Playing Catch Up

I realized while posting about my dragon that I never shared my Halloween costumes from 2011! I received a commission for a custom sexy Tron costume that consumed most of my creative time so I finished tweaking my Mord'Sith costume and put together Storm from the X-men.

First I'll show you Tron! So this was a long distance project with one fitting for pattern drafting and one final fitting. Not the ideal way to work, especially with something like this stretch vinyl!
Here you see the outfit laid out neatly on the bed:

My client ordered a Tron disc from Amazon that we used to conceal and carry the power source for the elwire used to light up her bra, waist cincher and thigh wraps. I drilled a hole through it for the power switch to come through.

She was nice enough to share some candid shots of her night out on the town :) One of these days we'll get together for a professional photo shoot and I'll be sure to share when that happens!

Now for the updated Mord'Sith with some new straps and other subtle stuff:

And finally my Storm costume :D I wore white contacts and gave a disclaimer for my super pale skin ;) No one seemed to hold it against me that I failed at looking like a proper Amazonian princess.

Taking Shape

So far so good! I had to modify the pattern shape for the 'tummy/tail' piece because I misgauged how the shapes would work together. I simply removed the tail portion from the tummy pattern and it came together fine :) As you can see above, I grew rather fond of my wing frames and was no longer willing to hide them inside the wing fabric so I've hand sewn them to the underside of the wing. I believe my next step will be to sew the head with ears and horns. At that point it should be time to draft the patterns for arms and legs and get them sewn up. Can you tell I'm stalling on building the armature? :D I honestly think it's necessary but I won't lie, it's the newest-to-me technique in this whole critter and I'm giving it lots of thought!

Obviously I did not complete my dragon in time for AnomalyCon, the steampunk convention in Denver. I knew I was pushing it and having to pick a large number of stitches when revamping the tail pattern pretty much doomed me to be off schedule. Nonetheless, I am having a blast with him and can't wait to see him coming to life!

I got new photos from Don Searle of FantaScenes photography with my author friend J.A. Campbell (check out her blog here)

It's Like a Messenger Pigeon

I've recently been bitten by the muse with inspiration from a fellow artist and suggestions from another to create a steampunk flavored shoulder dragon. I'm headed to AnomalyCon next weekend and thought he would make a perfect addition to my day costume. To give you a little background, the character I've developed for design inspiration is something like a Pony Express rider. A messenger of sorts. I chose to make Victorian underwear into outerwear using faux tooled leather, and micro suede. This year I'm adding to the costume with a lace and leather dust mask, proper message tubes for my satchel and my carrier pigeon. I mean dragon.

Here's last year's rigg:

This year I've signed up for the whole weekend, including a grand ball so I wanted two costumes and more detail than I had time to come up with last year. I'm a bit of a snob in that I cringe at gears for purely decorative purposes. I'd really like for them to at least LOOK like they might have a purpose. Unfortunately, I am not mechanically minded.

Here's the inspiration for my dragon:

He was built by Dragontry- find more like him at http://www.dragontry.com/ She is a superb artist and her dragons are not only one of a kind but meticulously built and very reasonably priced. Alas, I am a die hard do-it-yourselfer possessed of a huge stash of fabric and minimal funds for bribing other artists to do work for me. So with a giant nod to the brilliance of Dragontry, I am making my own pattern and my very own dragon *crosses fingers*.

Here's what I've got so far:

I've already decided the tail portion of the pattern will need to be modified. I'm waiting to draft the patterns for arms and legs until I have the body sewn so I can see what shape will best help my dragon to perch securely and also so that I may have a better sense of scale. More updates to come!