Maria - Assassin's Creed Movie WIP

Hey! Haven't posted here in months, but I'm about to start my next ~big~ project so thought I may as well log it here!

I'm just starting my build of the character Maria from the new Assassin's creed movie that is coming out this December.

Here are some photos of the character! As you can see it is relatively embroidery heavy, which I love, which is 100% the reason I am making this (michele carragher on point as per usual)



And a couple of days ago I was lucky enough that Ubisoft released this amazing 'cosplay guide' image with super high res references!


I've decided to make my version of the costume with the colours of the first image, i.e. what the materials look like in real life, as I think it's such a shame they always put filters on and water it down :/

I started by sketching out how I think the arm embroidery looks, so I could plan what beads etc I would be using! The day after I did my sketch however they released the cosplay references so I had to completely redo it as you can see below!

- my original sketch using the limited references from the trailer

View attachment arm embroidery copynotext.jpg - my redone sketch

Aaaaand I have now spent my entire pay check ordering beads off the internet so I can get started. Oops.

Apart from that I haven't done any actual making yet! Am just gathering materials for a bit, as I can't properly start the costume until I've finished with the one I am making at the moment

I did however buy my fabric for the hood and the 3rd layer of skirt panels (because, to me at least, looks to be a very similar fabric).
It's this gooorgeous navy blue basketweave chenille. And it's so soft. And has such a lovely weight to it!



So that's all for now, just really wanted to start off this thread so that when I do start making it soon I will actually make myself post to here haha!

*Follows*

I've been thinking about making this too (currently doing research), but not sure if I'll have time to get it done before the film's released. I'll be eagerly following your progress though

TEXTURES!! Sorry, I just appreciate when people think about textures from the start The beading and the chenille are going to pop and create different focus points at different distances

(Also- squee for your icon )

illumis said:

*Follows*

I've been thinking about making this too (currently doing research), but not sure if I'll have time to get it done before the film's released. I'll be eagerly following your progress though

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thank you!!

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mdb said:

TEXTURES!! Sorry, I just appreciate when people think about textures from the start The beading and the chenille are going to pop and create different focus points at different distances

(Also- squee for your icon )

Click to expand...

Yes!!! This has been 100% my aim while buying stuff for this costume! I feel if the fabrics didn't have texture the outfit would look.... 'costumey' and flat (haha thank you!! I did Aloy in october 2015 )

So I haven't started ay making yet as I'm still gathering materials. But here are materials:

I bought various coloured linens to make the majority of the rest of the outfit (the middle skirt layers, the cape and the top). The top has a couple of different coloured fabrics with a lace/crochet??? fabric layered over the top. The side panels seem to be a beigey/salmony colour fabric with black on top, and the front middle seems to be black with bronzey coloured version of the laceon top. So I'll be painting the lace with a bronze fabric paint for the middle bit! Found the lace (importantly it's non-stretch) for a steal at £1 a metre! And it's probably as close as I can get to the lace design on the costume bar crocheting it myself.



The other fabric I have now acquired is for the back of the sleeves. This means all I need to buy now is velvet for the front of the sleeves which I will be embossing, the gold fabric for the waspie and the fabric for the trousers, which seems to be a black paisley???

I had a NIGHTMARE trying to find a fabric for the back of the sleeves. Finding a fabric in similar colours with a suitable pattern was so ******* hard.


After literal days of trawling the internet I found this beautiful indian block print cotton. When it arrived I tinted it blue with watered down acrylic paint. Not the most ideal method, but I'm not planning on getting this costume wet, and I didn't want to risk it being dyed too dark. Note: don't do what my idiot self did and accidentally use oil paints at first. Turns out oil paints is DAMN DIFFICULT to remove from your hands when it's smeared all over it. -_-


I am VERY happy with the final colour result! I don't mind that the pattern has the dark outline, as it means it will be easier to see the pattern from far away, which is always helpful when you'll be wearing the costume on a stage as I will be haha!

Am away from home at the moment, so am hoping all my embroidery supplies will have arrived when I get back! Can't wait to jump in

Woohoo actual progress!

My beads arrived today. So so many. And sequins. As well as the ones for the embroidery, my brown horn hair pipe beads arrived for the front of Maria's top - they're so pretty!!


