Clockwork Droid Complete!

I finished my clockwork droid costume in time for Halloween. Here's a reminder of how the dress looked when I started:

And now the final product...drumroll, please...

Ta-daa! The dress is surprisingly comfortable. I wore it all day on Halloween, minus the mask. I told the kids at my daycare center that I was Cinderella. I also wore my hair down and added a pair of long white gloves. Unfortunately I forgot to get someone to take a picture of my full get-up.

The only problem with the dress is that the shoulders tend to fall down. When I wore it on Halloween, I wore a long-sleeve shirt underneath and pinned it at the shoulders, which solved the problem, but I would like a more permanent solution.

Jason and I went out in costume on Halloween. There's a great retro game arcade in our area--Galloping Ghost-- and they advertised that they were having a costume contest. So I went in my droid costume and Jason went as Smoke from Mortal Kombat.

Galloping Ghost has all of the Mortal Kombat machines, so this led to some very meta pictures.

Flawless victory!

Smoke is also an accomplished light saber duelist.

I posed for a picture in front of the Nerd Fighter game. DFTBA!

Yes, I know it's really called Aero Fighters.

Jason and I decided to play through the TMNT game together. One of the great things about Galloping Ghost is that you pay an entrance fee, but all of the games are on free play. So instead of adding a quarter every time one of us died, you just need to press the "credit" button. Anyway, we were between levels when the owner came over and let us know we had won the costume contest! We won free passes for our next trip. Good times.

Clockwork Droid, Part 4

Work on the costume has been slow, because I like to work on too many things at once. I'm also working on a Super Secret Crochet Project for someone whose birthday is the day after Halloween, so I took a break from my costume to get a big chunk of that done. I switched back to the costume when a friend at work invited us to a Halloween party next Friday. I have one week to get everything finished.

Here is where I am right now:

I've hemmed the ruffle on both sleeves, which is probably the hardest part. I hate hemming, because it seems like no real progress is being made. Also, I had to fold the fabric over twice to keep the raw edges from unraveling and showing through. To top it off, I'm sewing this entirely by hand. My craft room has too much other stuff to allow for a sewing machine, especially since I sew so rarely.

Anyway, the hemming is done (yay!). I've sewn the ruffle to one sleeve. Now I just need to sew the other ruffle on, sew up the side seams, and put the sleeves into the dress itself. I want to get as much done this weekend as possible.

After I finished the side panel and shoulder seams, I was able to try on the dress for fit. Drumroll, please...

Yay awkward selfie!

Fits pretty well, I'd say. Don't worry; I'll have Jason take the "after" picture rather than try to do it myself in the bathroom mirror.

ALSO: If you are looking for costume ideas you need to check out Take Back Halloween. It's the polar opposite of "sexy cop/nurse/Big Bird/whatever" that seems to be everywhere these days. The costumes on Take Back Halloween are all inspired by women from history and mythology. I have to admit I wasn't familiar with quite a few of the people mentioned, but they have a biography for each person to go along with her costume. And all of their costumes are no-sew! A few are DIY but most include links to buy the separate pieces.

This one is my favorite: Lasiren, the Haitian sea goddess.

Via

Gorgeous! And a fascinating back story, too.

Happy costuming, everybody! Now back to my sewing needle.

Clockwork Droid, Part 3

The front panel is sewn in! But before I show you that, here is my mask tutorial. This was the first part of the costume I started working on, back in 2010. The costume was originally going to be for Chicago TARDIS, but then I realized it would need a lot more work than I would have time to complete.

I started with a plain white mask from Michaels, similar to this one:

Via

You can't tell with the black background, but there was nothing covering the eye holes. I found a Halloween mask on clearance and cannibalized the eye hole fabric from that. I attached it with my trusty hot-glue gun. It looks opaque from the front, but I can still see through it just fine.

Then I went to work on the front. I sketched out the basic design in pencil first, then traced over it with Sharpie markers. I used a turquoise marker to match the dress, along with pink, black, and silver.

My initial thought was that silver coordinated more than gold would. I was going to leave it like that, but after my costume search I decided to try it with gold instead. I got a tube of gold puff paint to cover up the silver lines. As you can see, it was kind of tricky to get an even flow at first.

Still, I think it came out pretty well. I was looking at the mask this morning and realized that I had forgotten the line directly underneath the left eye, so I went back and added that in. I also did another thin line on the left to match the thicker line on the right and added a big glob above the nose to match the texture of the original mask from the show.

I may even go back and add more in the little spot above the nose, but first I need to see how it looks when the paint is fully dried.

