It's true! she wears more armor on her wedding dress then on her armored form!

But anyways, I know you guys must be sick of seeing studio shots. This will be the last on till I get my outdoors photoshoot. Well I guess I'll talk about this dress now.

This outfit took about 8 months. (6 months on and off, 2 months of 16 hours a day labor) It's the most difficult outfit that I've ever tried to make. Most of that time was actually spent on the armor work. All of the armor parts are made from craft foam. Rasler spent 2 weeks working 7 days a week 16 hours a day to get the armor constructed. We then spent another 2 weeks painting it. I spent about 2 weeks before all of this just drafting out the armor pattern into paper. Rediculous right? We used 2 different types of gold paint to get the colors on the armor. First, we sprayed the armor, chains, and pearls with gold spray paint. After that, we took the armor and painted clear varnish on it to give the armor a gloss affect. Then, we painted it with about 6 layers of pure gold acrylic paint till it became the color you see in the picture. The white portions of the armor are covered in 2 types of white paint. The first few layers are a glossy white. The top coats are metallic pearl white. You can't really tell in the pictures but the MPW paint gives the white a nice sheen, like armor.

The dress itself is made from casa satin. I realized right off the bat that I wouldn't be able to alter a pattern to look like the dress so I drafted a few out and picked out my favorite. The top is completely lined and the edges of ths skirt are finished off with a serger. I don't know if you can tell but I sewed on clear bra straps to the top to help support the armor. The top actually stays up by itself but I'm paranoid about it falling over. In this picture, the pearls on the shirt are attached with jewelry elastic but I've recently replaced that with clear fishing wire. Some of the armor on the top is attached together with little metal rings that I made from 24 gauge wire (jewelry wire). For the gold detailing on the top and fishtails of the skirt, I used antique gold acrylic paint but I'm playing with the idea of going back and embroidering all of that. I'd have to do it all by hand of course. For the skirt to get that artbook drape, I made a crazy looking pettycoat to support the fishtails.

On the veil, the edge details are done with gold bias tape to protect the edge and to make the 3 layers stand out. The actual veil details are done with antique gold acrylic paint. On the tan underveil thingy I embroidered all the gold details on and the whole thing is sewn on to the white veil. For the wings, Rasler sculpted the wing base out of model magic and then I attached the feathers on to it with superglue. The feathers were hand painted in Rasler's bathroom floor and are held together with tacky glue. Rasler and I handsculpted all the tiny white teardrop pearls on the veil and then painted the little devils on a suspended wire in my living room.

Needless to say, there were many maany times that I wanted to just throw the whole thing down and burn it while doing a little dance around its chared remains.

Fun Fact: There are over 174 pieces of craft foam in just the veil armor and make up over 66 parts. (not counting any of the pearls)

Character: Ashe Series: Final Fantasy XII Photo Views: 2209 Upload Date: 08-07-2008

Photographer: Cosplayers: