Hi! I have boobs and I make...

iycis said:

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The only bad thing about Berninas is that the specialty feet are expensive. Often starting at $30/each. However, some of them I couldn't live without. They make life so much easier.

This is true. Specialty feet start around $45 at my local Bernina dealership (Where I worked while I was in college...so if you have Bernina questions then please feel free to ask! ^^). BUT one of the best things about Bernina is that they will always carry the feet for your machine. You never have to worry about buying a machine that they will stop making replacement/spare parts for the next year. Also their feet and special extra parts are made to a high, Swiss standard and are made to be very precise hence the price. You also only need these for very special work like if you want a cording foot for example. All the standard feet for most applications come with their machines.

So later down the road, if beautiful and precise seam work is what you want...Bernina can give it to you. ^^ I also believe that Janome's and Babylock's rock too.

CelticRuins said:

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Girls, Guri was an inspiration to me when I started costuming! Her tutorials helped me many-a-time! Still do! I still remember my first costuming panel, it was Guri heading it at Dragon*con 2004! !

I can't tell you how much that means to me... It's honestly more of a kick for me to hear people find the tutorials useful than they like my costumes. *HUGS*

And your costumes are so amazing and I'm incredibly excited about your panel at Dcon this year. (Kev is as I type this purchasing our airline tickets!! I can't believe it... )

Haha, mutual appreciation group hug. Kev just printed the tickets. I'm floating - I didn't think it was actually going to happen that we could go. Now, what to bring...

Hi Longtime lurker & sometimes-poster with other sites. This thread looks like it turned into a who's-who of ladies whose work I've long admired!

I'm learning to sew, would LOVE to learn about casting, sculpting, and molding. Right now, I'm only really good at beading, but I've done some pretty good work on my SO's costume efforts.

There are sooo many beautiful women in here!

I'm so impressed by everyone here! I'm also of the female persuasion (my name gives it away), and have done a bit of costuming in the past--mostly sewing: a few corsets, an awesome leather coat (I get told it's awesome every time I wear it anywhere, so it must be, right?), Ren Faire-type stuff, a bit of steampunk, etc. Right now I'm working on an Iron Man suit--I was feeling like guys get the best costumes, so who says I can't wear a guy's costume? I'm not yet that comfortable with a skin-baring outfit, which seems somewhat limiting as far as awesome women's costumes go. I think I'm going to make/re-make a Bellatrix costume though, that's a fun one. I'm going to D*C for the first time this year so I'm really rushing to get things finished in time.

I have a Bernina 1130--an older machine, but it's still running strong. I inherited it from my grandmother (after it spent many years with my mother) and I love it. Pricey when new, but it will sew several layers of upholstery leather with minimal complaints!

Darth Mule said:

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B) Angelle is here??? *Waves*

Yes, I'm here, usually just lurking. *waves to Chris*

I forgot to mention. For those of you interested in learning more about different costuming techniques that will be attending Dragon Con, check us out in the costume track. We'll be teaching panels all weekend on various topics ranging from the sewing oriented to leather, hats, masks, and armor.

I'll be doing several myself, including one on fabric types and one focusing on patterning with my good friend Cathy of GSTQ fashions who was mentioned in this thread earlier. You may even see Kristina Leigh in one or two.

Gizka said:

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^THIS! I have such issues with this! I think it has to do with my science and research background. I'll decide I love a costume, either for myself for my hubby, then spend hours researching the heck out of it, tracking down where to get parts, planning in my head how to do it, etc. Then I'll look at my current project list and decide I don't have time to do it. Meanwhile I've wasted so many hours that could have been used to be productive!

^YES. ALL. THE. TIME.
And on that note, I often look at others' costumes either on here or on cosplay.com, and I'm finding a LOT of you ladies are the ones I have so often admired! (And from other forums. I used to be on the 300DC forum and came up with all these 3D female spartan renderings that never became anything )

Has anyone else ever, when researching, found the EXACT piece (boots or something) used for a costume and been discouraged that it was out of your price range? I will scour the internet for ages to see if a particular piece exists, only to find that when I finally locate it, it's so darn expensive I get totally put off about doing the costume because it'll never be totally accurate. Maybe it's really silly and nit-picky of me, but it happens all the time (Katniss boots, Lara Croft ice ax, things like that).

