My Sewing/Cosplay Projects

[Deimos]

Not technically sewing and costuming related, but it is adjacent, since I have (barely) started a Galinda cosplay. Over the past several months, I've been working on and off about a blog post thoroughly reviewing all the costumes in Wicked Part 1. I thought it would be a relatively quick and easy blog post, buuuuuuut.... there's literally hundreds of costumes in wicked, all of them elaborately handcrafted. The blog post turned out to be over 5,000 words plus a huge dump of pictures. It includes information about the historical inspiration behind the costumes of Wicked, and why I think that movie had better costumes than some actual period dramas out there, and how the movie effectively used corsetry.

I'm finally done with the blog post, and I'm going to let it sit overnight, and make some final edits tomorrow, and then post it.

If any of you are interested in reading it, would you please let me know? I've been working on this thing for months, so I hope people out there will enjoy it.

omg YES !!!🙂🙂🙂

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

It has been posted!

The Costumes of the Wicked Movie

Wicked had better costumes than many a period drama. Yes, you heard me right. The Wicked movie had more historical elements in its costumes than many period dramas I’ve seen! Keep reading to …

ameliaseamstress.wordpress.com

By the way, I believe Wordpress blogs tend to have a lot of ads on them in cases like mine where I'm using a free Wordpress site. If you want to view the post without ads, you can use a browser that blocks ads, such as Brave.

Anyway, this post turned out to be rather huge. Please don't feel obligated to give it a comprehensive review or anything like that, but I'd also hate to spend so much time on this thing and get crickets in response. So please let me know if there's anything you found interesting, if you learned something new, or if you particularly liked any of the costumes.

 

[Fingon_Findekáno]

It has been posted!

The Costumes of the Wicked Movie

Wicked had better costumes than many a period drama. Yes, you heard me right. The Wicked movie had more historical elements in its costumes than many period dramas I’ve seen! Keep reading to …

ameliaseamstress.wordpress.com

By the way, I believe Wordpress blogs tend to have a lot of ads on them in cases like mine where I'm using a free Wordpress site. If you want to view the post without ads, you can use a browser that blocks ads, such as Brave.

Anyway, this post turned out to be rather huge. Please don't feel obligated to give it a comprehensive review or anything like that, but I'd also hate to spend so much time on this thing and get crickets in response. So please let me know if there's anything you found interesting, if you learned something new, or if you particularly liked any of the costumes.

Ooh! Having just watched the movie again during my two flights home yesterday, I shall be eager to read your detailed analysis! 😃

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

It has been posted!

Wowowowow! It was highly informative to me, and I learned a lot. As always, your writing is very engaging and easy to read. I also like how you bolded your key points on what made the costumes so period-accurate, making it more eye-catching. It is very clear you put much thought and research into the blog post, and I think it will enlighten your readers even if they have knowledge of these matters. I know nothing about the movie, and I probably won't watch it, but your enthusiasm and delight over the costumes show how much effort the behind-the-scenes folks took to pour into the production process.

(If you can’t see the corded details of the coat, you might need to turn up your screen brightness.)

I cackled at this line a bit as I had a feeling it was directed right at me. (Yes, I turned up my brightness, which was at 1, in order to see the detail. Thank you for personally alerting me!😂)

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

Lol, Fastest Reader in the West strikes again! I'm glad you enjoyed it and found it informative!

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

I cackled at this line a bit as I had a feeling it was directed right at me. (Yes, I turned up my brightness, which was at 1, in order to see the detail. Thank you for personally alerting me!😂)

Oh yeah, and this happened because one time when I was editing the post, I was like, "huh, how come I can't see the cording on that coat?" Then I realized it was because my screen brightness was low. So I figured I'd better warn readers because a lot of people like their screen brightness low! And my intuition was correct, apparently! 😂

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

I enjoyed the post! I feel like it's the kind of thing I'd stumble across on a research rabbit-hole (where I keep clicking on links out of curiosity, and spend a much longer time reading than I had anticipated).
As always, your enthusiasm about the subject matter comes across, it really caught my attention and drew me in.

I also very much liked looking at all of the costumes, and I agree, it is lovely to see things that people have put so much care and effort into creating!

