Rapunzel and Flynn from Tangled Costumes

Hi folks, I've been lurking here a bit and enjoying reading about prop modding, but mostly I'm a soft costumer.

I thought I'd share my most recent completed replica costume set with you, Flynn Rider and Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled.

I really loved that in the movie, the 3-d models showed the stitches and what types of fabrics were used... I loved that the modelers actually thought of that. Like you can clearly see that Rapunzel's floral print fabric is some type of woven fabric... and you can see the messy stitches of her embroidery and that Flynn's pants are probably some kind of linen. Despite me being way taller than Rapunzel and not being 16, I fell in love with the outfits and the movie and decided to make them.

I started these this past January and was able to get the dress finished by spring with the huge Rapunzel wig done by late spring. I started my husband's Flynn Rider outfit later in the summer and finished it by Halloween (to go to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween in Disneyland)

I'll post a few recent photos I got of the finished costumes first and then in a following post do the work in progress photos.

You can find more photos on my website:
Rapunzel @ AimeeMajor.com
Flynn Rider @ AimeeMajor.com

The two photos below are by Joseph Chi Lin joseph chi lin




The photos below are by my friend Annie Kim - Anastasia K Photography









And one by my friend Marcus

January 2011, first fabrics bought.
The teal for Flynn's jerkin was leather bought already dyed that color. The tan pants fabric is linen.
I bought the fabrics for Rapunzel first, with the idea that I would swatch the fabrics with the swatches from spoonflower to create my repeating floral pattern.



I knew I'd never find the perfect brocade or woven fabric that had exactly Rapunzel's floral pattern on it, so I decided to create it myself by drawing out the pattern and sending it to spoonflower for custom fabric.
After studying the reference materials and promo materials for Rapunzel, I drew out the repeating pattern for her bodice and skirt. They’re both the same pattern, but the bodice is a smaller scale.

My first test swatches back from Spoonflower


Next came drafting the bodice. I looked at lots of screenshots to see exactly where the seems were in the bodice and tried to replicate it. I used my Beauty and the Beast Peasant Belle muslin for my starting point and started to change the pattern from there to add the bust darts and other seams.

I also looked at screenshots to see WHERE the floral pattern was crossing the seams, and noticed that the floral patterns match across the seams to some degree, so while I was cutting, I matched as well.

The bodice is a fully lined in coutil and boned corset which functionally laces up the front (and has a modesty panel that replicates the look of Rapunzel's underbodice) , or at least the finished one is. There is a faux underblouse back with floral buttons.

On the bodice, the lower lace was dyed pink so that all the lace would match. The double boning chanels also match Rapunzel’s. I really loved that they actually showed the boning channels in the film!

In this photo it's not boned or completed yet.


Next I started drawing out the embroidery designs. I wanted them to have the hand-embroidered, not quite perfect, look, so I intentionally left gaps in the drawings. I sent the drawings to my friend and she digitized them for me and then I used my embroidery machine to apply them to the skirt and sleeves. Though it saved a lot of time over hand embroidering, it was still quite time consuming to draw out the designs and match them on the fabric correctly (and do all the color switching with the threads.)
These are two test embroideries below:



And then starting to embroider "for real" on the actual skirt fabric


Late Feb 2011: Now the outfit is starting to come together.
The pink ribbons on Rapunzel’s cap-sleeves have topstitching detail.

In late Feb 2011 I took some Rapunzel 1.0 photos with the uncomplete wig and the skirt not quite finished. Photos by Annie Kim Anastasia K Photography


Then it was time to do the elaborate braided wig.


The final braided wig is two New Look Godiva wigs put together plus about 6 packs of Black ‘n Gold Braid. If you were able to get extensions in the same color as your wig, a duplicate wig wouldn’t be necessary, but I wanted a duplicate to help blend the color of the base wig into my extension hair (since I couldn’t find the same color and I very specifically wanted a certain color in the base wig…)

For Rapunzels Ariel-esque swoop bangs I used Tristen Citrine’s bang curling technique. Tristen Citrine | Las Vegas Cosplayer I also did a small braid on each side of the base wig to work into the large braid down the back.

The duplicate wig’s hair and the Black n Gold Braid extensions were separated into three sections. I attached these three sections to the back-neck area of the base wig and then braided the sections. After that I made some smaller braids with excess hair and inserted them where I thought they would be pretty. Then I made lots of small bouquets of silk flowers. I tied them together using the wire of the flowers themselves, and then attached them to the wig the same way. Because I used a lot of the yaki/fluffy type hair extensions, the wig is not as heavy as it would be if it was all silky hair, but it’s still pretty heavy. It’s about 48″ long from the base of the neck.

So basically, one long wig is the base. Then I had a 3 separate long piles of hair made out of loose hair extensions, gathered together at one end with a hair tie. I attached the extension hair (by the hair tie) into the base of the neck area of the base wig (at the wig lace). I worked the long, loose hair from the base wig into the 3 piles of attached extension hair and then braided the 3 combined piles together into one long braid. Then I worked some separate extra small braids in for decoration, and added the flowers.

I'd done really long ridiculous wigs before, but this one killed! The hair was so long that it was very difficult to work with the hair without it constantly getting tangled. (har har..)
Here's the completed wig after many curse words later and about 2 days of work:


In May I got a few more shots of the completed costume thanks to my friend Jason, i360.com






I procrastinated on my husband's Flynn outfit a lot.