Stay tuned--next time there will be pictures of the dress, including my first time trying it on after tearing it up.

Clockwork Droid, Part 2

The costume is coming along quite nicely. I went back to the fabric store today to get the rest of my supplies, and now I can picture how the dress is going to look when everything is finished!

I sewed in the new front panel, but only on the bottom. I had to leave the sides undone so I could embellish the front. As I mentioned in the last post, I sewed the new fabric onto the edge of the existing fabric and then cut the old fabric away. You can tell from looking at the inside of the dress, but it's not noticeable at all from the outside.

I used the same fabric for the bottom of the sleeves...and then I was out of fabric. I also had no embellishments for the front. I tried playing around with the leftover lace, but as you can tell the results were not promising.

Not quite what I was looking for. So today I headed back to the fabric store to buy something for the sleeves and ribbon for the front. I brought a sample of the original fabric to try and match the color as much as possible.

None of the solids matched, but I did find a pattern that had a darker turquoise on a background that was darn near exactly the same color. Then I found a nice wide ribbon in the darker turquoise to tie everything together.

After playing around with different ways to attach the ribbon, I settled on gathering it just in the middle, with four lengths of ribbon across the front.

Next I added in the fabric for the sleeves, to see how everything looks together.

Right now it's all just laid out on the floor. Next comes sewing it all together! 

Of course, no clockwork droid costume would be complete without the mask. I'll do a quick post on that as well, so stay tuned.

Clockwork Droid, Part 1

As promised, here are some progress shots on my clockwork droid costume! We shall begin with the "before" picture: me in my $10 secondhand bridesmaid's dress.

I'm so glad I never had to wear this in public.

The tag says it was originally from JCPenney, but I found it at Goodwill. There are three main problems I had with it: the sleeves, the neckline, and the middle panel in the front (which includes the solid fabric under the lace). The sleeves are too puffy, obviously. I decided to replace the front panel with white fabric and a square neckline.

The first step was to take out the fabric I didn't want. I used a seam ripper to remove the stitches without cutting the fabric. I removed the sleeves first and then deconstructed the front of the dress:

I used a square-neck sweater to figure out how deep I wanted the new neckline to be, then I traced around the rest of the panel to create a pattern on tissue paper.

Yes, that's Christmas polka dot tissue paper. WHAT.

My initial thought was to sew the solid white fabric under the lace, so I started by cutting the lace. I also considered leaving the turquoise fabric in place, but ultimately decided it would be too distracting. You can tell from the second photo that everything is still attached to the skirt. There's no way to remove it without also undoing the gathers on the skirt, so I think I'm going to sew the white fabric onto the turquoise and then cut the turquoise off.

Here's the cut fabric for the replacement panel. I sewed around the neckline and turned it inside-out. I had to press it to make it lie flat, which I had never done before. My previous sewing experience is about equal parts repairs and doll clothes, with only a couple larger projects here and there. I kept the iron on its lowest setting because I was afraid of scorching the fabric. I probably could have turned it up a bit, though. The edges of the fabric were fraying like crazy, so I whip-stitched loosely around the very edge to try and curb it. It's an inherent problem with the fabric--the edges of the skirt are fraying too.

Before I sew it into the dress I'm going to embellish it with a ribbon or bows. I'll need to visit the fabric store for the ribbon and play around with it for a bit before I decide on the final design. I'm probably going to need more fabric for the sleeves, too. I bought an actual pattern to use for the sleeves (lower right). If I'm ever feeling really ambitious I may try making the whole dress, although that won't be for this Halloween.

In Defense of Casual Costuming

It's mid-September, which naturally means it's time to start planning for Halloween! I have this costume that I started working on a couple years ago. When I first started watching Doctor Who, one of the first episodes I saw was "Girl in the Fireplace." Aside from recognizing Sophia Myles (Reinette) from Moonlight, the most memorable part of the episode was the clockwork droids:

I've wanted to do a droid costume ever since. I got a plain mask from Michaels, which I decorated with Sharpie markers in a design similar to the ones seen in the show. I found a bridesmaid's dress at Goodwill which I thought would be good with some added lace at the neck and sleeves.

Yesterday I went looking for more pictures to figure out how I was going to modify the dress. Then I started looking for other people who had done cosplay droids, to see if they had any tutorials. In addition to some truly amazing costumes (see here and here and especially here) I kinda got the feeling that my idea wasn't good enough. It can be inspiring to look at other people's work, but it can be intimidating too.

