Courtesan: Part 2

Sometimes projects go unfinished or changes are never made.  When I posted pictures of the finished courtesan gown I remarked on a few things that I would adjust for the next time I wore it.  I decided to wear this dress again for a different event and I actually made the alterations that I posited.  Here are pictures of the gown in its current incarnation.

Photographer: Marie Arledge

One of the first changes I made was to take some of the fullness out of the skirt.  I feel like it hangs much better now than it did originally.  The fullness of the original dress made it a little poofy rather than letting in hang long which was the look I was going for.

The decision to add chains across the back was purely aesthetic.  I was happy with how the back of the dress turned out originally but I feel like the chains just add a little something. 

Now it seems that the only problem I have is that the dress is too big!  This isn't necessarily a bad problem but it means I either have to make more alterations to it or retire it.

The Scale Dress: Finished Project

First off, apologies for the lack of updates in so long.  I just recently got pictures done of the Snake Dress and the new designs of the Courtesan Dress.  Otherwise I haven't had any new projects to speak of so thus the reason for no posting.

All photos were taken by the lovely and talented Marie Arledge.

With the help of my wonderful and very patient roommate we were able to fit the dress perfectly.  I sewed a bra into the top to help with support.  Originally I planned for it to be high necked like the lace dress but instead I allowed the natural fold of the neckline stand.  It created a really nice look and ultimately I think that a high collar would have been a little too overwhelming. 

My original thought was to lace up the back.  I was going to use a gold-ish chord and large eyelets but I didn't find anything that really matched the way I wanted it to.  I bought some pieces that would work but I wasn't really happy with them.  I mulled over it as I made the dress because the closure would be one of the last things I worried about.  I finally settled on a V with some chain detail.  As you can see it works, though I think it throws off the fit of the dress a bit and I'm not entirely pleased with the final result.  The dress was a success and it certainly worked for the con.  And of course, we are always our own worst critics.









Recently though it's really been bothering me.  I want the dress to fit better across the waist and the bust like it did in the original fittings (in progress photo for reference).  My thoughts on how to achieve this are:

1) My hope is to redo the back entirely.  This means buying more fabric if it is still available.  I shouldn't need that much (1yd, maybe 2).  If I re-cut and sew the back I will probably do a hidden zipper and forgo any back detail.  I think the dress will still be quite elegant.

2) In the case that there isn't more of this fabric I have a couple of thoughts.
           a. The first is to do an insert with some criss-crossing straps and one of those heavy metal zippers up the center for accent.  It's not my first choice but it will do in the event that option 1 doesn't work out.
           b.The other is to do just criss-crossing straps made out of an elastic OR do chain detail that's tight (not pulling but like the top chain) and then put in a hidden zipper up the side for getting in and out of it. 

Man I really need to work on my drawing skills so I can give you a better idea of what's in my head.

Atlanta by Night: The Scale Dress (Fabric)

The other day Vic and I were shopping for fabric so that I can make him a red cassock for AbN.  I didn't really have the money to get the fabric for my scale dress but I figured that since we were there I might as well take a look up and down the aisles to at least get an idea of what I might be able to use to create the look I wanted for the dress.  Little did I know that I was about to encounter my soul-mate of fabrics.  I had seen a couple of gold silks that were lovely but as I rounded the corner of the third or fourth row I came face to face with the most glorious fabric I could ever imagine.  It was perfect.  Gold and bronze and snake-scaled.  I was in love.  I knew that my AbN dress had to be made from this fabric and there was no way it could be any different.  So I looked at the price (30% off of 12.99/yd) and began to think of the quickest way to get this amazing fabric in my life.  Vic offered to split half the cost with me as part of my birthday present and I was confident that I could come up with the other half with no problem.  Success...sort of. 

Well...

Friday I came home to a birthday surprise.  5 yards of the very same fabric I coveted.  Best. birthday. present. EVAR!

How amazing is this fabric!!!!