^ This one kind of reminded me of Elizabethan dresses too, and the 1500s-1600s time period in general, with all the elaborate decoration on the clothing and in the background. But still, as you said, definitely fantasy and not totally historical looking.

I appreciated all the uses of texture in the clothing designs and not just colour. It really helps things look interesting.

^ What Elphaba is wearing here caught my eye. The upper body reminds me of late medieval plate armour in its shape, and the lower body is somewhat reminiscent of men's clothing in the 1600s. It just really appealed to me. :3
I feel like she could wear a rapier at her side and it wouldn't look too out of place. 😂

Now if I see the movie, I am sure I'll pay a bit more attention to what everyone is wearing.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with the CPA exam, which allows my mind to return a bit to my next shapeshifting endeavor! I've been working a bit here and there on the very beginnings of a Galinda cosplay. (Mainly I've been working on a corset mock-up, but I may need to abandon the corset for now in order to have a dress in time for a comic con in March.) But anyway, as my treat for passing the Auditing exam, I ordered a Galinda wig. It came today, and even though I obviously need to style the wig and develop a makeup look, I just had to try it on!

I also got shoes a few months ago, and they're slmost screen-accurate.

As Galinda says, "I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair!" So I've got those two steps down in becoming popular, I guess.

Here's the dress from the movie, and a shot that shows the shoes. The shoes I have are dead accurate, aren't they?

And here's the fabric I have.

It's going to be really tough to summon up the time and energy to make this cosplay happen in time for Megacon, but I'm really determined!

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

It's going to be really tough to summon up the time and energy to make this cosplay happen in time for Megacon, but I'm really determined!

However long it takes, I shall be watching your progress with fascination. ^_^
That wig looks fabulous already.

 

[Starbrow]

Have you seen the exhibit on Paul Tazewell's costumes? I hear there are some Wicked costumes in it.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

Have you seen the exhibit on Paul Tazewell's costumes? I hear there are some Wicked costumes in it.

I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. It looks really cool!

 

[Fingon_Findekáno]

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with the CPA exam, which allows my mind to return a bit to my next shapeshifting endeavor! I've been working a bit here and there on the very beginnings of a Galinda cosplay. (Mainly I've been working on a corset mock-up, but I may need to abandon the corset for now in order to have a dress in time for a comic con in March.) But anyway, as my treat for passing the Auditing exam, I ordered a Galinda wig. It came today, and even though I obviously need to style the wig and develop a makeup look, I just had to try it on!
View attachment 46684

I also got shoes a few months ago, and they're slmost screen-accurate.
View attachment 46685

As Galinda says, "I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair!" So I've got those two steps down in becoming popular, I guess.

Here's the dress from the movie, and a shot that shows the shoes. The shoes I have are dead accurate, aren't they?
View attachment 46686
View attachment 46687

And here's the fabric I have.
View attachment 46688

It's going to be really tough to summon up the time and energy to make this cosplay happen in time for Megacon, but I'm really determined!

Very exciting! The color of the hair looks very natural on you already, so I can't wait to see how it will look when you have it fully put together with styling and makeup! ✨

Shoes- ✔️
Hair- ✔️
Dress-

I'll be eager to hear about your progress as you begin to work on the dress! Hopefully it won't be too complicated in its construction and details compared to some of your other outfits.

 

[d4rk3lf]

Looks great so far...
And it seems that you already a master plan, and you're going with it.
That's great!

GO GO GO Girl! 🤘
We all cheer for you.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

It seems as though I do not know the meaning of resting or relaxing. I've been working my butt off this weekend making star decorations for my Star Princess skirt!

By the way, if you're new to this thread or haven't been here in a while, there are some other posts about Star Princess on pages 2, 4 and 5.

And some other background: some of you may remember last year, I was supposed to be in the cosplay competition at Megacon Orlando. But I got the flu the day before I was supposed to leave, and so I had to drop out of the competition. (Praying that won't happen again this year! 😬) Megacon is happening again this weekend, and the hosts of the cosplay competition were gracious enough to give me another chance, so I will finally debut Star Princess and compete with her, Lord willing!

So here's what I was working on this weekend: the real Star Princess dress, which was worn in Phantom of the Opera Broadway shows before they closed the production, has these big stars hanging from the skirt. On the original, they're made of beads.