The jerkin was made from real leather that I got from Sav-Mor in downtown LA. I’d never worked in leather before and while this was relatively thin leather, it was pretty hard to work with! I had a hard time sewing it the way I would normally sew fabric. I think the final result looked pretty good, but esh, it was a pain. Even now it's not absolutely perfect. :\

The belts are items we had sitting around and the belt-pack is from my husband's 300 costume. The boots were bought pirate boots. The satchel was bought and modded. The shirt was bought from Gentlemen’s Emporium.
The pants are made by me.

The "poster" was printed out by a picture I googled. My husband had a lot of fun being Flynn!

Anyway, I think that's about it! Sorry, I didn't take a lot of in progress drafting photos.

aimeekitty said:

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And one by my friend Marcus

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This is a GREAT pic.

Wonderful job on the costumes. Love the embroidery on the dress. Love the wig, too. It looks quite natural in color and not shiny and fake hair looking as some I've seen.

Great find on the real leather for Flynn's jerkin in that color, again, quite natural looking and not bright and plastic looking.

Just love this pic!! Fabulous 'location' shot!!!

Shylaah

Both Costume looks great !

Vary nice. Looks great.

Hi Amy! (Waves) Nice work on this!!

Very nice work. Love this movie.

Great attention to detail. Love the pics, too. Thank you for sharing! :thumbsup

That is fantastic. Great job on the wig.

aimeekitty said:

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I knew I'd never find the perfect brocade or woven fabric that had exactly Rapunzel's floral pattern on it, so I decided to create it myself by drawing out the pattern and sending it to spoonflower for custom fabric.
After studying the reference materials and promo materials for Rapunzel, I drew out the repeating pattern for her bodice and skirt. They’re both the same pattern, but the bodice is a smaller scale.

My first test swatches back from Spoonflower

>>>clip<<<

Click to expand...

Is your fabric design available for order on spoonflower?
I know there has been others interested in obtaining the fabric with the Rapunzel pattern.

Shylaah

Great job! I love the embroidery and the wig!

Aimeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Your Rapunzel inspired me that I could do it! ( though my time frame for completion is seeming like it's going to be a lot longer. LOL )

I found out about Spoonflower through the great little walkthrough on your website and it's been so useful for so many things!

Also, love the wig colour!! Mine's more natural blond than platinum, too, and I think we made some very good choices.

Thanks for sharing and being an all around inspiration with your amazing talent!!!

Oh hey, I know you! I bought your Twinkle Journey skirt ages ago lol. I also love Japan Ai by the way, great book.

Glad to see you've made it and it goes without saying that your costumes up there look AMMMMAZING. Stick around!

Tons of work there, and it turned out awesome!

Pffft... It's OK, but it's no Stormtrooper!


Looks awesome, excellent job!

That's pretty swell! Amazing amount of work you did there, too.

Thanks so much you guys!!

Shylaah said:

Wonderful job on the costumes. Love the embroidery on the dress. Love the wig, too. It looks quite natural in color and not shiny and fake hair looking as some I've seen.
Great find on the real leather for Flynn's jerkin in that color, again, quite natural looking and not bright and plastic looking.
Just love this pic!! Fabulous 'location' shot!!!
Shylaah

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Shylaah - Thankyou! I'm really happy/grateful we were able to finish both costumes by Disneyland Halloween, we look forward to it all year and it was perfect for these costumes, too. Plus the kids are adorable.

I'm glad you think the hair looks natural enough! I spent some time trying to choose a color that I thought would be bright enough to look like Rapunzel's hair without being too silly looking. Because of that hair color, I probably spent more money and time... but I was pretty happy with how it turned out considering the challenges.
Some people think it's my natural hair when I walk around, (which is kinda crazy, who has hair that long/huge?) but yay!
The embroidery was definitely a big part of what drew me to the costume to begin with.

Zendragon said:

Hi Amy! (Waves) Nice work on this!!

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Hey Zen! Nice seeing you briefly this weekend! Still can't get over how much I love ya'll's Sherlock Holmes costumes! I got distracted, but if you were curious, my husband's Dickens Fair pants were from Gentlemen's Emporium, they're the "NEW Style Henderson Pinstripe Pants" which they are closing out. I thought they were a pretty good match for the Sherlock poster pants. Maybe I can get him an awesome cord coat like yours someday!

aelynn000 said:

Aimeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Your Rapunzel inspired me that I could do it! ( though my time frame for completion is seeming like it's going to be a lot longer. LOL )

I found out about Spoonflower through the great little walkthrough on your website and it's been so useful for so many things!

Also, love the wig colour!! Mine's more natural blond than platinum, too, and I think we made some very good choices.

Thanks for sharing and being an all around inspiration with your amazing talent!!!

Click to expand...

aw man, aelynn, thankyou! I'm glad you were able to figure out spoonflower ok! Isn't it fun? I want to make some random fabrics now but I keep getting distracted!

I just look awful in really stark blonde colors, so I agree with you, too! Your Rapunzel turned out gorgeous and I love your pics! It took me a fair amount of time to get the finished finished version done. I think a lot of people do that with Rapunzel because it's a lot more complex than it looks, right?

Laamberry said:

Oh hey, I know you! I bought your Twinkle Journey skirt ages ago lol. I also love Japan Ai by the way, great book.

Glad to see you've made it and it goes without saying that your costumes up there look AMMMMAZING. Stick around!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's me! Cool, glad you enjoyed my book! really appreciate it! Now if I can just get time to do another one...! I get so busy with work...

AMAZING WORK!!!... exceptional attention to details thumbsup

Saw your portfolio and its really overwhelming... Keep up the lovely work!

cheers!

thanks so much! really appreciate it!