I had a good start yesterday. Having experiemtned with many tools now I will be able to do a poper tutorial on making best use of latex under different circumstances.
I’ve used filler, paints, brushes of all kinds, and now it’s finally paying off. My lekku are looking good and my montral can be trimmed down today 🙂 I tried to get video of the trimming process but had instagram fail. so to the camera and tripod!
I can also get some photos the laying up in progress 🙂
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I’ve done this before, so thought I’d capture it for posterity 😉
I printed the concept art at full scale. What is helpful with these is the flat back. SO we can use the profile as the very first piece to cut.
This is then taped perpendicularly to card that will form the back. Once the frame is taped then it’s time to try for shaping the back. This is done by eye which can be a bit off.
To create the sides tape the frame to paper and cut radiating strips out. These offer something for tape to adhere to.
Then these are cut apart and transfered to card for more careful shaping. Keeping the profile shape helps keep this stable as well.
Once taped to the form it is possible to see where shaping needs to happed. As this is a template it’s possible to only alter one side.
Here only the left has been altered.
The top seam also can be adjusted. And the entire pice taken off the form.
I have used a similar method previously for my Ahsara Zavros ensemble:
I used sheer pantihose to smooth the foam. Urethane foam is lovely and squishy but is fragile. The material also allows minimal seepage of latex into the foam to help keep them fairly soft.
Latex shrinks as it cures to the thinner the layer the better.
This is also how I make all my Twi’lek lekku- skinned foam 🙂 It takes patience. latex cures very fast in thin layers.
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I’ve been looking through my stash of fabrics with a calculating eye and have finally settled on a few absolutely desperate to make right now projects. Most of which use my stash in some way or another 🙂 This is all locked in and I have plans for what occasion each will be for 🙂
Freya from Hunstman: Winter’s War (robes and armour) & Norma Shearer from Upstage
The armour can be from my stash (so lucky!) so can Norma’s gown. It’s the robes that is currently making my brain itch because I need to calculate and create my patterns precisely.
But that slinky velvet. Obsessed. There is a preview that has survived and it’s at the NZ film archive! The skirt front of the gown isn’t so exciting but the rest is. And I have many options to adapt the front of the skirt. And a lot of research as slinky gowns abound in the 1920s.
An early mantua.
These are illustrative only, I am trying to debate between my stash options of black ribbed silk or a shot pale blue polyester. 9m of each!
Sheer 1870s
I have about 12m of cotton net. Now that I have my fluffy Robe de Style in lace I can put it all towards a fashion style that has had a dedicated folder for over a decade!
These are “new” projects. I am still working on my wall of things but these are mostly stash busting so really just a shifting around in my workroom 🙂
To finish:
Marie Antoinette: thought I’d forgeotten? AHAHAHAHAH! All my trims are here so time to start patterning and washing sizing out of trims 🙂
Cleves red velvet: this is long term hand sewing. And fiddly. But everything is put aside.
Valois: the skirt needs hemming and I am worried I have been rushing the stitches. Also the silk is insanely difficult to work with. I have scrap silk that is less difficult to try!
Silver Spanish: it’s lining, so much lining. I also took out some extra weight from the skirt to make it wearable.
Princess de Cleves: You’d think a doublet would be easy. Nope. But I figure I can couch some braid over the existing braid for some extra texture!
Hannibal gown: reassembly!
Phantom wedding gown: in storage with the Hannibal gear, no rush, but it is silly to leave it this long!
Mina: I have to make the lining absolutely perfect as the silk has zero stretch and all my bodices have had some stretch. I now have the same ripstop cotton as for the bustle so it will be done!!! For my birthday? Maybe…
Worth Sunburst: on hold, I did just find my 9m length of pale aqua silk chiffon so I may wind up with my own interpretation of the gown seeing as there are two extant versions already. Also I have glass pearls set aside and that is more of the Kyoto style than Met style 🙂
Ahsoka: lost a bit of steam on this. Still want to finish her 🙂
Mothma: my dress shrank :/ I’m thinking of passing on the fabric parts to just reset.
Darth Talon: New bikini is fantastic! ANd I do need new lekku. My 2nd set are just too heavy 🙂
Ashara: potentially be remade into my own SWTOR jedi knight Neimhaille 🙂
Nyreen: With Andromeda coming out and more female turians running around I dug out my robes for her that were about to be thrown out. So resizing them 🙂
Leia: my senatorial robes have just gone into the wash, I got new photos for my tutorial, and finally found a pair of soles that work! SHe has no heel, her shoes are made with that really gummy rubber and there are so many cool seams in her boots anyway.
Draenei: slightly on the back burner again. I have a habit of wanting to figure out how then figuring it out and then not really wanting to finish 😉
So at the heart of it I love patterning, and figuring stuff out, not so much the final stages. Ah well 😉
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Your lovely new computer capable of playing games on the highest graphics settings but your scans in b/w cause your comp to crash to desktop…. Yeah. But I managed to hit that magical “export as pdf” button in OO and now I have ten pages of tattooy goodness to test. Much easier to test as a pdf than 10 individual tif files. Yeah, might be a bit OTT with the resolution of my initial scans but I figure better to start too high and have room to cut back than try and increase resolution. Will test now I think and compare to the previous prints.
