American Mcgee's Alice: Madness Returns Dress

VilleLeskinen

VilleLeskinen

Sr Member
Hey you all! So finally after weeks of asking my girlfriend what she'll dress as on halloween, she settled on Alice from the new Mcgee's game; madness returns! As I've never done a piece like this before, I hope some of you pro's could help me out on things. I haven't really begun looking for the fabric but I hope that won't be a problem. The knife (Vorpal Blade) might actually be the hardest for me to pull out as I'm fairly new (ok, I'm really new) to prop building too. I might, if there'll be time for it, try tackling a mad hatter costume for myself but we'll see. Here are some photos I'll use as a starting point until the game will come out (June 16) so not long to go! Yey!

The dress and the apron:
I'll most likely be using coarse cotton for both the dress and the apron. It seems that most of the new cgi use fabrics that are non-existing as was discussed on the new catwoman costume thread.I mean, cotton won't shine of like that, will it?

The shoes:
Any help finding the shoes would be greatly appreciated. And to make things more interesting, they have to be vegetarian, ie. synthetic as we're both vegans:lol

The Vorpal Blade:
This I'll most likely be making from plywood as I've done a machete from it and have no experience casting anything.

The skull:
I might modify an euro store skull to fit the bill.

So what do you guys think? Can I pull this off? What do I need to consider? Have I missed something important?


Oh yeah, almost forgot:

It seems to me that the knife is not engraved in the game photos but the real life replica that they are selling seems to be as seen on this site:
American McGee's Alice Vorpal Blade replica exists, is irrationally desired, Alice: Madness Returns PC News | GamesRadar
 
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Looks like you've certainly done your research. :lol

The apron for sure should be a coarse cotton I got one locally for about$15 that's perfect with the pockets and everything just needs to be shortened. So maybe a dress with similar fabric like you said could work (however might be uncomfortable to wear)

You best bet with the shoes would be to find one with a similar shaft length and add on some leather (or in your case vinyl) belts as "straps" Trust me you'll have a wider variety if you look at boots that just zip up instead of trying to find one with all those straps. I looked up womens boots on google and found this within a minute of looking. Yeah it's leather and expensive but it looks pretty close (minus straps) just an example though.

If you want to make the blade out of plywood go for it man, it's what the RPF is all about! :) I myself was contemplating gettting the same Vorpal Blade you you found at EpicWeapons. You can see them really well here

Oh yeah I'm sure you have a pattern in mind for the dress right?


Can't wait to see what you make!
 
I think Demonia shoes are all vegan-friendly? Otherwise, you could use a pair of shoes you already have, and make boot (shoe)-covers to look like Alice's pair? That way, you get to control exactly how they look, and you know what they're made from :)

Were you not vegan, I'd say you could sculpt the skull from needling white felt..
 
Annathema said:
Were you not vegan, I'd say you could sculpt the skull from needling white felt..
Click to expand...

That sounds...interesting. I would have never thought of that. But I guess I'll just make it out of a plastic one. I think we've found the right kinda shoes so I hope I'll have some pics to post of those soon. Tomorrow I'll go look for the fabric.
 
Kas terve.
Fascinated to see another finn here. Totally looking forwards to progress.
In my thoughts, Alice was from a high-class family, so I'd figure the apron wouldn't be so coarse. But that's just my opinion.

_A
 
Moikka!
That make three of us Finns (not rocketeer related) in here (that I know of); you, me and LHZ.
It seem the apron was much slicker in the last game (and not just rendered good enough) but in the pics it really seems rather course. I think with the shine it could be based on raw silk but I doubt they made many dresses in the 19th century England from it.
 
In my thoughts, Alice was from a high-class family, so I'd figure the apron wouldn't be so coarse. But that's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Depends which setting you're taking the dress from, if you look at the storyline she went from family home, to asylum, to hostel-type thing, so it's not going to exactly be silk and velvets.. unless you think she'd want to wear that in wonderland? Though she has a different costume for each area anyway, and cotton would take a lot more wear and tear, so it depends on how you want to look I guess :)

VilleLeskinen, glad you found the right shoes, looking forward to the pics :D
 
Point. But as seen in the trailers (haven't played the game yet), her dress is different when in wonderland and when out from wonderland. I agree that she might want to wear something finer in wonderland and the cotton ounds logical.
I said alot of "in wonderland" in this post.
But yeah, in final it's everyone's own call.

_A
 
Here in the states, it's called 'polished' cotton'. I'll bet you could find a shiny heat-pressed cotton there, or use a good bit of starch on it. I would think the trick would be finding that right deep shade of blue. Also- you could always paint the 'stitch' detail on the bottom edge of the dress if you didn't want to topstitch it.
As for the boots, I would find a nice boot that had a tight spandex calf and add the straps yourself.
 
I actually found a nice flax-rayon fabric that might fit the bill. It has more shine to it then regular flax or cotton fabrics. Only problem is that the shop has it in natural white only but dyeing it would solve that. Would more likely get it to look more "screen accurate" that way too (color-wise). I'll need to look around some bigger shops. I think we'll most likely use flax rather than cotton. But we'll see.
 
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My niece wants to do this costume, too. Epic Weapons makes a replica vorpal blade.
Click to expand...

I think there's now 3 different versions of the blade - the mini (new) blade, the old blade (without the sharpened edge) and the newer blade, with the edge - just be careful which one you get caught outside with :p
 
A very small update and a setback:

I found few possible fabrics locally. The other one is the right color but the flax does look much nicer (but is brown). I'm going to try some fabric dye on it and see how it turn out.

The setback is that the boots we found contain leather in some parts so on with the search :unsure

The fabrics are the same in the pictures, just shot inside and outside of the house.

5908786202_f39f3a9ee3.jpg

5908227185_e8f0e30e78_z.jpg
 
I want to do this costume as well for halloween. It seems like a simple pattern but the blade and boots seem to be the hardest thing. The stockings and gloves can be bought at hot topic or another "goth" store. Keep us updated on what you find!
 
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