Welcome to the return of Fashion Friday!
I know nobody asked for it, but I miss it, and so here we are once again. As I've been busy in the land of Costume Creation, you can expect a lot of posts on the matter for awhile lol.
Today's topic is Costume Creation and how it relates to fashion, using my recently created Link Costume. Typically as part of the design process you start with dozens of little thumb drawings showing a variety of variations of the same design. From there you edit it down only picking the best designs and turning them into renderings, or colored, detailed drawings. It is from these drawings you base your patterns of. This is still pretty typical in the world of costumes, only depending on the type of show or event you're costuming you'll have a lot of reference photos for the period. But cosplay, now that's a tad different.
In the world of cosplay you get to skip the first two steps. Because renderings already exist, as well as dozens of variations of the same costume. Which is why I always ask the client for a reference photo. If they don't offer one then I take the liberty to choose my own photo and I usually pick one that I feel comfortable creating.
In this case the client did send me a reference photo, the one pictured above. My first step is to analyze the photo and break down each layer, making assumptions for what I can't see, and focusing on what I can see. What do you see when looking at this image?
There area couple of really important things to note. I usually make a list that looks something like this.
White collared shirt, laces up front with fitted sleeves.
Gold scoop neck under tunic, sleeves and hem about an inch to inch and a half longer than over tunic.
Green over tunic, has odd shaped neckline with decorative leafing detail. Sleeves have decorative lacing detail, sides have slits and more lacing details.
I almost always like to work from the bottom up, the bottom layers require the most assumptions as they're lacking the most details being hidden under multiple layers. In this case the shirt.
Can you believe I didn't take a single picture of the shirt by itself!!!? I've looked everywhere somehow I forgot. Anyways I used a basic shirt tunic pattern that I often use for period clothing. This particular pattern doesn't have a yoke, and has fitted sleeves which is why I liked it for this project. I drafted a taller collar and used a heavy duty interfacing so it would stand like in the photo. I typically try to stick to natural fibers when doing anything period themed as it's truer to the nature of the garment. In this case I went with a cotton muslin. I sewed several button holes in for the lacing. Which tie at the bottom, giving the same X shape you see in the picture. I used pre packaged bias tape for the laces. I could make it myself, but for 1.99 why would I lol.
The next step was the under tunic, I got lucky and found this cotton canvas that had the exact same pattern as the reference photo. If I had not found this my plan was to use a good mesh fabric, or even a burlap that colored to match. This was also a pattern that I've used over and over again. The front and back are exactly the same, shoulder seam, side seam, done. The neckline is bound with bias tape, and then the sleeves attached.
For the over tunic I used the same pattern as the under tunic as my base. I had to make everything larger as it n to go over three layers. I also had to take into account for the lacing which would cause everything to shrink slightly. Starting with the neckline, I drew it out several times on paper, them pinned it to the under tunic until I was happy with the shape, this I then transferred to paper. I also had to create a facing too finish the raw edge which mirrored the shape.
The sleeves and sides were the next part. The sleeves I created a facing which I then cut into flipping to the wrong side, so the slit is self faced, I then added buttonholes to house the laces which tie under the little pocket at the top. Once this was done I could them attach them to the tunic, whose sides were left open. The sleeves were then sewn shut and finished. The tunic sides were hemmed, I created more buttonholes so the sides would lace up, these I sewed down for added stability so he wouldn't have to worry about his tunic coming untied.
Returning to the front I cut out little leaves that I then sewed down along the front. If I owned an embroidery machine this would have been embroidered, but I don't which is why I opted for the decorative leaf appliques. Even in cosplay there's room for interpretation!
And here he is, the client all dressed up, I love when clients send me pictures of them in costume. So how did I do? Are there any changes you would have made? Feel free to let me know!
Also if you haven't had a chance, feel free to go to my shop and have a look around! Every little bit counts, thank you!