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Your lovely new computer capable of playing games on the highest graphics settings but your scans in b/w cause your comp to crash to desktop…. Yeah. But I managed to hit that magical “export as pdf” button in OO and now I have ten pages of tattooy…
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So I am happy with my tats, to the point I’m going to create another three sheets of the connecting pieces I avoided so as to make it easier. So the side front belly and back of arms will get their coverage.
They are mostly my work. The specific idiosyncracities of line width and end points are mine for sure. But I did use some tracing of Jan’s art to get there 😉 Also they scaled down a little further due to the PDF format (I was using a 97% print of my last tats and then they scaled back 97% again. The chest and belly tats are fine, as are the main back pieces but the thigh and arms need to be a little bigger.
Also note i did not get a chance to polish my armour, But I did give it all a slight gold wash. Why? My saber hilt is a mix of gold and silver to break up the tone. And it works well for the armour too. Also note my armour is black on silver (ie my cut marks show the metal underneath not black cuts on silver) so as to better mimic the artwork.
Holy crap, woman, your costuming just blows me away. And you are freaking gorgeous.
Thank you 🙂 I think I forgot to mention I did in fact paint myself entirely this time. Ditto with the tattoos.
Very bendy 😉
But also the alcohol to dissolve the paint makes the paint dry fast enough that you can 🙂 While reaching around to paint between the shoulder blades you can disturb paint around the chest and armpit so luckily this stuff dries so quickly you can feel when you are able to go over an old spot or new 🙂
Also two specific brush types used in two specific ways (or three…) and being very familiar with the viscosities needed for painting the face vs body, first layer vs last.
Also no sponges with this stuff except to make dappled effects! Best of all is an airgun but I don’t have one (yet) and it does mean a lot of alcohol in the air. I did the lekku patterns this way. Whee, the air was alcoholic for days in my workroom!
Also so much glue! Literally used a detail house-paint paint brush to glue the prosthetic to my forehead and the gloves and boots to my legs. Also bikini to body. So looking forward to the upgrades! I just need some leather dye and then I can sacrifice some leather hoarded away for years for a project that won’t happen. Then some more (recycled skirt ditto for a project I have passed on) to make a new bikini. I’d prefer to mold vegetanned leather but I don’t think I’d be physically able to pull it in to shape any more.
And hello to you over here from LJ-land 🙂
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So I am happy with my tats, to the point I’m going to create another three sheets of the connecting pieces I avoided so as to make it easier. So the side front belly and back of arms will get their coverage.
They are mostly my work. The specific idiosyncracities of line width and end points are mine for sure. But I did use some tracing of Jan’s art to get there 😉 Also they scaled down a little further due to the PDF format (I was using a 97% print of my last tats and then they scaled back 97% again. The chest and belly tats are fine, as are the main back pieces but the thigh and arms need to be a little bigger.
Also note i did not get a chance to polish my armour, But I did give it all a slight gold wash. Why? My saber hilt is a mix of gold and silver to break up the tone. And it works well for the armour too. Also note my armour is black on silver (ie my cut marks show the metal underneath not black cuts on silver) so as to better mimic the artwork.
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They are red! First flat brush then airbrush. I am so getting another at some stage with the ability to hold more paint but wow, such a difference! Luckily the can is twice as long lasting as last time as I was able to paint a fair bit and there is still heaps of propellent. But I do want a mini compressor.
Also yes, there is a missing patch but thatwill be painted solid black so it’s pointless to waste expensive ink on that! I used Latona’s as it is a little more durable on latex and will quite probably be airbrushing the tattoos on this time. I just need to cut my stensils. Not looking forward to it as the lekku curves make things not sit properly 😉 Or I could just do the sticky foam and hope I only lift off the paint underneath and not pull it all off.
Also, camera died when I took a photo this morning of paint in progress with all the talc everywhere 🙂
Yes those red drops on the carpet are the main reason why I want a contained ink holder….
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From too damp to too warm I let the workroom get too warm so I’ll need to do a bit more tidying of the lekku. I really wanted them done before Hamilton armageddon but hey.
I copied the lekku patterns to paper and then again to more paper to be able to print them off to keep in storage. I may have just enough foam to be able to make flexible stencils, or I could cut out the shapes and stick them on and trace around which would be easier if I can get them drawn in before the red and not have the alcohol wipe them away… well…
So I’ll take the patterns with me as I’m not going to be busy at all ‘eh?
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From too damp to too warm I let the workroom get too warm so I’ll need to do a bit more tidying of the lekku. I really wanted them done before Hamilton armageddon but hey.
I copied the lekku patterns to paper and then again to more paper to be able to…
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