Have had nothing to do this week, so I dove head first into the embroidery! I started by sketching the general shape and size and layout of the piece with fabric paint onto some black organza in an embroidery hoop. This is a technique I learned from Michele Carragher's website (the embroiderer for Game of Thrones). You do all the embroidery onto organza, then carefully cut it out then sew on the finished garment.


aaaaand in about 3 days of almost solid work here's what I was able to achieve:

I took a bit of creative license with the turquoise teardrop sections, as even with the HD images it was very difficult to see what they were, so I decided to do them as bullion wire goldwork so I could use some more ~fancy~ techniques. So I sewed layers of felt on the shape, then couched lengths of turquoise bullion wire over the top. If you look closely it's very obvious which was my first try at the technique and which was my latest (hint, starting from the bottom and going up), but I am SO please with the result! I can't really capture it in photos but the sections catch the light beautifully and have gorgeous iridescence. Its the same with the round tigers eye beads.



I can't wait to do more progress on this costume! May have to take a couple of weeks break as I have been neglecting two other costumes that I need finished very very soon, but once those are done I can jump into the full construction of this costume!

I'm finished! Now to start doing the actual sewing so I can procrastinate doing the other sleeve embroidery haha!

Wow, that's super impressive!

Progress Am rushing this costume to a wearable but unfinished in the slightest level to wear to a small convention this weekend

Have sewn the top with the overlay of lace and linen, painted the middle panel of lace, and sewn it together with fancy leatherette piping There's a zip in the back, which will be hidden by the cape! Also spent hours sewing on all the pipe beads to the top. My god did that take a long time -_-


Skirts have been made and attached to the top. (for some reason I don't have a picture of the last layer of skirts but hey ho. They're made from the same fabric as the hood). I painted the middle layer skirt panels to try and match the pattern! Looked to me as if it had been painted through a net fabric so i.. did that.

Also finished the hood embroidery, and this morning made the hood! Still have quite a bit of detailing with tiny gold threads to be done on the hood but for this weekend it will do.


Today I'm making the corset, however I don't have time to screenprint the pattern on the fabric in time for this weekend, so it will just be plain for now, then I'll un pick the sewing after this weekend and do it then XD And then tomorrow I'll be awake for probably 36 hours as I do the 2nd sleeve embroidery start to finish! Oh and make the sleeves. sigh.

That hood is gorgeous​. I can't wait to see everything put together! You are putting a phenomenal amount of work into this!

Yrien said:

That hood is gorgeous​. I can't wait to see everything put together! You are putting a phenomenal amount of work into this!

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thank you so much!! There's still tons of detailing and gold thread embroidery to do on the hood but I'll do it at a later date haha.

It's been a slow week! Have been having a holiday

I embossed the velvet for the sleeves with a square grid pattern I carved out of rubber myself! Was surprisingly easy and turned out really well in my opinion!



There was a tiny convention on this weekend so I decided to wear what I have of the costume so far (no pics of the full costume as I'm planning on unpicking and remaking the majority of what I haven't posted here haha, so will post that progress when I do). I was very surprised by how comfy the costume was! It's very warm, what with the many layers of upholstery fabric, but in terms of movement it's a breeze! Which is fantastic, as it always sucks when you're stiff and awkward with a costume

I used alcohol based paints for the tattoos, and it worked so well. The markings didn't smudge or move all day, even with me sweating so much because of the heat XD


Should have more substantial progress soon!

Whoops its been a long time since my last post! Took a break from Maria so I could work on my Flemeth from dragon age (which is all finished now!) but now I only have 27 days until Maria has to be finished whoops!

Here's a picture I took last week of everything I had done at that point. Am remaking the corset so I can print the fabric and put boning in, and need to resize the sleeves as they're too loose.


This week I've been manic with work on Maria! I started the embroidery on the back of the hood (i need to go out and buy more gold and blue embroidery threads before i can finish it):


I also made Maria's trousers in about an hour went the super professional route of cutting up an old pair to make a pattern haha. You can't really see it in the finished pic, but the fabric is a lovely paisley pattern, just like Maria's.


