Carlotta Giudicelli- Phantom of the Opera *Part One*

For PHXCC, we're cosplaying as a group, which is always awesome, as Phantom of the Opera. I'm going as Carlotta Giudicelli, more specifically the costume she wears in Prima Donna (the pink and purple one).
There are almost no reference pictures of this costume in the movie; finding a shot of her costume full-length without it being blurred is extremely rare, so I can have a little more creative license here to make it how I want it.
Her dress is what looks like a wide pink skirt, with a purple jacket buttoned over top of it. She also wears a hat and some gold jewelry. No idea what her shoes look like, and as it's a floor length skirt with a train, I can really wear whatever would be comfortable to walk around all day in.

I started with a really hideous bright pink prom dress that I found at Saver's for $20, and a purple jacket from the same place. I then had to go match the fabric, (which took absolutely FOREVER). I bought an additional three yards of pink cotton that matched the dress, two yards of purple crepe that matched the jacket, a yard of carnation pink cotton for the neckline, and a yard of pale pink chiffon for the hat. I also ended up buying a spool of white lace, some black and white feathers, and some purple flower-shaped buttons.

And then promptly made a huge mess. 

I put the dress on my mannequin and had to pin it up, it was so big. 

I then cut the jacket into the points on the front, cut off the lapels and collar, and folded them over and pinned them so they could be hemmed. Also had to be pinned up on the mannequin to be taken in later. 

I then made a 'tail' out of the matching purple crepe and pinned it on the back. 

I made a ruffle by pinning strip after strip of hot pink fabric together end to end, folding it and pinning it into the ruffles, then sewed it up with a strip of burgundy ribbon over the middle. 

I used the same process to make a ruffle from the pink cotton, then machine sewed it to the neckline of the jacket. 

I also sewed the hot pink ruffle to the skirt of the dress using a wide (and very tedious) hand stitch.

Now I have to do the detailing and cuffs on the sleeves, make the giant ribbon bow/flowers for the skirt and bustle, add the flower buttons and a new closure to the jacket, make the hat and jewelry, and style the wig. I might end up adding a second ruffle to the skirt because hers is wider, but I'm not sure on it yet. I'm hoping to have this one done by next week and then move on to the FanX costumes- more specifically Evie Frye- because that one needs to be done by the end of March. But I'm having a lot of fun with this one in the meantime, I really love how it's turning out.

~Michelle

Salt Lake Comicon

So as I said in my previous post, in September, Lainee, Mercy, and I all went to Salt Lake Comicon. None of us had been before and none of us knew the city area, so it was an adventure, to say the least.

Also, when you cosplay in a dorm, you make do with what you can. Even if that includes using your desk as a makeshift sewing table and spreading fabric and other materials and pieces all over your living room. Luckily my roommates are gracious and don't hate me for making a mess. (I hope.)

The main panel of guests at SLCC was the Captain America cast, so they had Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Hayley Atwell, and Anthony Mackie. We met them all.

Lainee wore her original Captain America costume. Going off this theme, Mercy and I decided we'd play along. Therefore we became Commodore Canada (inspired by Canadian Nathan Fillion's response to Captain America), and Capítan Mexico. Yeah, we know we're hilarious.

I made out costumes in the same style as Lainee's, a paneled skirt sewed to a solid colour top emblazoned with the flag's symbol. So all of us ended up with red and white striped skirts with a sash. Lainee's top was blue with a white/grey star, mine was red with a white maple leaf, and Mercy's was green with the Mexican seal hand-painted on with fabric paint. Mercy and I both had shields with the maple leaf and the Mexican seal as well. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out.

The finished product

In the process of painting Mercy's top

Lainee and Mercy's "We just met Sebastian Stan and Chris Freaking Evans" faces. Since Lainee insists on taking a picture of me like this every time I meet a celebrity favourite of mine, I retaliated. 

The first day of the Con I ended up going by myself, as they weren't in town until Friday, and it was an ordeal. I got lost about six times. 

I went simple and just dressed up in a costume I already had, a Hogwarts student from my own house, Slytherin. Surprisingly, I got a lot of comments on it. I only have one picture though and it was after I'd gotten home. I don't know what I did with my cape, it's not in this picture. But I was wearing a black cape with a Slytherin patch on it and it kept flowing behind me and knocking everything over that I walked past. Oops. 

Also, some generic pics I took at the Con. 

And some pics from when we were all out and about. 

We were all so exhausted on Saturday that we weren't bothering with costumes. I was really sick that day, too. 

