Izzzie
Member
Hey all,
I've been lurking on RPF for a little while now, and felt that now that I've covered my kitchen in wig hair (I wish I was joking :wacko ) I was worthy enough to start my WIP thread for Rapunzel!
I fell in love with the movie Tangled as soon as it came out, and was delighted when my boyfriend loved it just as much as I did (the Flynn/Maximus interactions are exactly his type of humour) and offered, without prompting, to be my Flynn if I wanted to do Rapunzel. This doesn't happen very often :lol so I decided to take up the challenge!
I would like to thank a couple of the other forum members, particularly Aelynn, who I came across on tumblr and has been invaluable in answering my many (many many many!) questions.
This build thread will probably be quite different to some of the others, because a lot more of my time has had to go into sourcing. I live in Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world, and all our leather manufacturers and a lot of industry are on the other side of the country; we have no Tandy's in Perth, no Disney Store, and a lot of the little things you might not have to think about have been really annoying to track down, to the point that I figured why not document it for other Aussie cosplayers?
------------------------ THE WIG ------------------------
I'll be doing Rapunzel's braided hair:
I'm still drawing out the spoonflower images for my bodice fabric, which means that actually I've started this particular build with the massive wig!
I'm following this tutorial: Rapunzel's Wig Tutorial 1 by *echoing-artemis on deviantART but with elements of Aelynn's method thrown in. I really recommend looking through both EchoingArtemis' tutorial for the wig, and just Aelynn's thread in general.
Here is my base wig (there's four more where that came from!)
I'm not entirely happy with the colour; it feels too golden to me! However, considering the fact that I was on a relatively limited budget for the base wigs, and I plan on SMOTHERING my wig in flowers, I don't think they were too bad. I haven't steamed the fringe into its "swoop" yet, but I've had some good fun practicing on my wig head how to braid the front!
Mullet-man, my trusty wig head, has never looked so pretty.
And here is what my kitchen table looked like to start!
I bought my extensions from buyhair.co.uk as the shipping costs are less from the UK to AUS than from US sites, and I bought them in 'peach', which I felt would go better with my wig hair colour. It's a lovely light gold.
Also on the table you can see the electrical piping insulation tubing from Aelynn's tutorial that will form the bulk of the braids - EchoingArtemis used batting, but I feel like it'd be too fluffy and too heavy for not enough bulk! There's more than three because I'm relatively tall for a girl (171cm) and I need to lengthen them before I cover them in pantyhose, so the extra are there for length.
First of all, let me just say that caulk and wigs don't go together as well as EchoingArtemis' tutorial makes them seem... either that or I missed a step, because that made a HORRIBLE mess. Because I come from a sewing background, I got so frustrated that I eventually just folded over some iron-on interfacing over one end of my second piece of extension, ironed it down (A word of warning: this only worked because my extension hair was kanekalon, a heat-resistant fibre!) and then sewed over it and trimmed the end to make a weft; like so:
The caulked weft (there are three, for the braid) is still curing at the moment but it's so much heavier than the sewn weft... I think I may just trim the caulk off and sew it like the sewn weft. I'm a bit worried about the loss of flexibility, and the fact that the interfacing is white and so may show from the front once the wefts are sewn in. Does anyone have any advice for this? Should I give caulking another go?
------------------------ THE DRESS ------------------------
I've already bought my cable ties for boning. Yes, cable ties! A friend of mine who makes medieval reproduction corsets swears by the strength of cable ties for boning, and refuses to use anything else. Many costumiers feel that cable ties twist laterally less readily than plastic boning, making them more suitable for boning. I hate the process of inserting boning - or worse, having to fix or replace twisted or bent boning! - with a passion so anything that is going to be more sturdy is a plus in my eyes!
My bodice is being adapted from a boned bodice pattern from a pirate costume pattern set.... I don't have the number on me and I've yet to take a photo, but there was a lot wrong with the pattern. It needed lengthening at the waist because I have a long torso and it finished too high on the waist, there's an underbust seam that I will be doing as a 'false' line after it is sewn, I needed to raise the bust so that it was modest enough to wear as a standalone garment rather than over a loose shirt as originally intended, and as befits a Disney princess... but it is a great pattern and I'm really enjoying making the toille at the moment (basically a canvas and cotton drill mockup to check the fit). More pics of that to come.