Earlier this week I started the leather work for the costume - I've never worked with leather before so it was a bit of a learning curve! For the bracers, I used 1.5mm thick veg tanned leather. Stamping was super fun! Took about 3 attempts with paper to get the shape right however haha. I then dyed the leather a dark navy blue, and once I had finished all the criss cross bits with faux leather fabric and twine on top, I dry brushed a little silver acrylic mixed with navy over the stamped sections of leather, just to highlight the depth of the sections. I think I will replace the toggles used to fasten it, as they are the wrong shape - marias are circular and when I was at the haberdashery I stupidly bought the toggles from (incorrect) memory instead of double checking my ref images.



and here's the reference for the bracers:


aaaand today I have spent my time making Maria's necklace/bib thing!
There are these 24k gold coated ceramic beads you can get that would have been just PERFECT for the necklace, but alas nowhere would ship to the uk without paying about 40 quid postage haha. So I bought turquoise coloured ones and painted them gold this morning with rub n buff. My theory is if the paint chips, then the turquoise colour will go well with the outfit



And just before logging on here I finished the necklace, thus covering my living room floor with feather clippings haha. Have a couple of tiny metal trinkets I need to add to the feather part still, but for now I'm really happy with it!


Hoping to have made good progress on the 2nd arm embroidery piece by the end of the week

That is looking SO good! I love all the details. And WOW does the stamping look great!

Yrien said:

That is looking SO good! I love all the details. And WOW does the stamping look great!

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thank you so much!! I'm really happy it worked out

Today is corset day re patterned the new one, made the lining with the boning channels in it (i used a lovely synthetic whalebone as recommended to me by a friend :3 ) and have screen printed the fabric. Honestly, doing this screen printing has been the most challenging part of the entire costume -_-





Going to let it all dry fully before I sew it all together though, so may do some more beading this evening (it never ends.)

Yesterday I also completed the hood 100%! So much metallic thread embroidery :') but its very pretty and sparkley so I happily suffered. While in the fabric store I found some beads that were far more accurate for part of the embroidery than what I had already used, so I unpicked them and resewed with the new! Typical that literal weeks of googling does nothing but I found them in the corner shop -_-



And the finished hood! I have a link to a little video too, showing off all the details on it https://www.facebook.com/amazoniancosplay/videos/1044848588969595/



Onwards!

This is great! I saw a Maria at Toronto FanExpo over the weekend but wasn't able to get a pic as we were going in opposite directions across a busy street. I can't wait to see how yours turns out. I love all the details!

Long time no update! And it's finished!!

SO I made the belt and the belt trinkets straight after my last post.

I got two bog standard plain belts from primark, stamped them to have the correct design, and did a proper Frankenstein job on them. I then made all the beaded trinkets (trying to be as close as possible to the real ones with the supplies I had), and made the (i presume) smoke bombs and holders with polystyrene balls covered in red tissue paper. I made their harness things from craft foam (but asap will switch them to leather because they keep ripping haha)



I also finished off all the beading on the front of the top. From looking at the official references, I thought I WAS done - it looked like it was just the horn pipe beads, and then the chipped orange beads in places, with the brown thread over the pipe beads. But noooo. On the left is the shot from the official refs, and on the right is a shot taken when the costume was on display at Gamescom. Look at the blue stitching in between all the beads, NOT TO MENTION the two round beads in between each one. This top was going to be damn heavy. So I spent a day adding all the new beads and stitching



Before and after:



Next, I finished off the embroidery on the sleeves, (i.e. made the entirety of the second one in two days), and finshed the corset! I made my own piping for it, which I have never done before (turns out i love piping) and slip stitched the front and the boned lining together so there is no visible stitching



I then made her sword from foam and worbla,

refs



Theeeen I made the other leather bracer (which was far better this time), the hidden blades (i ripped out the mechanism from the Black Flag replica, and used worbla and polymorph to build mine, did the final bit of embroidery on the bottom of the skirt panels, made the cape, and then I was DONE!!!



I was making this costume to enter into the UK qualifiers for the European Cosplay Gathering last weekend, and I came second! So unfortunately I didn't qualify (next year i'm going for it), but two of my best friends won the group spot yay!

I also managed to do a small photoshoot with my finished costume last week, so here are some photos of it! They're all taken and edited by me (or rather the walking tripod of my mother), apart from the couple specified which were edited by some friends. I have really enjoyed making this costume, and have been really enjoying wearing it as well! Hoping I can wear it to the premiere of the film thank you for following my progress!

- definitely my fave :3





- edited by Kyle McVean Photography

- edited by Kyle McVean Photography