Disney's Belle & Beast Costume- Light Parade Versions

[TeresaMRoberts]

So my daughter wants to be Belle. I can't make a standard costume it isn't in my genes lol I've been inspired by the Disney's Electrical Parade costumes :devil I've sketched my design ordered most of my supplies from China. Frankly is WAYYYYyyyyyyyyy cheaper. It was going to cost a fortune for all the LED lights I wanted to put into this dress not to mention the conductive thread I need.... But neither here nor there we go where we need to, to get our supplies. I'm thinking about using this costume as my "application" to work in Disney's costuming department. Its my dream job :love. So I plan on taking LOTS of pictures and Notes and step by step process on how I do this costume. (the Halloween costume contest doesn't hurt either) I'm going to TRY to get it done for this halloween BUTTTTT its really going to be for next Halloween. I'm not going to rush it, I'm going to make sure I do it right, the way I want. NO SHORT CUTS!

Here is my design drawing. First is fabric colors/design. Second is my Lighting ideas. Yes I'll need two batter backs thus far... One for LEDS and One for EL wire! I CAN'T WAIT TO START!!!

 

[Buzz]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Good luck!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Working on programming for the lights that will be in a sequence. wish I had more than 20 ports but I think can make it work

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume


My EL Wire came this will be made into pipping wear the seams meet in the bodice of the dress. Sense it won't be side by side with the LEDs and the LEDs will be under fabric I don't think the LEDs will drowns out the glow from the EL Wire. Fingers crossed just waiting on all other supplies!!!!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Ok so after drawing out a swirling pattern I realized I wanted to use more than 20 lights... So how do I do this lol So the only thing I could figure is to use TWO boards and then delay the programming on one so that they are timed just right so to continue the "swirl" design. So the lights on here are just to test the "programming" and not the shape or even the kind of light i'm using. After a while I think I finally got the timing right. I might get greedy and try some additional programming but just in case I'll save this just as it is in case I can't get the timing right if i try to make the designs more advanced lol

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Alrighty!! Getting excited!! Most of my stuff is here from china ( so much cheaper to buy my supplies!!) sorry USA I love you but I can't afford paying 95 cents per LED light when I plan on using hundreds plus I I buy them in usa they were probably still made in china anyway!! Anywho paid between 2-4 cents per LED. Big difference right!!! My sheer gold fabric came in and I hooked up my EL wire and I think the piping will look awesome!!!! Here are some pics!!
EL wire off


EL WIRE ON



What my piping will look like during the day


What my piping will look like at night!!!


Supper excited and ready to get to work on this!!!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

So I got the lining of the dress put together


And this is the beautiful brocade fabric I'm making the bodice with

 

[Miker]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Looks great so far!!! You are setting the bar wicked high for your daughter...and I LOVE THAT!!!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Disney's Belle Costume

Guess what came in the mail today!!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Got the bodice sewn together with the EL wire in the piping.
This is it off


And this is it on


Usually my ideas like this sound easy but I run into issue that make the crazy difficult! This time this was CRAZY EASY!!!

 

[Twananas]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Looks very nice so far!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Update, I got the muslin skirt put together and the interfacing ironed on. I used different colored drafting chalk to draw the lighting design and the wiring diagram on one side of the muslin skirt.
.



I'm using a faux silk taffeta for the top layer of the skirt. I've got it put together and safety pined to the muslin later to hold in place. I sewed a lot of the long straight lines with conductive thread with long leads before I attached the top layer. I used my sewing machine because it was faster and neater for long distances!

I've stared poking the lights through. This is very time consuming but I really hope it's worth it in long run!!!



I've not seen any projects of this scale using the conductive thread! I really really hope it works once it's all wired!!!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Yup conductive thread on large scale doesn't work. I tested it in small distances and works fine. So I'm having to use thin gauge wire. 24 gauge speaker wire so it's coated and don't harp worry about crossing wires. And I'm using solder to connect them.

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Disney's Belle Costume


I've got about 200 hundred lights installed, I'd say it's about almost half way though the lights my fingers are KILLING ME!!! Feels like I've been playing guitar non stop for a week ( I won't play for years then pick it up again so it's the closest pain I could compare it too! ) my guess is because the wire is about the same width, so much clipping and manipulating with the needle nose pliers. I'm going to work on wiring to make sure there no issues so far

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Ok so I didn't get it done in time for this past Halloween. I wasn't any where near putting all the lights in the dress with blisters on my fingers when I realized it just wasn't going to happen. And I didn't want a rushed mess of job. I want this dress to be a Beautiful Master piece that will get me into DISNEY's Costume department! lol So I took a break for a little while picked up some Christmas crafting side work. So now I'm back to work on this project. I have a video of what I have wired in this dress so far. I haven't hooked up the central battery back so I have to switch the test battery pack in the middle of the video to show both wiring. I also only hooked up one lighting board so far to the swirl so its only half complete but you get a good idea. The video shows from the back of the skirt so you see all the wiring (which you wont be able to when the dress is done) but you can still see the lights through the fabric

Also I've decided to use more EL Wire for the rose in the front instead of LEDs. I should be getting the Red and Green EL wire I ordered tomorrow. I can hook all 3 colors up to the same batter pack inverted for the EL wire. I've also decided to switch the EL wire in the front of the bodice in the piping to yellow instead of white. we'll see how it turns out!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Disney's Belle Costume

The EL Wire I ordered came in today! I made a rose out of it for the front of the dress this is what it looks like all lit up! Just need to hand see it to the front with translucent thread.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Almost done with swirl, and sewed the rose into the front of the dress. Now this will have a layer of white organza over top of all these lights but this it what it looks like so far.

 

[FANGS]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

Wow! Super cool!

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

 

[TeresaMRoberts]

Re: Disney's Belle Costume

I'm still working on wiring all the lights I found the perfect mini basic on/off toggle switch to hide in the bodice of the dress. I made a pageant dress, with strings of mini LED lights in the skirt of the dress. Worked well but you can't do programming the way I do with this dress. But for a beginning project was perfect. I hooked it too a batter box with on off switch. Simple enough except to turn it on and off I had to crawl under the skirt. This is something she can turn on and off at any time with or without my help. SOOOOOOo much better. AND after LOTS and LOTS of research I believe I can run both the LED and the EL wire off the same battery pack. So i'm using 3 C batteries this time since SOOOO many more lights and circuit boards I didn't want the batteries to die too fast. and I don't want so many batteries it makes the dress crazy heavy. But I found an 5v EL inverter that got a USB plug on it. I'm hoping to splice the USB cord hook it strait to the power source. I hoping that 4.5v will be enough to run it. Fingers crossed! Worse case I can hook up its own secret button to a separate power source ( i also found one that runs off a 9V battery) thats my back up. But I'm excited because i though I was going to have to crawl under the dress to turn on the EL wire and either way I wont have to!

I also think I'm going to redesign the top of the dress. Instead of the yellow fluffy pieces that go around the top of the dress around the shoulders I'm going to do something more like below. Serves me right I was watching The Stepford Wives while working on this dress and admired the one at the end of the movie. Then I went to get White organza for the skirt and found a fabric that would be perfect for this!