megabethbob
New Member
Hiya! I'm currently in the process of making Cersei Lannister's 'Purple Wedding' costume from the TV Show Game of Thrones.
I haven't seen anyone else on this forum make this outfit, and I really wanted to write up my process
I am making this costume to wear to London Super Comic Con in February 2016, where I will be competing in the Costume Championship with my friend Helen Alice Cosplay wearing Margaery's wedding dress.
Here is the outfit! As you can see it has super intricate embroidery, complicated hairstyling which is way beyond my terrible abilities, and a weird cone shaped neckline.
And here are some close ups of the gorgeous embroidery from Michele Carragher's (the show's embroiderer) website
Flat design of it that I whipped up in photoshop to make my embroidering easier
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have started off with the embroidery, as I have never done any before in my life, so it's a new endeavor for me that is going to take the longest haha!
I started by painting a rough design of what I would be doing on the organza, a trick I learned from Michele's site. In this pic I had also added the flower shaped beads (still amazed I found something so similar) and the gold and red rope/cord/trim stuff that's in the middle. I also sewed on a layer of gold felt, to build the stumpwork lion's head on top of.
I then started to build up the lion's face using different coloured embroidery thread. This shows my feeling perfectly
The 3D face! All I had to do to it now was put in some different tones to make the fur look better. I am SO proud of how 3 dimensional I got the face! (It looks better IRL) Also the tounge and teeth are a favourite with me :3
I then did that. And added the mane. I did this with gold bullion wire thread, then added a couple of strands of gold beads on top. I also added all the red crystal beads around the lion.
I then shaped some gold trim into a 3D crown shape, and sewed it on. I also spent 3 days sewing on 5 million tiny metal rings to the design and wanting to kill myself.
Today while on a long train journey I made a start with the beading of the two lions to the side. I screwed up the left one, by going too far on the belly of the lion, buuut it shouldn't be too noticable and it's too late to change. The danger of beading without a reference in front of you at all times!
And that's as far as I've got so far with the embroidery! I have everything I need so it shouldn't take tooooo long. Will be working more on the two lions tomorrow. (I have a 3 hour train journey to look forward to!) I don't even want to think about the fact that I am going to have to make a second, identical but flipped applique for the other shoulder :') The things we do for competitons haha
The Corset
My partner in crime is a corset wizard, and we decided that the best way to give the dress the shape it needs, with the sticky-uppy collar, was to design a corset that was boned up to the top of the collar. I will then build up the dress over this. I let Helen do this part yesterday and today. (she did all the following in less than 8 hours work??? magic)
First she took my measurements and drew them onto her mannequin cover (and complained about how 'long' i am...) then drafted up a quick mock up of a pattern for the top. We then fiddled with it until it had the shape we wanted, before she made the corset from coutil.
WIP:
Finished Corset Design:
I now have the added bonus of a lovely waist :3
In the end we used a strip of flat steel boning in the very front, 2 on each side at the back, and along the shoulder bits of the collar. The other 8 pieces of boning are spiral steel. We had seen a couple of ladies make this dress using boning before, but we feel that they used too much (i.e. a new strip of boning every 2 cm) and while the end dresses did look great, and the collar was held up, we felt the actual bodice was way too stiff and bulky. Too much boning makes it shapeless haha! Our priority was for me being able to move well (as I have to perform on stage in the costume + wear it all day), and to not use too much boning so it wouldn't be stiff, and would be very figure-hugging.
Aaaaand that's everything I have done so far! I have ordered my lace front wig, and have all the beads I need to do the embroidery. I ordered some second hand suede ankle boots from ebay (even though we never see Cersei's shoes while in this dress, the only reference shot I've ever seen shows some little red heeled boots) which I will be painting red. They have a lovely pattern embossed in them!
Over the christmas period I will be drafting and making the actual dress, and come january I will be sculpting and resin casting cersei's necklace! I'm starting to get really hyped to wear this costume haha!