There was one blog post in particular, which I will not link to, that left me feeling down. The guy who did the costume--which was honestly very good--was boasting about how his droid costume was better than all the others at the convention. He made a snide remark about someone else's costume, saying that her final mask was worse than his first attempt.

On the one hand, screw that guy.

On the other hand...well, screw that guy.

But at the same time, he's not the first person I've encountered to have that attitude, and he won't be the last. There are people in the cosplay community who feel a "casual attempt" at a costume is worse than no costume at all. "You think you can be the Eleventh Doctor with a just a suit jacket and a bowtie?" they sneer. "GTFO, noob. That's the wrong tweed fabric! Obviously! And your buttons are a quarter inch too small! And that shirt is all wrong! Don't know anything?" I won't even get into the problem of judging the person wearing the costume. That is another post for another day.

I have nothing against people who want to make their own costumes 100% screen-accurate. If that's what you want to do, more power to you. Just don't expect everyone to share your attitude. Most importantly, don't look down on those who take a different, more "casual" approach.

At its best, costuming is about showing off your talents and learning new ones along the way. The woman who decided to hide inside the dress and top it with a transparent head? Her costume is effing brilliant, and she deserves every bit of praise she gets for the hundreds of hours she put into it.

And the guy in the "wrong" jacket and bow tie? Maybe he's been too shy to cosplay before. Maybe this is his way of saying he's a fan of the show. Maybe he searched a dozen thrift stores to find that jacket because he can't afford the official replica.

Maybe he just wanted a costume he could put together in fifteen minutes. Is that so wrong? People cosplay for a million different reasons, and they're not always going to be the same as yours or mine.

In conclusion: If you can't say something nice about another person's costume, don't say anything at all.

I'll be posting progress pics soon on my own costume, so stay tuned!

C2E2 2013!

Convention season has begun! The Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as C2E2, was this weekend at McCormick Place. Jason went all three days; I was unable to get Friday off, so I went on Saturday and Sunday.

There was a lot more room devoted to the convention this year than in previous years, which made everything seem less crowded. I noticed a huge difference on Saturday--even with all of the crowds, I was still able to navigate pretty easily.

My brother and I went to a panel on Saturday. One of our favorite YouTubers debuted two new videos. If you are a fan of comic book movies, you should definitely check out ItsJustSomeRandomGuy. He makes videos with action figures, and they are HILARIOUS. He started out doing parodies of the Mac/PC ads, but he also does movie trailer parodies, song parodies, and a series of original stories with its own continuity (boom). The main event at the panel was the final episode in his "Zero Hour" series, which ended up being a rough cut without special effects. It's not online yet. RandomGuy opened the panel with this song parody, and he sang Superman's part live.

The "panel" was actually on a stage near the concessions, rather than in a room with rows of chairs. Johnny and I sat at a table with a bunch of strangers and started talking about our various interests as we were waiting. One of the things I love about conventions is how easy it is to find things in common with people.

I did all of my shopping on Saturday. I bought two t-shirts (Pinky and the Brain and Care Bears), some buttons for my convention backpack, and a "Live Long and Prosper" necklace. My favorite find was a booth selling vintage Care Bears (yes, I'm kind of Care Bear crazy). They were 20 bucks each, so I only bought one.

Sunday's highlight was meeting Felicia Day! She signed my "Doctor Horrible" DVD, and she was super nice.

I saw some great costumes both days. 

Jason spotted this female Third Doctor on Friday, and then we ran into her again on Sunday right as we were leaving.

Doctor Horrible was popular this year:

I saw a lot of families with kids on Sunday. It seemed to be the best day to bring them, because the crowds were smaller. I had never been to a convention on Sunday before. It was interesting to compare the crowd levels. 

Anyway, this girl had a great costume:

Whatever you do, DON'T BLINK.

And finally, someone at the convention on Saturday had the best car EVER.

It's a Volkswagen Ladybug! How cool is that?

That's it for my convention wrap-up. Hat-a-week should be returning shortly. I am close to finishing my sweater, and I already have my next hat commission. Jason has requested a Metroid hat, which my brother heartily seconded. For those of you unfamiliar with the monsters, this is a Metroid: 

I'm not entirely sure how well this will translate to hat form, but we shall see!

C2E2 Wrap-Up

Well, C2E2 was pretty awesome. My costume was a huge success. I got a ton of people asking to take my picture. A few were pretty surprised when I held up the BFNG (Big Frickin' Nerf Gun). One guy asked for my picture because he runs a Nerf blog. Here's the photo from his Twitter.


