More costumes on the horizon

I admit it. I am a costume lovin' fool. I love wearing them, and I love making them. There are soooo many costumes that I want to make, and some are still waiting to be made. I have some of the parts, I just haven't had the time or the $$$ to work on them. But I can dream can't I? hehehheh....

Watching a lot of action movies, and playing video games that feature strong women characters gave me the idea to do quite a few new costumes. Here's a list of costumes that I would like to make one of these days. In no particular order:

Jill Valentine- Resident Evil
Sarah Conner- Terminator II
Lara Croft- Tomb Raider
Ellen Ripley- Alien Resurrection
Seung Mi-Na- Soul Calibur

So far I've got a good bit of Lara's costume pieces together. And I have some of Jill Valentine's costume pieces. The big obstacle that is keeping me from doing these costumes (besides not having the $$$) is my weight. I don't want to do any of these costumes if I'm not in better shape. It just doesn't look right when you have a chubby Lara Croft, or a Sarah Connor with flabby arms. LOL! So to hopefully keep my costuming dream alive, I'm going to have to get going with a workout program. I have had a lot of friends give me some good advise, and I'm going to try to stick to a regiment.

I still haven't given up on my Star Wars costumes. I will always love them the most. But it would be cool to be able to look good in some of the other "form-fitting" costumes that's out there. My ultimate goal: the slave Leia costume from Return of the Jedi. Now THAT would be awesome!!!

Talk about beating a dead horse (or in this case a dead elephant)

Recently a new drama has occurred on the the GA501st boards. Its one of those irritating ones that doesn't know when to just die quietly. You want to say something so badly, but don't want to stir the hornets nest that is already been stirred quite enough.

The post was made by a 501st member.....who rarely ever comes to any events or posts on the forums at all. Now this jag-off wants to show his ass on the forums about people not coming to this charity event that he wanted folks to go to or donate $ to. The charity was for saving the Asian Elephant. A good charity I might say, but does it really belong on the 501st forums (a Star Wars stormtrooper costuming organization)? I don't think I would've posted that on the forums, but hey, that's just me. Unless it was something Star Wars related or at least the event coordinators wanted Star Wars characters show up to their event, I don't think it has a place on the Events section on the forum. At first this guy wanted costumers to come to the charity event, then it was said no don't come in costume, dress in a suit and tie and bring $$$. Then it was just make a big check out to this charity courtesy of the 501st. Well only a few individuals made donations. This apparently ruffled this guys feathers that the 501st couldn't come up with some huge check for the charity. Times are tough man, and Asian Elephants aren't on the top of the list of donating $$$ to. It's bad enough that most of us are just scratching out a living as it is.

The guy goes off complaining about no one wanting to go to this event, but when something else came around (Star Wars related I might add), everyone jumped on it. Hello.....we're a Star Wars costuming organization...... We're sorry no one wanted to go to the Save the Elephants charity....deal with it! Then he posts......several times, and very sarcastically, about the same damn thing!! At first I was like ok, he "might" have a point, but after reading his other posts more and more, I became almost infuriated with this guy. One of the things he said (or had quoted from the charity organizers) was that "Frankly, the Quinlan Arts Center (location) had reservations about ANY costumed character being at this event because it's board felt that "a bunch of geeks standing around in their silly costumes" would be embarrassing to it's members and take away from such in important event." An embarrassment, huh? Thanks a lot! Yeah, that REALLY makes me want to donate my time and/or money to your charity. Oooooooo, that made me mad!!! And here's another thing that made me mad: "As far as I'm concerned, I didn't have time to bother with this in the first place, and I'm certainly done talking about it now. Time to move on to other events. PLEASE DO, YA JAG-OFF!!!!! AND STOP POSTING STUFF NOT RELATED TO STAR WARS STUFF ON A STAR WARS RELATED FORUM! JESUS CHRIST!! I'm not saying that none of us shouldn't post non Star Wars related stuff on that forum, because we do, but for God sakes man, don't be such a jerk about your post and your attempt at making all of us feel bad about not coming to or donating our money to saving the elephants. We're all individuals here and we all have our favorite charities that we like to donate our time and/or money to. Don't knock us for it. GAWD! Yeah, that's the best way to make friends here. Whatever man!!!! F**k I need a drink.....