On the left is Kimi, one of my best friends who I've known for half my life. She didn't come to Comicon with us but she came to visit me anyways.

 She's scared of elevators

Lainee and I absolutely love this show, and they perfectly match out personalities, so much that our nicknames for each other are literally Castle and Beckett. So when we saw these ID badges, we had to get them.

My Comicon pass with added Captain Hook mini keychain because TOO CUTE

And a good time was had by all.

~Michelle

Updates

Okay so I apologise for how extremely long it has been since either of us have posted. A ridiculously long time. In August I moved to Utah to go to university, and Lainee started university in Arizona, so we've had an extremely busy semester. Lainee and our friend Mercy did end up coming to visit me in September and we all went to Salt Lake Comicon; I'll post some pictures of that soon.

Plans for this year include Jess and I going to Salt Lake FanX in March, all of us attending Phoenix Comicon as usual in early June, and I know that I at least will be going to Salt Lake Comicon again in September, although I don't know if anyone else will be coming with me.

For Salt Lake FanX, Jess and I are going as Ron and Hermione from Starkid's production of A Very Potter Musical, and Jacob and Evie Frye from Assassin's Creed Syndicate. We're not sure on the last one quite yet but we're bouncing between either doing Edward and Connor Kenway from Assassin's Creed, or Tate Langdon and Violet Harmon from American Horror Story: Murder House.

Phoenix Comicon is the source of many projects for us and it's going to be stressful, as at the same time Lainee and I are going to be doing costuming work for our old community theatre group, who is putting on a production of Mary Poppins, the opening weekend of which is the same weekend as PHXCC.
Our cosplayers for Phoenix include Lainee and I, Mercy, her brother Eddie, Jess, and our friend Luke, who came to PHXCC with us last year.

Our list includes:

Assassin's Creed-
- Edward Kenway (Jess)
- Haytham Kenway (Lainee)
- Connor Kenway (Michelle)

Phantom of the Opera:
- Christine Daae (Mercy)
- Erik (The Phantom) (Eddie)
- Carlotta Giudicelli (Michelle)
- Meg Giry (Lainee)

Peter Pan:
- Wendy Darling (Mercy)
- John Darling (Eddie)
- Peter Pan (Jess)
- Captain Hook (Michelle)
- Tinkerbell (Lainee)

The rest are miscellaneous fandoms and include
- Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Kaylee Frye from Firefly (Michelle and Lainee)
- Robin from Super Smash Bros and Dwight from The Office (Luke)
I'm not sure what else Jess has planned for her other two costumes, but one of them is likely to be Jacob Frye from AC: Syndicate.


Costumes for monthsssss. Definitely got our work cut out for us. 

~Michelle

Assassin's Creed- Connor Kenway Part One

I already know this costume is going to give me a ton of grief, which is why I'm starting it now, even though I'm not going to wear it until next year. But I'm so freaking excited about it, I don't really care. Lainee is cosplaying as Haytham Kenway, and our friend Jesse is going as Edward Kenway. So we've got a Pirate, a Templar, and an Assassin. Our little dysfunctional Kenway family.

Connor's costume includes a ton of pieces. WHY.
As far as I can tell, it consists of this.

- Regimental coat, (off-white with blue lining), with embossed hood
- Off-white waistcoat, with pleating
- Red sash
- Belt with insignia
- Dark blue trousers
- Deerskin moccasins w/overalls and straps
- Beaded armbands
- Fingerless gloves/vambraces with hidden blades
- Bow and quiver w/arrows
- Two pistols and holsters
- Sabre
- Bear claw necklace
- Tomahawk

I'm also making a 13 colonies flag with the Assassin insignia to carry.
I'm sure I missed a bunch of details, but this is what I'm planning to make. Feel free to correct me if I missed anything super important.

This is a Revolutionary War-Era costume, but the fabrics I'm using are not always going to be consistent with the materials that would have been used then, for three reasons.
Firstly- Wool is not cheap, and is not easy for me to work with when put through a sewing machine.
Secondly- Heat. Wool makes this costume not very heat friendly, given it's also layer upon layer.
Thirdly- Wool drives my skin absolutely insane. It itches like crazy and I don't want to deal with it.

I'm replacing most of the wool with cotton, linen, and polyester materials, to make it lighter. I'm wearing this in Phoenix in the summer. So making it as lightweight as possible is a huge deal.
Sorry for not sticking to making it as "authentic" as possible.

First up-- the waistcoat. I'm using a white, collared, button up shirt as the base. It's made of heavy cotton.

I cut off the sleeves, since they can't be seen beneath the rest of the outfit anyways, and since I fail at making sleeves, I used them as the sleeves of the coat.