I met him while we were in line for Eliza Dushku. She was in a panel from 1:15-3:30. We got in line at 2:30, and by the time she showed up (15 minutes late, unfortunately) the line stretched from the middle of the convention floor to the bathrooms in the back. I asked someone if the autograph ticket was also good for a photo, and the woman told me, "She's not doing photos." There must have been a misunderstanding, because I meant that I wanted to take a photo with her. That was fine. But there were no photos of her at the autograph table. So, $40 and an hour and a half later, proof that I met Eliza Dushku. She thought my costume was cool, by the way.


She was the only celebrity I ended up meeting. The whole cast of Middleman was there, but they were charging for autographs too. If I had known that before we got there, I might have decided to spring for another autograph. Oh, well. I did get some great costume photos.

Fourth Doctor, Amy, and Eleventh Doctor! All very cool. Fezes are cool.


TARDIS fez. Cool squared!

We stopped at the 501st table, where I got a photo of a lady Stormtrooper. Jason was in his Trooper gear on Friday, and hopes to have his Palpatine costume ready in time for Wizard World in August.

Hooray for girl geeks! Side note: conventions are one of the few places where the line for the men's restroom is longer than the women's. I found that highly amusing.


The lovely female Mario cast. They wanted a photo with me, too.

I actually got very few photos of myself with my camera. This one was too good to pass up, though.


Jason spotted this lady and her robot buddy.


Speaking of Jason, he and two of his friends went as the nWo. They were also very popular with photographers.

Left to right, we have Macho Man Randy Savage (Jason), Hollywood Hogan, and The Undertaker.

One more. Johnny wanted to snag a picture with this Mario walkabout just as we were leaving.


The only bad part about yesterday was that, even though Jason and I were there together, we were unable to spend much time together. We came with a big group, which kept on getting broken up. Somebody wanted to buy t-shirts. Then someone else wandered off. Johnny needed lunch, I was in the autograph line, people wanted a photo of the nWo, etc, etc, etc. Incidentally, there are no photos from yesterday of Jason and me together. Also, stopping for photos can really wear you out after a while. When we got back from the con, Johnny had more energy than either Jason or me.

Will Action Princess Peach make an appearance at any more cons? Probably. I think I will don the dress and bazooka again for Wizard World. But I also need a day to walk around and relax a bit.

Want more costumey goodness? You can find all of my C2E2 photos here on Flickr.

C2E2 Update!

I found myself with some extra time on my hands this morning, so I have been doing some poking around online. I now have an expanded list of celebs to meet at C2E2.

-Eliza Dushku: Faith from Buffy; Echo from Dollhouse. NEED a photo with her.
-Mark Sheppard: Sterling on Leverage, one of the best shows currently on TV. For more on Leverage, see the end of this post.
-Natalie Morales: Wendy Watson from The Middleman, which is exactly the kind of show I love and networks hate. Lasted one season on ABC Family before they decided what the world needs is more dramas about teens having sex.
-Matt Keeslar: Starred in The Middleman and Dollhouse, appeared in an episode of Leverage.
-Rick Bayless: Chicago chef who hosts a cooking show on PBS. No, I have no idea what he is doing at the nerd convention. I will probably get his autograph for my mom.
-ItsJustSomeRandomGuy: probably my favorite YouTuber ever. He may not actually be at the convention, but he was there last year and yesterday he posted a promo for the convention. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

My costume is complete! Went to Toys 'R' Us on Tuesday and got an oversized Nerf gun and matching bandolier. It looks ridiculous, but in a good way. Johnny was impressed. I just hope that Nerf weapons are allowed...their FAQ's had a "Weapons Policy" that did not mention anything about Nerf one way or the other. I hope Nerf guns are not counted as "functional firearms" (cap guns and pellet guns are not allowed). Jason said that people walk around with Airsoft guns, so I should be fine. I will probably leave the clip home just to be on the safe side.

Now, as to why Leverage is one of my favorite shows of all time. The premise is that the members of the Leverage team cheat and steal from the bad guys to bring them down as punishment for crimes they got away with. Robin Hood meets Ocean's Eleven, with a heavy dose of Mission: Impossible? Sold! When watching the previews on TNT I recognized Christian Kane (Lindsey from Angel) as one of the main characters. That, paired with the premise of the show, was enough to make me tune in to the first episode. I was immediately hooked. The writing and acting are simply fantastic. All of the team members have a great dynamic, and the writers do a great job of exploring the various relationships, while still focusing on a tight, exciting story every week. I was certain that this show was too good to last for more than one season, but TNT really surprised me. Coming this year is Season Four. Happy dance!

