Photos from AvestaCon

The last weekend in October was AvestaCon, a small local con that was held for the second year. I wad down sick, but I still went. I had promised to be a judge at the Dalarna Cosplay Championships, which is the regional championship that is there to encourage people to try out cosplay, and it was also a chance to take some photos of my costumes. It did end up with me loosing two days of work afterwards though, since I was home with a fever.

I had finally finished my TLJ Leia and wore it as a judge for the cosplay contest. I loved walking around with it and just swosh with my big coat. Photo by: Tom Larsson

Being down sick I spent most of my time in Hogwarts uniform, since it's so comfy and easy to wear. Photo by: Tom Larsson

Another of my very comfortable costumes is Melisandre. It's like wearing a nice and comfy bathrobe, and with my own hair. And when Anne-Sofie had bought an Elsa cosplay, we felt that we needed to take some fun photos.

Ice vs. Fire

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

The location of AvestaCon is gorgeous for dramatic photos. I haven't really decided if this is Melisandre at the wall or at Storm's End

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

The big plan for AvestaCon was to finally assemble our Pokemon superhero team, but we think that it must be cursed, we simply can't all be in costume at the same time. This time our Captain Carp was down sick, but Bellossom Girl, Umbreon and Togepi was there at least.

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

Bellossom photos

At Comic-Con I did get some photos taken of my superhero Bellossom, I guess I should call her super-Bellossom or something. All photos are from Tom Larsson, or at least his camera.

The costume consists of one green longsleeved dance leotard. This is a good proof that you get what you pay for. I first bought a really cheap one from ebay, and it had a strange green colour and everything about it was cheap and low quality. I then bought this version from an actual dancewear shop, and it was so good. It's really tight, but holds everything in place while still being comfortable. I actually wore it under my Mon Mothma most of the weekend to make it easy to switch between costumes. Thanks to this leotard this is probably one of my most comfortable costumes.

I did wear a pair of green tights under it all as well, since the skirt turned out a lot shortern than I had planned at first.

The skirt and gloves are made from lycra. The skirt turned out so short because when I made it I happened to get a stain on it at around knee level, so I cut it shorter, but didn't first realise just how much shorter I had cut it. A good thing with lycra is that it doesn't fray so I didn't have to he anything. The gloves as you can see had a tendency to slide down on the arms though.

The cape and belt are also made from lycra. The belt was a really ugly leather belt, pink and embossed with flowers, that I found at an op shop and simply covered with the lycra. I kept the buckle, but it's in the back so you can't see it because of the cape. The cape is just lightly handstitched to the leotard at the front.

The boots are a pair of red gogo-boots, and I think I'm going to make a separate post about them.

I had originally planned to use my hairflowers that I made for the the other Bellossom costume, but they were too big and heavy. These ones are made from transparent worbla, with a small piece of yellow lycra as the centre. They are attached with magnets to a headband that I'm wearing under the wig. The throw-flower is also made from transparent worbla. The shield is a plastic viking shild I found at a toystore and repainted. I couldn't get it quite as smooth and shiny as I wanted, so instead I made sure to give it a lot of battle damage.

Finally the eyemask is made of fosshape and held on by an elastic under the wig.

Me and Tom as the dynamic pokémon duo of Captain Carp and Bellossom-girl.

And finally some of the people from Cosplay Dalarna that were at Comic Con Stockholm.

Glove tutorial

For my next project I needed a pair of gloves in the exact same colour as my skirt. Since the skirt is made in lycra I decided that it couldn't be too hard to make my own gloves, and to be honest it was really simple.

One important thing is that this only works if you are using a fourway-stretch, like lycra or spandex. For anything else you need to create a pattern with a piece called a "flechette" and is the extra fabric that goes between the fingers in order to make the glove big enough and also make it possible to move the fingers.

I started with simply tracing my own hand and wrist on paper.

As you can see I made sure to really spread my fingers. I then added seam allowance, and some extra at the bottom, since the arm is more threedimensional than my fingers.

I cut out two pieces and pinned them together. I sewed Everything together with a fairly tight zigzag stitch. It would probably be even better to use an overlock stitch, but I don't have yellow thread for my serger and something is wrong with my regular machine so I can't choose any of the "b"-side seams.

I then tried the glove on, and could see that I had made some of the fingers and the bottom part too big, so I simply adjusted them with new seams inside the old one. Then I turned the glove so I got the right side out.

Tada, a finished, shiny glove.

Bellossom outer gown

I've come back from a great time at NärCon, but before I post about that I'm just going to add the final part of my Bellossom cosplay.

I started the outer gown by making a top from the Butterick 6134 pattern. I made some Changes though in that I made it a bit bigger, and shorter. That allowed me to pull the top over my head so I didn't have to worry abut zippers or other fastenings. The top was made from applegreen poly chiffon interlined with a nude poly lining.

The fit wasn't important since it was supposed to be a very loose gown anyway. I can really recommend this pattern, since it has raglan sleeves it so eas to put together. The original calls for it being unlined, but I have preferred to put a lining into it both of the times that I've made the pattern.

After that it was simply a question of pinning the remaining chiffon fabric and sew it on at the bust. I pleated it rather than gathered it since I think pleats looks so much nicer and gives a better drape as well.

