one episode in which she appears for a grand total of about 20 seconds, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to go would to be to work with Padme's pastel lake dress as a starting point. It seems to drape in almost exactly the same way and it's relatively simple to make. There are some adjustments to be made, like bringing down the neckline and bringing up the back, but the more I stare at the pictures, the easier I think this project will be. The big challenge will be the Hat o' Doom, which I may end up making out of strips of fun foam or maybe even posterboard stiffened with glue. I don't know yet.
Caterina is back underway, and I intend to have her finished in time for A-kon. I have, masochistically, decided to outline all of the scrollwork with bugle beads, and have been working on that for the past few days. I'll work on it little by little over the next week until it's all finished and then I get to do MORE scrollwork! ~headdesk~ Damn you, artbook pictures! Why must you be so magnificently detailed?! Anyway, will work on her until she's finished, I'm tired of looking at her standing half-finished in the corner.
Also on the agenda for A-kon : Ashlotte, currently in pieces, Saber, which I've tossed and am going to restart, Battle!Integra, which is nearly complete, and Ingrid, because my friends are doing a Street Fighter group. x.x Guess I can't stop until the Con if I'm going to have it all finished. Buh.

Well, with winter nearly upon us (hey, I live in Texas, winter isn't until January), it's time to occupy myself with projects. Tomorrow, I plan to clean out under the coffee table, since that's where I keep all my current projects, and organize everything, and I'm going to go into the garage and dig through all my old costumes to see if there's anything that can be salvaged. I already know of one gown that I'm rather looking forward to redoing.
You see, a few years ago I went through a Robe a la Francaise craze, and I made about 5 of them. Most of them were completely unsuited to the fabric I made them out of. But, there's one gown that I glimpsed earlier that I want to redo. It was a saque, of course. The fabric was the wonderful purple jacquard that I adore. Completely wrong for the style of gown, but what can I say? I want to tack down all the pleats in the back to make a robe l'anglaise, then maybe make it into a polonaise. I can't remember what treatment I did for the sleeves, but they'll probably need to be redone as well. I'm excited about tackling it, I was always fond of that fabric.
I also have an old bustle gown that I'm redoing. The original concept was really great, but my sewing skills weren't developed enough to actually pull it off well, so the neckline is a bit...matronly. O.o The rest of the gown is great, though. I want to rip the sleeves off of it and change the neck, make a new underskirt for it, and vamp it up a bit. I'll probably need to make a new bustle, as well, since I have /no/ idea where my old one is. Hopefully I'll have it done by this weekend so I can wear it to the Fetish Ball in Dallas. ^^
None of my actually cosplay projects (ie, for a character) are inspiring me at the moment. I have an entire list of things that I wanted to make for A-kon next year, but I haven't made even the slightest dent into it. :-/ Ah, well...after Christmas I'll probably get the craze again, and then I'll be working on them again full swing. ^^