For more on Leverage, visit their TV Tropes page or their website, where you can watch the a few of the latest full episodes.

C2E2: Coming Soon!

Wow, almost March. I can hardly believe two months of the new year have passed already. Which means that sci-fi convention season is just around the corner! Yes folks, we are less than three weeks away from the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (also known as C2E2). I am quite excited about this; last year's C2E2 was the first convention I ever wanted to go to. I was not able to go, partly because I was in the middle of my student teaching and partly because I had nobody to go with. This year Johnny and I are going with Jason and his friends. It should be a crazy fun time, because almost all of us are going in costume. The sole exception is my brother, who will probably spend most of his time pretending he has no idea who we are.

Jason and his buddies are dressing up as wrestlers from the nWo. I know next to nothing about wrestling, so my costume is completely different from theirs: Warrior Princess Peach. I got the idea from this t-shirt:


I could have just gotten the shirt and left it at that. But I decided it would be much better to go as Peach with some sort of badass weapon. I bought this costume about a month ago...

It took a bit of searching to find a costume with a skirt that came down past my knees. I will never understand the tendency to create revealing costumes for EVERYTHING.

Anyway, my mom washed and ironed the costume for me today, which must have taken quite a bit of work. It came shipped in this tiny package and was VERY wrinkled. Now, however, it looks great. Tomorrow Jason and I are going to Toys 'R' Us to buy some sort of weapon; I will probably end up with one of those semi-automatic Nerf guns. A sword would be pretty cool too. Once the costume is all assembled: pictures! And of course, I plan on taking a TON of pictures at the con. Eliza Dushku will be there, which is awesome. I definitely want a photo with her. Plus, Patrick Stewart will be at Wizard World in August! Hopefully he will ACTUALLY be there this time...last year he was scheduled and had to cancel.

Halloween Costumes and Cake

I had a marvelous Halloween. The only little snag was with the vampire fangs. They didn't stick like they were supposed to. Either the putty had an expiration date (it had been sitting around for a year) or it just wasn't that good to begin with. But I am still very proud of my cape.


Isn't the fabric awesome? And I've always wanted to have a cape. I sat outside with Emperor Palpatine (aka my boyfriend Jason) and we passed out candy for a couple hours. As usual, it was interesting to see the mix of costumes. Jason was a bit disappointed at the lack of Star Wars outfits; we saw one kid as a stormtrooper and one mom as a Jedi. The kids that I babysit came by with their parents. I couldn't get any pictures because they came at the same time as a bunch of other kids, but their costumes all came out great. Their mom was smart enough to make everything out of fleece (there was a tiger-in-a-football-jersey, a shark, and a lion). I say smart because as typically happens in Chicago, it was around 50 degrees. I saw more than one little fairy princess whose dress was covered by a winter jacket.

Jason couldn't wait to show off his Palpatine costume. He's working on getting in to the 501st Legion, where the members dress up as Star Wars characters for various charity events. The catch is that all of the costumes have to be movie-accurate, with literally pages of costume requirements. The robes were custom-made, but apparently he still needs shirring done on the sleeves. His brother does really good stage makeup and costume design, so he's going to do the mask. Right now, though, we have the awesome Palpatine robes:


So. Cool.

We followed up the candy distribution with a horror movie fest. We watched "Monster Squad" (a group of kids team up to take down Dracula & Co) followed by "Poltergeist." Jason and I started watching "Trick 'r Treat" but one of us (read: me) chickened out about ten minutes in. It wasn't exactly too scary; I just can't handle gore. Or a kid who eats poisoned candy and then projectile vomits blood all over the guy's porch. That was about when I decided I'd had enough. I did agree to give it another try, though. Apparently the giver of poisoned candy gets eaten by vampires at the end.

One more thing before I go: I promised you cake. And no, the cake is NOT a lie. Here is my Halloween pumpkin cake.


The cake was from a boxed cake mix and the frosting came in a can. I made it in two round pans and layered them (got the chance to use my cake leveler!) and smoothed out the frosting as best I could. The frosting was pale orange, so I covered the top with orange sugar.

I got the face by making a cake stencil. The process is fairly simple. First, trace around your cake pan onto thin cardboard (I used a flattened cereal box). Next, draw your design and cut it out with scissors or an X-Acto knife. Finally, place the stencil on top of the cake and cover the cut-out areas with sprinkles (in this case, black sugar).

To get the sprinkles on the sides, I tilted the cake (verrry carefully) and sprinkled them on. I worked on a small area and then turned it a little bit more to work on the next section. The cake was delicious, and everyone got enough sprinkles.