Also, most of the costumes I've been looking into doing lately don't have a lot of "building" to them as much as "finding" so I don't really post on here about them. I'm searching for pieces to do a Tomb Raider Turning Point Lara, Fauxlivia (or Bolivia) from Fringe, and a good Katniss leather hunting jacket.

There's also the problem of photos. The only decent photos I have of costumes are either from other photographers that happened to be somewhere I was wearing a costume or some I've done myself (a time-consuming process of setting my camera on a tripod, adjusting settings, guessing at whether or not I'm in the frame, and using a remote I have to keep hidden in the photo, then repeating). So, I end up with NO photos when I'm in costume usually.

Though, as per request, I'll try to dig up what I DO have and post them.

MAULWALKER!!!

I'm going to go out on a limb here (even after all the hubub earlier) and say that your post is useless without pics.

Seriously... We've chatted back and forth on here for years and I've still only seen a fraction of your stuff. I would love to see some of your historical costumes. I remember the Sgt Pepper, and I believe we've discussed your Wicked Witch at one point and tiem. Didn't you enter it in the Friday Night Costume Contest at Dragon Con a few years back? I think we talked about this before... You had a couple of Winkies with you???

And yes ladies. I'm totally stalking the "I have boobs" thread. It's the only one where people aren't talking about frakkin pepakura and Iron Man.

Maybe I should start a "I have moobs and I sew" thread just to see who else chimes in. Matter of fact...

Wow, that's some great work Maulwalker! It's very cool to see baseball suits that were the same type worn in the movie A League of Their Own. Your Rosie the Riveter is aces, too.

DoubleD said:

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Wow, that's some great work Maulwalker! It's very cool to see baseball suits that were the same type worn in the movie A League of Their Own. Your Rosie the Riveter is aces, too.

We took a more historical approach to the baseball uniforms than the movie did. One of our troop interviewed a couple of the players and asked them what fabrics were used in the uniforms. All of them said cotton twill dresses and satin shorts. The movie used polyester for the dresses. One of the movie uniforms is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame. All of the original uniforms from the first season were stored in a warehouse at the end of the season. And the warehouse burned down.

We purchased the hats from a company licensed to make the uniforms. They sell both the historically accurate hat (which we went with) and the movie version.

MaulWalker, I have been a fan of your attention to detail for a number of years. Well done on your wonderful costumes as always.

Great stuff Lynn! Love the skirt on the suffragette. Love it all really... So cool to see someone doing all these semi-obscure costumes.

And the Sgt Pepper is a little freaky. In a good way of course.

Here's a few of mine:

Burton version Catwoman



This is a picture of the corset that is worn by the character Sonia in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.



This is my version.





Ultraviolet and the soft parts for the Hazard Guards (friends of mine are responsible for the creation of the weapons. The guns have the blades that hide)







Here's some of the work on my Zam costume which was never 100% finished and is now getting torn apart to do an almost complete redo. This was the first costume that I did a lot of weathering and leather work and dying so I learned SO much but now that I know more, it needs to be redone before it goes in for approval. I didn't make any of the parts - I covered them in leather, rub'n'buffed and weathered/painted them and of course assembled them were necessary.







This is also the longest I've worked on a single costume. This piece alone being one of the big time users:



195 squares of tooling leather in 7 different sizes and all individually hand dyed. 780 holes punched in those squares. 90 feet of kangaroo leather to lace those squares together. And like a crazy person, I want to redo it. I'm not at all happy with any of my colours. After I put the leather protector on, the colour changed drastically. I love this dang costume though.....I can't wait to have it where I want it to be....



Alice from Resident Evil - and a perfect example of why to look for a photographer who pays a little more attention to detail.....stupid droopy thigh holsters....



Phoenix - this is from 2008 and my first attempt at making an all spandex costume, including the evil, evil gloves.



This is Queen Gorgo from 300 - it's a concept dress that never made it to the movie.


One of my all time favorite obscure costumes. This is the White ***** from the uber horrible movie, Epic Movie.





This is the Amazonia version of Wonder Woman. It was my first stab at making a corset out of leather.