I didn't want to replicate that because I knew the beads would add a lot of weight to the skirt and potentially deflate its fluffy shape. And in the summer of 2024, I experimented with making the hanging stars just out of sparkly ribbon, but it looked cheap and garish, in my opinion.

For the time being, I decided it was better to leave the skirt blank, because I didn't want anything else to compete with its lovely silhouette and color gradient, and the tiny metallic stars on the top layer of tulle. So last year, I was prepared to compete with the blank skirt.

This year, though, I got a very last minute idea to do one last experiment with the star decorations. Because if I could figure out something decent, my costume would be that much more accurate to the original. And thus I present the results of the experiment:

This shows the prototype strand I made yesterday. I was surprised it came out so good, because those stars are very much hacked out of foam, paint and glitter glue!

I think they look like a bit of a mess up close, but from a typical viewing distance, they look pretty good.

And so, in true ADHD fashion of making a very last-minute decision requiring extensive work under a tight deadline, I hyperfocused my way through making a total of 32 of these little things. It took about 6 hours of work yesterday and another 5ish today. I am. Dead. Exhausted!!!

Each star required:

• Cutting out a large star and small star out of the foam. This was easily the worst part of the process. Even though I used paper cutouts as a pattern, I still had a hard time making them look not-lopsided.
• Painting the big star silver and letting it dry.
• Brushing glitter glue onto the blue ribbon. Because Hobby Lobby's ribbon and trim selection was really lame and didn't have a nice silver or glittery blue ribbon to my liking.
• Painting the blue areas on the big stars. This was also one of the more tedious parts.
• Gluing a rhinestone to the center of the smaller stars.
• Gluing the smaller stars onto the bigger stars.
• Brushing glitter glue onto the smaller stars.
• Gluing the fully assembled star to the blinged-up ribbon.

It was exhausting, but I made 8 strands with 4 stars each, which should be good enough for my purposes:

And hopefully tomorrow night I'll actually sew them to the skirt.

And that's not even the only thing I have to do before I leave on Wednesday. I've also been working on an Arwen drawing for Liv Tyler to sign, though I don't think I'll have time to finish it before then. That's okay though because it's mostly complete and wouldn't take much to finish it after she signs it. And ideally I'd like to do makeup tests. I also need to put gel supports in my shoes, calibrate my luggage tracker, finish putting makeup on these Elf ears I bought for a Hobbit Girl cosplay look... oh, and not to mention I work tomorrow and Tuesday, and packing everything will be an ordeal!

I'm already exhausted and the con hasn't even started yet. 🙃 But I'm so hyped for it! It will be my first con in a few years, and my first time wearing Star Princess at such a con!

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

The stars do look really nice for what they are. Hopefully they will suit the dress nicely. I think they will, based on the one you've tested already.

May your time at the convention go well, and definitely rest as much as you can whenever you can! Good for physical and mental health. If it were me, I'd be needing a lot of sleep after all that...!

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

May your time at the convention go well, and definitely rest as much as you can whenever you can! Good for physical and mental health. If it were me, I'd be needing a lot of sleep after all that...!

Thank you! And, well... I'm sure I do need sleep. 🙃 But my body woke up at quarter to 6 this morning and now it's 11pm, and my brain is still like

Still so much to do to get ready!

Also, I have an update on how the stars look on the skirt, and all I have to say is MWAHAHAHAAAAAA

I'm so glad I did this because it really, I think, puts that final finishing touch on the skirt, bringing the whole look together.

I'd love to hear from more of you if you have thoughts! This has been a loooooot of work!

 

[Starbrow]

I am so impressed with the amount of work you put into this. I really like the neckline.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

I am so impressed with the amount of work you put into this. I really like the neckline.

Thank you! I recently updated my cosplanner app and it's currently at about 210 hours! 🫠

The neckline was really fun to make. Dozens of yards of that ruffled trim sewn on in a very tight zigzag pattern!

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

Honestly the whole thing looks very impressive, I would not bat an eye at seeing it on stage in a theatre. ☺️

 

[Beleg_Cúthalion]

The dress looks very nice. You did a good job with the stars; it certainly replicates the actual dress well. Very impressive!