Material for Jill costume

I got material for my Jill Valentine costume. I went ahead and got blue ripstop material instead of vinyl. I'm going to try to make the shoulder guard out of ripstop first, and if that turns out well, maybe in the future I'll make one out of vinyl. But for now ripstop will have to do cuz money's tight. I used a 50% off coupon at Joann's, so that helped out a lot. I got another coupon in the mail the other day for either 40 or 50% off a single item at Joann's, so if it's still good, I'm going to go get the rest of the stuff I need to make the shoulder guard. I still need to get some large snaps, black webbing and a plastic closure.

Halloween and what-not

I am looking forward to Halloween this year. Although I have no idea what I'm going to do. Will I go to a party? Will I go out to a concert/club type thing? Netherworld? I don't know. Either one would be cool. I just wish I could get one of my costumes finished by then. I want to get my Jill Valentine costume finished because it would be a perfect costume for Halloween. I could wear it if I had just a few more props for it. If I could get the shoulder guards done, that would be really cool. I wouldn't mind too badly if I didn't have the wig, the gun holster, or the blue tactical pants. I have gray ones that will work for now, so that wouldn't be a huge problem. And I could just put my hair up in a pony tail.

I went over to the Halloween store and looked around. Lots and lots of cool stuff. Some stuff I'd like to get for some of my costumes. There was a shotgun that I'd like to get for Jill Valentine. A pair of round blue tinted glasses for classic Lara Croft, and a pair of big round nerdy glasses for if I do a Professor Trelawney costume. It would be a perfect time to get these things as they are kind of hard to find, and I wouldn't have to order them online and pay for all of that shipping. But besides costume stuff, they had some really cool decorations. They had this really big Jason that looked really cool. It had one of those movement sensors on it so, it would do something when someone walked by. I would love to have that!!!

Anyway..... it was fun going into the Halloween store. Halloween is my favorite holiday! I luuuv it!!

Jill Valentine costume coming along....

My Jill Valentine costume is coming along nicely. I just got in the mail today my S.T.A.R.S. beret and patch. For now I'm going to use my gray BDU pants that I use for my RFT costume. I'll get some navy blue ones as soon as I can afford some. I already have a pair of combat boots that I'll wear with my costume. So all that's left is the shoulder guard. Oh, and I need to get a prop pistol or shotgun, and a holster for the pistol.

I'm not sure what kind of material I want to use for the shoulder guard. Some people have used ripstop nylon, some have used vinyl, and some have used pleather (which to me is like vinyl anyway...). I found some royal blue ripstop nylon at the fabric store, and that looks more like the kevlon stuff they use for body armor. But in her pic in the video game it looks more like leather (or some material like that). I wanna go with the ripstop fabric mainly because it's cheaper, but the fabric store around here only carries a royal blue color, and not navy blue like hers. I dunno.... Plus I don't think my sewing machine could handle vinyl.

I'm really excited about putting this costume together. It will be my first "real" sewing challenge other than sewing a hem by hand or hand sewing some buttons or snaps on a costume. I'm actually going to be using my sewing machine!

Branching out

I'm branching out of my Star Wars costuming niche. This year I'm going to start two non Star Wars costumes..... Lara Croft, and Jill Valentine (from the Resident Evil video game).

So far I've got most of the costume pieces for Lara Croft. I still have to make the belt/holsters, get a backpack, and get two prop pistols. The Lara costume shouldn't take too long to finish. ;)

For Jill Valentine, I'm still in the research and gathering stage. I purchased the beret that she wears which is blue with the S.T.A.R.S. logo on it, and I bought a S.T.A.R.S. (Raccoon City Police Dept.) patch to go on the sleeve of the shirt.

