Doctor Who Weeping Angel Costume

Osi0485

New Member
I’m fairly new to Doctor Who, but thoroughly in love. I was originally thinking of going as Amy Pond for Halloween and was browsing image search results, trying to decide which outfit would be most recognizable, when I stumbled across an image of Amy facing down a pair of weeping angels. Eureka! Even if they don’t know the name, who hasn’t seen that creepy gif of the angel statue? I started researching Weeping Angel costumes, and began bookmarking anything that looked promising.

Here are previous builds from which I borrowed techniques:
Penwiper - Dress
http://www.therpf.com/f24/doctor-who-blink-weeping-angel-costume-49264/
Kilayi - Wings
http://www.therpf.com/f24/my-version-doctor-who-weeping-angel-image-heavy-101181/
Red5ive - Hair
http://www.instructables.com/id/Doctor-Who-Weeping-Angel/?ALLSTEPS
Marie - Bodysuit
http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2013/06/06/how-to-make-weeping-angel-costumes/
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I started with the dress because sewing was the technique I was most comfortable with. I chose to sew the blouse and skirt separately in order to make it easier to pull over the harness for the wings. I bought cheap, white muslin and dyed it using iDye Silver Gray in my washing machine, which was much easier than I expected. The underskirt was a basic hoop skirt with a drawstring waist. I left an opening so I could remove the hoop for storage. Over this, I used 150% as much fabric to make the overskirt, tacking them together at the waist and hoop and letting the fabric fall in natural waves. I used drawstrings to pull the fabric of the blouse in where I wanted it before sewing it onto the shoulders. I then decided to replace the bottom drawstring with elastic to pull the bottom edge up to my natural waist and give it the draped appearance. Rather than sew in a full back panel, I chose to leave slits over the shoulder blades and close them with Velcro.

Next, I sewed the harness. I was worried about the straps cutting in, so I decided to attach my wings to a full vest. I already owned a vest pattern (New Look #0112), so I modified it by narrowing the fabric over the shoulders (so it wouldn’t show under the blouse) and making the front edges meet along a line (so I could incorporate a zipper). I managed to cut all of my pattern pieces out of a single pair of old blue jeans. The denim was sturdy and didn’t stretch, which meant that the vest would fit snuggly and stay where I put it. I used Kilayi’s Lexan and PVC technique, using a layer of EVA foam to cover the bolt heads and cushion the harness against my back. The EVA was held in place with a square of canvas sewn to the inside of the harness. In retrospect, I should have dyed the denim gray, too, but I didn’t think to do it before I started cutting pattern pieces and was worried about fraying once they were cut.
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With the harness finished, I moved on to the wings. These were made from EVA foam floor tiles. I bought an 8 pack at my local Sam’s Club and had plenty left over. I traced an image of the wings onto a plastic sheet, and then used an overhead projector to draw it out full size on white craft paper. I cut each feather into a stencil, which was used to draw on the foam. I had a three pieces on each wing which were larger than a single piece of foam, but I used the interlocking grid to my advantage and the seams were almost completely hidden in the final product. I cut with a utility knife (change blades often), rounded the edges with the Dremel (an outdoor activity), and carved the vanes with a wood burner (molten EVA will burn flesh).
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The foam came with a hex pattern stamped on one side and a diamond pattern molded into the other. To remove the stamped pattern, I heat treated the foam in my oven. I covered the rack with foil and preheated to 350F, stuck each piece in for 50 to 60 seconds, then quenched immediately in cold water. There is a very fine line between relaxing the pattern and melting the foam, and molten foam on the foil will encourage the next piece of foam it touches to melt.

I shaved down areas of overlap on each layer of feathers and glued them together with hot glue. I used PVC pipe and chicken wire to support the wings the same way Kilayi did, gluing this between the layers of feathers and weighting it all with curved bricks to give the wings a slight curve.
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I hadn’t found a good way to remove the diamond texture from the backs of the long feathers, so I decided to skin over it with 2 mm craft foam. I bought a 3’x5’ roll of it at my local craft store, and reused those paper stencils. I used Scotch Super 77 spray adhesive to attach the skins. The top edge of the wing was carved from an old fun noodle and attached with hot glue. I was using a high temp glue gun, which produces glue hot enough to melt fun noodle foam, so I applied the glue to the EVA first and gave it a few seconds to cool before sticking the noodle to it. A skin of 2 mm foam made the top and rear blend into a single piece. All surfaces got a coat of Modge Podge to seal the foam, and then moved on to paint.
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I used Red5ive’s technique with the Model Magic to build the headpiece. However, since I needed to sculpt on my own head instead of someone else’s, I enlisted the aid of a friend to first make a plaster cast of my head. I then spread a thin layer of model magic over the entire surface and started sticking the strands of ‘hair’ to that. Model magic does shrink a small amount as it dries, which means a few particularly thin areas pulled apart. I also turned the piece over before it had dried completely, which left a small flat spot. Paint helped disguise all of these flaws.
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On to the skin suit… my nemesis. I avoided hosiery because I don’t use it often in real life and have a tendency to destroy it with runs. I purchased a gray, stretchy fabric from the clearance rack and failed to check the exact fabric content before I left. This meant that I had no idea what kind of dye to use in order to match the rest of my fabric. I incorporated Marie’s slit at the wrist to facilitate hand washing, but left out the Velcro at the back of the neck. I have long hair and was concerned about trying to extricate it from the hooks. Because I wasn’t able to dye the fabric, I had to paint it. Paint, however, severely reduces the stretchiness of the fabric. What fit great before paint became a struggle afterwards. If I ever get to take this to a convention, I plan on replacing the bodysuit.

I purchased a basic full face mask from a Halloween store and a set of fake nails, and moved on to paint. I started by matching my dyed fabric color to a color palate, then getting the shade lighter and the shade darker to use for high and lowlights. Because the headpiece was made from white Model Magic, I painted the whole thing with my lowlight color. Next, all of my solid surfaces and the skin suit got a coat of Rustoleum Textured Spray Paint. The dress got a light dusting in order to help blend the textures. I also sprayed a square of scrap spandex. When this dried, I stretched it over plastic lenses for the eye holes in the mask. The lenses themselves were cut from the plastic packaging from a new computer mouse, which had a nice curvature to it. All of my highlights and lowlights were dry brushed and the whole thing stayed in the garage overnight until the paint smell dissipated. Finally, the wings were test fitted into the harness and holes were drilled through both layers of PVC. A ¼” clevis pin prevented the wings from spinning.
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I wore a tank top and jeans under the costume, which meant I had access to my pockets. The skin suit went on first, then the harness. The skirt and blouse came next, then the mask and headpiece. Finally, I put my hands into the gloves and called for help attaching the wings. And then I wandered down to the sidewalk to silently offer candy to passing children.

Techniques I had never used before:
Fabric dye, EVA foam, plaster casting, Model Magic, sewing stretchy fabric, spray paint, high/lowlights
 
Those angels are freaking scary I bet you could hang out in a sculpture garden and freak people out.
 
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