My handstitching weren't quite up to scratch though and now when I've unpacked the gown I can see that some of it has come undone, so I will need to fix that before I wear it the next time.

It really is a costume that's hard to pose in, since it looks so much better when it's moving. I loved to just twirl around in it.

Bellossom hairflowers and shoes

The next step that I finished for my Bellossom has been the hairflowers and shoes. The shoes were really simple.

I found a pair of very cheap fabric shoes in cream with embossed flowers on them. I simply spayed them with a layer of yellow paint and then I took a fabric marker and filled in all the flowers on the shoes.

The hairflowers were a bit more complicated though. This was my first try of using a material called fosshape. It's a feltlike thermoplastic material. Meaning that it feels like fabric, but when you heat it up it becomes hard, it also shrinks and I found it a bit hard to predict how much it would shrink. It depended on the heat.

I started with cutting out five petals for each flower.

I sewed the petals together and placed them over a deep plate to give them a bit more shape. I used a heatgun on a low setting to shape the fosshape. 

After a while I turned the flower and the deep plate and went over it so that both sides had hardened. 

The flowers were harder, but still quite flimsy so I added a piece of buckram in the middle to give it a more stable centre part.

I then tried to mold the centre pod of the flower over a light holder with but it didn't work. As you can see the fosshape started to curl upwards on its own, rather than downwards even if I tried to force it down.

For the second attempt I instead made a cylinder of the fosshape and with the help of a plier I could get it to curl up around the light holder.

Here are the basic flowers, I'm really happy with the right one.

I then used spraypaint to paint the flowers, and finally I simply sewed the yellow centres to the base flower. 

After having used fosshape I the best used for it is if you have a frame that you want to have covered, and that will be covered with yet material. The surface of the fosshape, even after having been heated, was still quite fuzzy and felt-like. I did a test flower first where I used an iron to heat it, and then I could get a smoother surface, but I also got markes from the iron. It's very lightweight and there was no problem painting it, but I think it will be very hard to make it into a smooth and clean finish. Like other thermoplastics it sticks to itself when heated, but it doesn't melt into and bond together, and it was not enough to just have the stickyness to keep two pieces of fosshape together. It's possible to sew through the fosshape after it's gotten hard, but use a very thin needle since the holes will be visible. I think the best way of using fosshape is as alighter version of buckram, and instead of using hot water you use a heatgun to shape it. 

Then I needed to fasten the flowers to my head somehow. I wanted something that was adjustable and could be used both with a wig, or with a caul or piece of fabric covering the head. Now for NärCon I'm planning on using a green veil, but I also have a green wig for future use. My solution was to use magnets.

I glued two flat pieces of magnetic metal to the underside of the flower.

Then I sewed 2x3 small neodym magnets into a simple cotton headband.

Me wearing the headband.

The flowers are held in Place by the magnets.

The last thing I did with the flowers was to fill the centre with some scraps of chiffon to hide the red bottom and make it a bit more organic. 

Bellossom cosplay

Sometime in the winter at a Cosplay Dalarna meeting we started talking about cosplaying pokemon figures. I don't really know how it all started, and I'm not in any way a pokemon expert. I do play Pokemon Go, but that's everything I know. Still I was thinking about going to NärCon and wanted a simply and comfortable cosplay, similar to my Rarity cosplay. I looked around for different pokemons and found Bellossom.

I figured it would be a simple thing, make a vintage inspired yellow and green dress and add some red flowers in the hair. Then the time went by and the project grew, the more time I had to plan it. When I found out that there was going to be a pokemon cosplay competition at NärCon I realised that I would not be happy with just a simple summer dress. 

There are a few things I like with Bellossom and that I want to emphasize in my version. One big thing is that Bellossom is quite chubby, I didn't want to show off much skin. After googling for Bellossom cosplays for inspiration I thought that too many of them were a bikini top and a skirt, with a bare mid section. My plan is definitely to start the skirt all the way up at the bust, and unlike most other costumes I'm going to hide my body under the skirt and not show off any waistline at all.

The first step to the cosplay was to make a big underskirt that can give the main dress a lot of body, and make sure that it will sway when I move.

Enter the organza monster, it was even worse than my 19th Century snowball monster.

 I really didn't have a plan, but I had 10 m of green organza and 5 meters of yellow organza that I cut into strips and sewed together.

It got to be a very long strip of fabric. If I redid I would not have sewn all the pieces together but gathered each by itself and added them one by one.

Now when I sat and handgathered it all I felt that I was in serious risk of "death by fabric". Still since I didn't have a plan when I had gathered it all, it only was enough fabric for 2,5 rows of ruffles.

When I made my 16th Century hat and guards to the undergown I cut up a wool blend skirt, for this project I added the ruffles to the underskirt from that wool skirt. Instead of making a waistband I added two straps of ribbon to it to make it into an underdress instead of an underskirt. This will also help with making sure that everything is smooth from the bust and that there is no waistline.

On top of the organza ruffles I've added around 30 individual chiffon pieces, cut into pointy edges at the bottom. For all this it should be said that I've only zick-zacked the edges of the chiffon, I have not had the time or will to make a better finish to all those meters of edges. Now I have a big underskit with a lot of swaying motion in it, but with all the fabric on it it has also ended up fairly heavy.