Because I'm making this for a convention at the end of January and later for my 21st birthday in late february, I'm a little pressed for time for the convention. However, there's less pressure for that than my birthday, because Wai-con holds a *Japanese-based only* cosplay competition, so I'll just be wandering around in my costume rather than being judged on it.
If I don't send away for my spoonflower fabric soon, I'll probably have to end up dyeing the mockup pink as a temporary fix for the con, then finishing my bodice in the proper fabric in february.
The skirt embroidery is still giving me conniptions. :confused I really want to hand embroider it all, but I'm considering just borrowing one of the auto-embroidery machines from my local pfaff store and giving it a whirl instead because it'd be a lot faster and give me less chance of doing myself an RSI! I've heard changing between colours is quite a pain though. If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.
------------------------ THE CROWN ------------------------
I don't want to jinx it :behave so I'm just going to leave this image here until an ebay auction I'm following closely ends on Thursday.
------------------------ THE... SHOES??? ------------------------
The con I'm attending has a footwear policy, so I have to wear shoes inside. I feel like since Rapunzel is such a free spirit, TOES must be shown! This knocks out my mum's suggestion of pink ballet flats.
My two current options are:
I found these shoes today at a local shoe store. It's really hard to see in this photo, but the little crystal on the top strap is actually a teardrop shape, like in her crown. I was going to go for pink ballet flats, but the fact that she's barefoot seems such a large part of her character design that I wanted to see TOES. And they're nude coloured, because, well, PODIATRIC NUDITY.
The second option, I think, will make a few of you laugh. :confused
STICKY SANDALS! :behave
These stick on to the bottom of your feet and have no straps. I was thinking of going for either pink or lilac to match my fabrics, or finding out the colour of the carpet at the con and trying to match that so they blend as much as possible! :lol
....I think that's a long enough first post. :lol Please let me know what you guys think!
PS: because leather supplies down here are so limited, and I'm taking inspiration from aimeekitty's amazing leather Flynn so I don't want to use vinyl, my Flynn's doublet *may* have to be made out of kangaroo leather. How's that for local interpretation?! :cool
I've been lurking on RPF for a little while now, and felt that now that I've covered my kitchen in wig hair (I wish I was joking :wacko ) I was worthy enough to start my WIP thread for Rapunzel!
I fell in love with the movie Tangled as soon as it came out, and was delighted when my boyfriend loved it just as much as I did (the Flynn/Maximus interactions are exactly his type of humour) and offered, without prompting, to be my Flynn if I wanted to do Rapunzel. This doesn't happen very often :lol so I decided to take up the challenge!
I would like to thank a couple of the other forum members, particularly Aelynn, who I came across on tumblr and has been invaluable in answering my many (many many many!) questions.
This build thread will probably be quite different to some of the others, because a lot more of my time has had to go into sourcing. I live in Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world, and all our leather manufacturers and a lot of industry are on the other side of the country; we have no Tandy's in Perth, no Disney Store, and a lot of the little things you might not have to think about have been really annoying to track down, to the point that I figured why not document it for other Aussie cosplayers?
------------------------ THE WIG ------------------------
I'll be doing Rapunzel's braided hair:
I'm still drawing out the spoonflower images for my bodice fabric, which means that actually I've started this particular build with the massive wig!
I'm following this tutorial: Rapunzel's Wig Tutorial 1 by *echoing-artemis on deviantART but with elements of Aelynn's method thrown in. I really recommend looking through both EchoingArtemis' tutorial for the wig, and just Aelynn's thread in general.
Here is my base wig (there's four more where that came from!)
I'm not entirely happy with the colour; it feels too golden to me! However, considering the fact that I was on a relatively limited budget for the base wigs, and I plan on SMOTHERING my wig in flowers, I don't think they were too bad. I haven't steamed the fringe into its "swoop" yet, but I've had some good fun practicing on my wig head how to braid the front!
Mullet-man, my trusty wig head, has never looked so pretty.
And here is what my kitchen table looked like to start!
I bought my extensions from buyhair.co.uk as the shipping costs are less from the UK to AUS than from US sites, and I bought them in 'peach', which I felt would go better with my wig hair colour. It's a lovely light gold.
