Starting with the skirt, it's two
rectangles cut to whatever length you
wish it to be and the width of the skirt
is how far it will fall down on your leg
and I'm sewing the two rectangles
together with two side seams, one of
which will have an invisible zipper
sewn in so that's what I'm doing here
and I'm just closing up the bottom of
this seam where the zipper ends, just to
finish that seam off
and so here's the completed zipper seam
on one side of the skirt and on the
other side is just a regular straight
stitch for the other side seam. Now I'm
going to pleat down this giant loop of
fabric and each pleat takes up around
one inch of material but make sure to
do a test fitting on yours and
experiment just to make sure that it
does fit your waist measurement. So
basically just pleat down the entirety
of the skirt until it fits your waist. Make sure to try it on before you sew
the pleats down.
Moving on to the waistband of the skirt.
So I've cut a long strip of fabric and
I'm matching up the raw edges together
and then sewing that the whole
way around the skirt and then I'm going
to fold over the raw edge of the
waistband and fold it over the pleat
stitching and top stitch the waistband
into place.
So now we have something that resembles
a skirt and now I'm going to cut it into
the same shape that the skirt is in the
movie. I'm wearing the skirt while I
do this so I know exactly how the pleats
will fall and how it should look on
myself.
The final step to finish the skirt
is to dye the tips with brown fabric dye.
Here is the final result for the
skirt.
For the armor I used five millimeter
thick EVA foam from eBay and I roughly
cut out a front shape and a back shape
based on my body measurements. I then
used heat to start molding the front
piece to my body shape. I also hot glued
the back pieces to the sides of the
front piece and inserted a corset
closure in the back with hot glue as
well. Then with two or three millimeter
thick foam I started adding details to
the armor as you can see here and I just
roughly cut out shapes and started
gluing them down with hot glue. It's also
good to use reference images when you're
doing the details of the armor.
Here is the inside of the armor. The white
fabric is calico material that connects
all the way around. Here's the front
of the armor and you can see all of the
detail that's stuck on with the two or
three millimeter foam. Here I've got
reinforcement fabric which is hot glued
to the sides just to make sure that the
EVA foam doesn't split open up the side
seams and I've also cut out this panel
of the two or three millimeter thick
foam which extends over the back
lacing when the armor is worn and that
will just velcro into place there.
Now I'm just adding additional details
to the armor and this is out of the two
or three millimeter thick foam and I
just cut it out with a utility knife and
then hot glue everything down.
Moving onto paint I started obviously
with gold paint and I did about three
layers of gold paint before moving onto
the other painted details. I also painted
these little sequins and these sequins
were originally like a really bright
yellow gold and I just painted them with
a mixture of gold and brown paint to
make them look a little bit less new.
Now you can see me working on the detail
on the armor and I'm just using a light
brown to paint all those little strokes
and then once those have dried I'm using
a darker brown paint and going over them
to add more dimension.
I also went in with a shear layer of
brown paint to make the gold less stark
and make everything harmonize a little
bit better.
Here is the completed paint job of
the armor. Also, these are the little
sequins I was talking about and what I
did with these was just hot glued them
to any of the areas where they were
visible on the costume from the movie so
these act as studs but they're actually
fake studs. Finally, just a little demo of
the back closure so you can see that the
lace the laces are hidden with the back
panel of that foam and that foam just
velcro into place and then we've got the
fake studs to make it look like it's not
velcroed into place. Here are just
some images of the front and back of the
armor and also that back strap on my
right is velcroed into place. For the
sandals I didn't actually get to film
the process of making them entirely
since I made these first and it was
before I decided that I actually wanted
to film the process of making this whole
costume so I'm going to try my best to
walk you through how I got up to this
stage with the sandals. So I've cut out a
front piece out of two different fabrics
one of which is this black vinyl
material.
I've also cut it out of this brown
fake leather material which is cut out
of an old bag that I had and didn't want
anymore.
The black vinyl is cut out a little
larger than the brown bag material and
I've also folded over the edges of the
black vinyl and then sewing those edges
down so from the front all of the edges
have a nice clean finish.
Then on top of that I sew down the
brown bag material and I've allowed the
black vinyl to peek through just a
little bit. For the back piece of the
sandals it's also made out of the black
vinyl material that I showed you before
but it's got a layer of stiffened felt
to give it some rigidity and some
stiffness so it doesn't flop about.
This is sewn into place.
I believe it's glued first and then the
edges were sewn down.
You can see up close that the edges
have been folded over and then stitched
into place so the felt does not move and
that also gives the back of the shoes
a nice finish. Moving on to the straps
they're also made out of the same black
vinyl material and they're
threaded through the slits of the front
panel of the sandal and that one there
is sewn in as well as this one that goes
over my foot. The one of my foot also
has elastic so into the strap and that's
so it can go over my foot or my shoe
when I'm wearing it. Now for a quick demo
of how I made the straps. Basically just
cut out a strip of fabric like this and
then fold in the outer edges so they
meet in the center and then just
straight stitch them either side and
then that's your strap done. Here's a
completed strap so you can see that the
stitching on either side is there and
then if I flip it over
you can see that the edges meet in the
center on the backside of the strap.
Now I'll just give you an overview of
the sandal contraption so you can see
all the details and all their glory for
yourself in case you want to make it.
One more thing, I've sewn these
rectangles on the back panel of the
sandals and that's to keep those black
straps in place.
I've also got little markings here and
that shows me where the velcro will be
placed and the velcro is the closure for
these sandals.
Here I've got some velcro positioned
on the strap and I'm just sewing a
rectangle around the velcro to keep that
velcro in place and then I've also sewn
the other side of the velcro and that's
just going to attach like so. I've
also, on the completed shoes, stuck those
little studs right there. And just a
quick demo of how these sandals fit with
my shoes and don't mind the socks I'll
be wearing other little slippers with my
shoes.
Moving on to painting, I'm using brown
acrylic paint and just making them look
really muddy and dirty and also a bit
more like leather and same thing for the
shoes.
This is what I was talking about
when I meant I'd have other slippers to
wear with my shoes. These are canvas
ballet flats from eBay. I just painted
them and also cut off the elastic that
goes over the front of my foot. Here
are the completed shoes except they
don't have studs on at this point but
they do in this clip.
Now on to the final part of the costume
which are the bracers and hand wraps.
For this I did use a pattern, which I
purchased on Etsy. I'll try and find the
link and put it in the description box
below. This is made out of three
millimeter thick EVA frame I believe and
yeah just cutting out the pattern pieces
and then scoring them as needed.
I do want to mention that the bracers
that you're seeing me make here are not
the actual braces that I wore in the
final shots of the costume and that's
because my sister had made better braces
that looked more realistic than mine but
I'm leaving the clips in here because
you can see the same paint job that we
both did to achieve that armor look. The
only difference is that her grooves of
her braces were not as deep or as thick
as mine and she did not paint the
insides of them black like I'm doing
here.
Unfortunately I didn't get any footage
of how I did the closures for the bracers
but basically it's that same black vinyl
material that you saw for the sandals
and sewn those the same way I did
the straps and velcro those onto the
bracers so they would velcro into place
with hot glue and I also put fake studs
on those as well.
Here are the hand wraps and this is just
made out of old skirt fabric and I also
painted it around but I didn't get any
footage of that either.
Here are the finished bracers and hand
wraps. The hand wraps are wrapped into
position and then safety pinned into
place. And that's it - the costume is done!
