Like always I'm really busy with making costumes. But I haven't made so much progress with my Demon Hunter and my Druid Tier 9, because I had to cancel all my current projects for a special commission: An Alexstrasza costume for all upcoming events of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game in Europe! And yeah, that's right, I got an awesome new job (and quit my old boring office job) and become a member of the wonderful Apotheosis Agency. It was a long, long dream to quit my old job and find something better, something more creative, but I didn't expect getting my dream job. So, I'm still not able to believe it, but all I can say is: AWESOME!
My very first duty was, to create a costume for my upcoming jobs at the european WoW TCG events of Cryptozoic: This costume is Alexstrasza, the Lifebinder from World of Warcraft.
I got this job about 2 months ago and so it was the time when I still... how should I put it... was in my after-Christmas-sweets-time. So, I was still pretty fat and started to work out a lot on my crosstrainer to be get back into shape again. After 2 months of hard work and diets I was pretty successful and already lost over 12 pounds (4 pounds left) and at that time I started my research and plans for the costume.
There were many problems: What materials should I use for the armor? How can I create the pattern at the armor parts? How should I attach the horns and style the wig? How should I create the golden borders at the armor? And many, many more questions. After about 3 weeks of research and experimenting I chose this material for the armor base: EVA foam
I guess it's the same like EVA foam, "Goldy foam" (cosplay.com) or Lion Board. Or it just works in the same way. It's very flexible, durable and you can form it with heat, so it's just perfect for a comfortable armor. Because of the pattern and my good experience with my last costumes I chose my furniture / teflon leather for the cover. And because of all the time I spent researching I started with something I'm well skilled and have fun: Carving expanding foam!
As you can see, my horns were the very first part to get a shape.
Then I tested my learned methods at the first armor part, the head piece, and was very satiesfied with the result. I just used Wonderflex (order this awesome material at the right side, ha ha! XD) for the base, covered it with teflon leather, soldered the patterns with a soldering gun and added shadows with Copic markers.
Now it was time to start with my gem stone experiments and many different mixtures with colors followed:
I searched a long time for the right way and my final decision was this tutorial. In this picutre the blue one was colored with nail polish. And this was the final result:
I'm pretty happy that I got so much time for this costume (3 months) and so I wanted to create this costume as good as possible and just became obessed with it. So, I kept on experimenting with the EVA foam and the right way to create the armor. I started with the bra and sadly it ended in a fail:
Unfortunately I still have many problems with sewing and I'm also pretty bad in creating patterns. This one was just too big, wouldn't fit and was just... wrong. The next version was much better:
As you can see I used an ordinary bra for the base and covered it with teflon leather. Now came the hard part: The golden borders. Again I researched and tried again until I found a way I was satiesfied with:
The method I used to create the borders was very time consuming and I needed a bit of skill and luck with the material to do it right. I cut long stripes with a triangle shape out of the foam and used fluid glue to cover it with stretchy golden fabric. To create these borders burned most of the time I needed for this costume! And this was the result of my work and my diet:
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I'm still working on this costume and so the bra is still not finished, but I kept on working on further armor parts with the same techniques:
That's the current status of my project and as you can see I'm done soon. And I really cannot wait for this day!
I'm not able to focus myself on one goal and just finish one costume part, so I'm always working on different parts at the same time. So I finished my tiara in the same time (all the golden parts you see is just golden painted Wonderflex) and started with my wig.
This time I didn't use a wig with cheap quality (like all my other wigs) from China. No, now I got a wonderful and very durable one (it got a lof of pain later! XD) from the german cosplay shop mycostumes.
And because of all my experiments with it, I was really happy to have chosen this wig. I tortured it with Copic markers (tried to dye it), styled it with hot water, hair dryer and hair straightener and brushed it many, many times. Dispite of this it still looks like new and I was able to find the right technique to style and attach the horns.
So, Benni got a new paint job and did it very well (like always) and it was time to attach them.
The horns were one of my biggest problem and I really tried a lot of methods to fix them: Magnets, bobby pins, hair bands, belts and much more. The final solution was to sew the horns direcly to the wig like in this wonderful progress I found on cosplay.com. So you see guys: Posting progress is something really awesome and you help guys like me with your projects!
After I solved the biggest problem I added the details, styled the wig and was really satiesfied with the result. There are still some tiny things to do, but I guess it looks already nice.
And it's a great feeling to wear them, ha ha! But they are a bit too heavy because of the size of the horns and all the details! I still have to test if I'm able to wear them for a whole day. Hopefully it will work!
Now I only have to show you my cloak (used chiffon and dyed it to make it a bit darker at the bottom) and hope you enjoyed to take a look at my progress. You'll find more at my facebook progress site soon and the finshed costume will be done in the next weeks, too!
And then I had an awesome photoshoot with Andy Kämmer and my Druid Tier 8 costume:
Okay, and I guess now I'm done! More progress will follow soon!
So, follow, like and add me and be busy with your own projects, too! See you next time!
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