Four exclamation points.  That's how amazing.

Atlanta by Night: The Scale Dress

So originally I had not planned to make anything new for Atlanta by Night.  Partly because I hadn't really been inspired, partly because of saving money and partly because I've made so many wonderful things that I want to wear again.

Well, lovely people, as you can imagine I wouldn't be writing this post if I hadn't changed my mind.  The dress that I will be making will be inspired by one of the gowns worn by Dame Vaako in The Chronicles of Riddick.  It's all Vic's fault.  Apparently it was on AMC today and he told me that Anat needed her gold dress.  I looked up pictures and immediately concluded that he was right.

Damnit.

Luckily the dresses construction should be fairly simple.  The design is exactly like the lace dress, but with different fabric.  I'd love to do the spine plates but I'm not sure what I would make them out of.  I may try to come up with something that will have a similar effect.  Anyway...pictures of the dress.

 I've uploaded this picture because you can see the back of the dress (the middle one) fairly well.  Now I just need to figure out exactly how I want to accomplish this look.

 The full dress.  I'll have to find some neat jewelry to go with it as well.  Hmmm...

Game on!

I don't generally make costumes for everygame wear.  Instead I like to reserve grand costumes for grand events like conventions.  Part of what drew me to gaming in the first place was the ability to wear fantastic clothes, and I don't mean that in the stylish sense.  The opportunity to create unique looks for each character was very exciting to me.  While it is certainly not the only reason I game I still love designing and creating costumes, and my skills have only improved because of it.

I joined in 2007 and later that year attended my first ICC.  It was in Nashville, TN and I was playing Katherine my, at the time, Ventrue Crone.  Unfortunately not many pictures of this dress exist so this is all you get.  Sad I know.  It was a red halter dress with a low cut back.  I based it on a dress from the Kusheil series.  I also had a rose drawn on my back (sadly no picture of it exists). 

And now we will skip to last year because I don't have any more pictures from my beginning times in MES. 







This bra was made for my original costume design for Anat.  Which consisted of this, snake patterned silky wrap pants and a red belt.  I also wore the top for Grand Masquerade 2010, but there are currently no pictures of the full thing.  I know they exist because I posed for a lot of them but none ever made their way back to me :(  But!  I plan to wear it again for this years Not-so-Grande Swell Masquerade in Atlanta so hopefully there will be pics in the future!

For Anat I began to base costumes off of paintings of Cleopatra.  So I will post the painting as well as the finished costume.

 Obviously the top couldn't be exactly as it was in the painting.  That would be inappropriate <.<

It's hard to see the slits in the skirt from the way that I'm standing but I was really pleased with the shape of the belt.  I still need to find a badass collar though.






For this next one there are no actual pictures of me in the whole outfit.  But I mismatched the pieces at various other conventions so you'll have to use your imagination.  Hey, we pretend to be vampires right?  How hard can it be?

taken by Seraphina

These skirts + this scale bra =

Tada!  Not quite as close to the painting as I had hoped but it's meant to be based off of and not an exact replica.  Also my torso is no where near that long.  I thought the top turned out great and the skirts are multi-functional.  This was the outfit I wore for Grand Masquerade 2011.  I also danced in the white skirt from the costume above and the scale bra on one of the nights as well.  It was a smokin' combo.  I also paired the first coin bra with the blue and red skirts for the second night of XX con (first night was the courtesan dress).

Now for my most successfully executed costume ever!  This dress was completely designed in my head.  I saw a picture of a lace dress in a magazine (it was just the back and the front was actually velvet) and thus the idea was born.  It may also be my most daring dress to date.  Unfortunately there's only one picture and it's not great.  There was one that was taken in the hallway but I lost the card of the guy who took it and I don't know where it ended up.  As a side note I would like to get some photos done is several of these costumes of a more professional variety.

Anyway, the dress...
What you can't see is that the back buttons all the way up with little red buttons.  It was epic.  I need to wear it again *sagenod*