In the meantime before my next big update post, you can follow my work at
https://www.facebook.com/megabethbobcosplay/
or
https://www.instagram.com/megabethbob/
Thanks for reading! I hope I have more work to post soon haha!
I haven't seen anyone else on this forum make this outfit, and I really wanted to write up my process
I am making this costume to wear to London Super Comic Con in February 2016, where I will be competing in the Costume Championship with my friend Helen Alice Cosplay wearing Margaery's wedding dress.
Here is the outfit! As you can see it has super intricate embroidery, complicated hairstyling which is way beyond my terrible abilities, and a weird cone shaped neckline.
And here are some close ups of the gorgeous embroidery from Michele Carragher's (the show's embroiderer) website
Flat design of it that I whipped up in photoshop to make my embroidering easier
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have started off with the embroidery, as I have never done any before in my life, so it's a new endeavor for me that is going to take the longest haha!
I started by painting a rough design of what I would be doing on the organza, a trick I learned from Michele's site. In this pic I had also added the flower shaped beads (still amazed I found something so similar) and the gold and red rope/cord/trim stuff that's in the middle. I also sewed on a layer of gold felt, to build the stumpwork lion's head on top of.
I then started to build up the lion's face using different coloured embroidery thread. This shows my feeling perfectly
The 3D face! All I had to do to it now was put in some different tones to make the fur look better. I am SO proud of how 3 dimensional I got the face! (It looks better IRL) Also the tounge and teeth are a favourite with me :3
I then did that. And added the mane. I did this with gold bullion wire thread, then added a couple of strands of gold beads on top. I also added all the red crystal beads around the lion.
I then shaped some gold trim into a 3D crown shape, and sewed it on. I also spent 3 days sewing on 5 million tiny metal rings to the design and wanting to kill myself.
Today while on a long train journey I made a start with the beading of the two lions to the side. I screwed up the left one, by going too far on the belly of the lion, buuut it shouldn't be too noticable and it's too late to change. The danger of beading without a reference in front of you at all times!
And that's as far as I've got so far with the embroidery! I have everything I need so it shouldn't take tooooo long. Will be working more on the two lions tomorrow. (I have a 3 hour train journey to look forward to!) I don't even want to think about the fact that I am going to have to make a second, identical but flipped applique for the other shoulder :') The things we do for competitons haha
The Corset
My partner in crime is a corset wizard, and we decided that the best way to give the dress the shape it needs, with the sticky-uppy collar, was to design a corset that was boned up to the top of the collar. I will then build up the dress over this. I let Helen do this part yesterday and today. (she did all the following in less than 8 hours work??? magic)
WIP:
Finished Corset Design:
I now have the added bonus of a lovely waist :3
In the end we used a strip of flat steel boning in the very front, 2 on each side at the back, and along the shoulder bits of the collar. The other 8 pieces of boning are spiral steel. We had seen a couple of ladies make this dress using boning before, but we feel that they used too much (i.e. a new strip of boning every 2 cm) and while the end dresses did look great, and the collar was held up, we felt the actual bodice was way too stiff and bulky. Too much boning makes it shapeless haha! Our priority was for me being able to move well (as I have to perform on stage in the costume + wear it all day), and to not use too much boning so it wouldn't be stiff, and would be very figure-hugging.
Aaaaand that's everything I have done so far! I have ordered my lace front wig, and have all the beads I need to do the embroidery. I ordered some second hand suede ankle boots from ebay (even though we never see Cersei's shoes while in this dress, the only reference shot I've ever seen shows some little red heeled boots) which I will be painting red. They have a lovely pattern embossed in them!
Over the christmas period I will be drafting and making the actual dress, and come january I will be sculpting and resin casting cersei's necklace! I'm starting to get really hyped to wear this costume haha!
In the meantime before my next big update post, you can follow my work at
https://www.facebook.com/megabethbobcosplay/
or
https://www.instagram.com/megabethbob/
Thanks for reading! I hope I have more work to post soon haha!
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