Turning it inside out, I pinched up 1/4 inch lines horizontal from the buttons and pinned them, to about three inches from the side seam, since it doesn't matter if it goes all the way across.

Looks like this.

Then, I just sewed them up.

After that, I ironed the pleats so they lay flat and aren't as puckered.

Since the pleats on Connor's waistcoat are very pronounced, and the seams aren't, I mixed Tulip Soft Matte fabric paint in Chocolate and White to make a light brown.

Pulling the seams apart as far as possible, I used a tiny paintbrush to fill in the seams.

Completed, it looks like this.

Since the shirt is stark white, and Connor's is off-white, it needed to be stained. I found some generic tea in the cupboard, which turned out to be Kroger Pekoe tea. I have absolutely no idea what that is, but it was the right colour.

I filled a large bowl with warm water and steeped six tea bags, then soaked the shirt in it for only about thirty seconds, since the colour needed to be light.

 

Then I rinsed it out with cold water.
Done.

And now my hands, the shirt, and the whole house smells like weird tea.

Second-- the trousers. Easiest out of all the pieces. He wears some kind of navy blue trousers, that look like denim, but I doubt they really are. They're probably made of either linen or wool.  I picked up some jeggings to use instead-- they're capris, but that doesn't matter since the overalls come up to mid- thigh.

Three-- the overcoat. This is by far the hardest part of the entire costume, since I made the entire thing from hand. I bought two yards of white linen from Joann's (which I later tea-dyed), and two yards of royal blue cotton for the lining and lapels.

***Disclaimer*** ~ I am using someone else's pattern that I found on the internet, and I do NOT own. ~

I printed out the pattern, then used the scale to freehand draw it onto sheets of thin paper and cut them out, then traced them onto the linen and cotton pieces.

I also leaned that apparently, I fail at following a pattern. (In my defence, there were no directions, simply a drawing and a scale with the grid.) For the most part, I followed it sort of, then when it didn't line up the way it was supposed to I made the rest of it up. But seriously, as someone who has absolutely zero experience making clothing from scratch, it's not bad.

(Terrible picture of what the main part looks like, stitched together, without the lining)

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this part of the process because I just powered through it. It was giving me a lot of grief.
(Still is.)

All that's really left to do is add the buttons on the lapels and make the vambraces to cover the unfinished sleeves.


The Flag- I bought a replica 13 colonies flag from some military/historical surplus place for like $6. It's a full size flag, 3x5 so yay for carrying that around. I printed out the Assassin's insignia and traced it with a Sharpie onto the fabric in the centre of the circle of stars, then filled it in with fabric paint.

~ The first time I tried to paint the insignia I used plain acrylic paint. It will look like it works at first, but it doesn't. I promise. Flags are made from coated fabric and the second it bends, the paint will crack and flake off. I repainted it with fabric paint. Although since there's acrylic paint beneath it, it's starting to crack again, but not enough for it to be an issue. ~

For the pole it's attached to, the father found me an old broom handle. It's almost as tall as I am so that'll be fun.. We marked where the grommets are on the flag, then he drilled holes and put in a screw eyes, and I used heavy string to tie the flag to the eye part. Easy peasy.

Bow and arrows- I made the quiver Connor carries from a short round tube, the kind you use to mail posters and things. I covered the outside with coarse brown suede, then hot glued plain white string around the outside in the design. I made a fringe from leftover suede and glued it to the back to cover the seams, and also glued a feather to the bottom, which I actually found when I was on a walk in the neighbourhood.

The arrows are 36in dowels I got for like $1 each at Home Depot. I had to cut them down to about 31in because otherwise they stuck up like 4 inches above my head and looked absolutely ridiculous. I painted the ends with bands of red, black, and white, but left the rest of the shaft the colour of the wood. I hot glued three feathers to the ends of each one- there's six in all.

 (Yes, that is tea in that bucket on the ground. It's hard to tea-dye a coat in a bowl, okay??)

Sash and Gloves- The sash I made from some plain red cotton, cut into strips and sewed end to end. I used three strips, and it wraps around my waist three times, then knots and hangs down about eight inches.

The gloves are a plain pair of leather gloves I found at Goodwill, and I just cut the fingers off.

That's it for the first part. The boots are finished, and the father is helping me make a bow, the tomahawk, the Assassin's insignia belt, the weapons belts, and the hidden blades. The rest of the prop weapons I'm carrying I already have. Then there's just the vambraces, the necklace, and the armbands to make!

~Michelle