Also on the table you can see the electrical piping insulation tubing from Aelynn's tutorial that will form the bulk of the braids - EchoingArtemis used batting, but I feel like it'd be too fluffy and too heavy for not enough bulk! There's more than three because I'm relatively tall for a girl (171cm) and I need to lengthen them before I cover them in pantyhose, so the extra are there for length.
First of all, let me just say that caulk and wigs don't go together as well as EchoingArtemis' tutorial makes them seem... either that or I missed a step, because that made a HORRIBLE mess. Because I come from a sewing background, I got so frustrated that I eventually just folded over some iron-on interfacing over one end of my second piece of extension, ironed it down (A word of warning: this only worked because my extension hair was kanekalon, a heat-resistant fibre!) and then sewed over it and trimmed the end to make a weft; like so:
The caulked weft (there are three, for the braid) is still curing at the moment but it's so much heavier than the sewn weft... I think I may just trim the caulk off and sew it like the sewn weft. I'm a bit worried about the loss of flexibility, and the fact that the interfacing is white and so may show from the front once the wefts are sewn in. Does anyone have any advice for this? Should I give caulking another go?
------------------------ THE DRESS ------------------------
I've already bought my cable ties for boning. Yes, cable ties! A friend of mine who makes medieval reproduction corsets swears by the strength of cable ties for boning, and refuses to use anything else. Many costumiers feel that cable ties twist laterally less readily than plastic boning, making them more suitable for boning. I hate the process of inserting boning - or worse, having to fix or replace twisted or bent boning! - with a passion so anything that is going to be more sturdy is a plus in my eyes!
My bodice is being adapted from a boned bodice pattern from a pirate costume pattern set.... I don't have the number on me and I've yet to take a photo, but there was a lot wrong with the pattern. It needed lengthening at the waist because I have a long torso and it finished too high on the waist, there's an underbust seam that I will be doing as a 'false' line after it is sewn, I needed to raise the bust so that it was modest enough to wear as a standalone garment rather than over a loose shirt as originally intended, and as befits a Disney princess... but it is a great pattern and I'm really enjoying making the toille at the moment (basically a canvas and cotton drill mockup to check the fit). More pics of that to come.
Because I'm making this for a convention at the end of January and later for my 21st birthday in late february, I'm a little pressed for time for the convention. However, there's less pressure for that than my birthday, because Wai-con holds a *Japanese-based only* cosplay competition, so I'll just be wandering around in my costume rather than being judged on it.
If I don't send away for my spoonflower fabric soon, I'll probably have to end up dyeing the mockup pink as a temporary fix for the con, then finishing my bodice in the proper fabric in february.
The skirt embroidery is still giving me conniptions. :confused I really want to hand embroider it all, but I'm considering just borrowing one of the auto-embroidery machines from my local pfaff store and giving it a whirl instead because it'd be a lot faster and give me less chance of doing myself an RSI! I've heard changing between colours is quite a pain though. If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.
------------------------ THE CROWN ------------------------
I don't want to jinx it :behave so I'm just going to leave this image here until an ebay auction I'm following closely ends on Thursday.
------------------------ THE... SHOES??? ------------------------
The con I'm attending has a footwear policy, so I have to wear shoes inside. I feel like since Rapunzel is such a free spirit, TOES must be shown! This knocks out my mum's suggestion of pink ballet flats.
My two current options are:
I found these shoes today at a local shoe store. It's really hard to see in this photo, but the little crystal on the top strap is actually a teardrop shape, like in her crown. I was going to go for pink ballet flats, but the fact that she's barefoot seems such a large part of her character design that I wanted to see TOES. And they're nude coloured, because, well, PODIATRIC NUDITY.
The second option, I think, will make a few of you laugh. :confused
STICKY SANDALS! :behave
These stick on to the bottom of your feet and have no straps. I was thinking of going for either pink or lilac to match my fabrics, or finding out the colour of the carpet at the con and trying to match that so they blend as much as possible! :lol
....I think that's a long enough first post. :lol Please let me know what you guys think!
PS: because leather supplies down here are so limited, and I'm taking inspiration from aimeekitty's amazing leather Flynn so I don't want to use vinyl, my Flynn's doublet *may* have to be made out of kangaroo leather. How's that for local interpretation?! :cool