This is the armor that Alice wears in the Burton version of Alice in Wonderland. The armor is a light gage steel and made by Mitch from Valentine Armories. I made the undersuit and the leather "skirt". The individual leather scales have since been removed and painted by my friend Erin to give them some depth. I still have work to do on the front of the skirt (there is a woven chain that the leather straps feed through) and need to add some leather to the neck area. Once I do I'll get better pictures of the whole costume. The Underworld Elder (worn by Steve Anderson) is also made by Mitch at Valentine Armories - they are the company that did lots of the armor for the movie. Beautiful work!



These dresses are based on series of dolls created by Robert Tonner. I made mine (far left), the top on the mostly white one and all of the one on the far right along with the tiaras (which you can't see well in this picture) that all of us are wearing and the symbols on each of our dresses.



The Magdalena - a friend made the armor for me. I made the soft parts(undersuit and cloak), rigged everything and embroidered the cloak.

Well well well... so many beautiful ladies, it's been too much fun to follow this thread I've been too distracted to actually chime in.

I'll try and make this as simple as possible..

My name is Rose and I'm the daughter of an Electrical Engineer (Geek) and a Hippie.
I was raised going to Star Trek conventions and self-taught myself how to use the sewing machine at age 12.
I started going to anime conventions in 1999 with a group a friends, entered some masquerade contests, won a few awards here and there.
Worked as stage hand and Lead Prop Mistress for the Knoxville Opera here in TN for 4 seasons, that was AMAZING!
Married Jon (saxe_coburg) in a costumed wedding, him as Boba Fett and I as Sarah from Labyrinth's ballroom scene. Jeremy Bulloch (with the help of our 501st friends) surprised us IN costume with permission from Lucasfilm.
I LOVE my Star Wars and Boba Fett costuming family, they're a huge part of my life!
Jon and I have extensive collections in HR Giger/Alien related items, Chronicles of Riddick Necromonger screen used costumes, Starship Trooper screen used costumes and props, Boba Fett/Clone Trooper/and female character Star Wars related items.
I've spent the last 2 years on stage as a Burlesque performer and will be actually performing A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE/Game of Thrones number at this years Dragon*Con Burlesque Showcase.

The one thing I've never been very good at is making sure to get decent pictures of my costumes. Something I've been working hard to remedy recently.

OH, and I've been making a living with my film/television/prop knowledge the past 2 years selling production art and screen used items for clients.

This year I'll be attending SWCVI and DCon with a boat-load of new costumes, and I can't wait to see everyone I've been making friends with here and on facebook. It's a good time to be a costumer!

"Nightmare Before Christmas" Burlesque


Daenerys Mother of Dragons Burlesque


Steampunk Queen Victoria


Labyrinth - Sarah Ballgown (my wedding dress)

My oh my! There are a BUTT TON of talented ladies in this forum! I'm a little intimidated to even show my costumes

BTW, herro! I'm Jackie, I just joined the chaos here on RPF and my favorite color is blue ^_^ OH! I make mostly video game costumes, but also some anime/comic book characters

Welcome to the RPF, PrincessZelda! I'm looking forward to seeing some of your work

I'm so amazed by all the talent in here!

I'm Megan, and I've been lurking around here for a bit. I've been making costumes for several years now, but up until last year they were just things I threw together for theme parties and Halloween, usually comprised of things found at Goodwill. I only learned to use a sewing machine last year, so before that I did everything by hand. Terribly.

My very first from-scratch costume was a set of duty blues from Battlestar Galactica, made for my boyfriend for Dragon*Con last year. NOT the best costume to start with as a novice (especially since the pattern wasn't very good), but they did turn out decently. And even though I haven't gotten a lot more experience with sewing, I am completely redoing the blues from scratch for this year's D*C. I don't know what I'm doing half the time, but I'm being a lot more nitpicky about it and think this version will turn out ten times better.

I really need to find more occasions to dress up so I can make more costumes. I actually bought a costume this year for D*C (a BSG flightsuit!!! which I'm glad I didn't have to end up making...), and I've been spending all my time working on the blues, so unfortunately I've not gotten to work on anything for me. And it makes me sad. Hopefully I can start attending more cons, as well as make more friends who're into costuming. This is probably a good place to start.