I went out looking for fabric the other day for the shoulder guard. I found a royal blue nylon ripstop fabric. It looks pretty good, and it has that "kevlar" material feel to it. Constructing the shoulder guard has me kinda worried. I have no idea where to start. I just hope I don't mess it up. I'm going to use craft foam for the padding. And then I'll cover that with the nylon ripstop fabric. I got a few tips from the Wolf Pack Elite forum, so hopefully it won't be too awfully hard.

I still need to get a pair of navy blue BDU pants. I don't need to modify those. And I need to get a light blue t-shirt. I have to get a t-shirt that doesn't have the cap sleeves that most women's t-shirts are like. So I'll probably get a men's t-shirt. I found some at Walmart, but they were the kind that was in a pack of 6. I just need one. So I did find a plain white t-shirt that looked pretty good. I'll just have to dye it light blue. I've never dyed fabric before either, so hopefully I won't mess that up as well. LOL!

I can use one of the prop pistol that I'll get for Lara Croft costume and use if for Jill's costume as well. I already have a pair of combat type boots, and can use those for both Jill and Lara's costumes.

I real excited about starting on these costumes. I hope I can get them done in a reasonable amount of time. If they come out looking decent, I'll probably wear them to Dragon*Con 2010.

Costume hair....how I hate it!

Why can't the costumes that I love have "normal" hair? Meaning.....no funky updo's, braids, extra-extra long hair, and hair combined with elaborate "thing-a-ma-bobs". Almost all of the costumes that I've done have some kind of weird hairdo that's almost impossible for one person to do up by themselves. I've tried wigs, hair extensions and the like, and I hate them all!!!

Princess Leia.....two round buns on the side of the head. Sound easy? HA! I'm still trying to figure out how to do that style without getting so frustrated that I pull my own hair out in the process. I have a wig, but I don't like it. It's hot, it's heavy, and sometimes it tends to slide backwards off of my head. GRRRRR!

Padme Amidala (The Phantom Menace Battle dress)....... two loops of hair in the back. Again, sounds easy. ROTFL!!!! When I've tried this with my own hair (which is finally starting to grow long), it looks ridiculous. First of all, I don't have enough hair to do this properly. So I tried the wig.....again. I have an extra long hair wig that I used for Princess Leia, and when I "tried" to do the hairstyle by myself, it was almost impossible. I needed at least another person to hold parts of the hair while I styled it. Also when I tried to style it, the hair was so tangled up, that it looked horrible. Try getting tangles out of synthetic hair......it's not fun.

Soooooo.....I went online to do a little research. I also came up with a few ideas in my mind that might actually work. For Padme's hair I thought I would take my own hair and form one loop, then I create a second loop by making a hairpiece with fake braiding hair and an extra large barrette. But how to make a hairpiece.....I haven't a clue.........UNTIL....... I found this online article: Quick Hairpieces You Can Make Yourself. Hallelujah! Thank you whoever you are!! It also shows you how to make hair buns!! Wooooo-hoooo!!! So for anyone that wants to make Princess Leia hair buns, here's how to do it (copied and pasted from article):

For a fake bun hairdo use a cloth headband, solid-colored and similar to your hair color, and shape it into an appropriate size circle for a bun. You can also glue large, flexible hair curlers together, at their ends, to make the bun shape. Hair curlers that are dark in color are perfect for women with dark hair. Glue the ends in place and allow to dry. Now encircle the headband with hair pieces. To do this, glue the hair ends on the inside of the "donut shape" then take the hair up around the front of the donut then through the center, and back up and around. Make sure none of the contact cement shows and that you have plenty of hair to cover the entire bun shape well. With each new handful of hair glue the ends to the inside of the bun shape, then wrap it around and around the bun shape, gluing it in place at the end of each hair grouping. Trim any end pieces that stick out from the bun shape. Use bobby pins to clip the bun into position on head.

Where was this article back before I did the St. Patrick's Day parade 2007???? That in itself is another story/blog...