Costume-making 101: The next steps

So here we are a week on from Comic-Con - thoroughly enjoyable day meeting a huge number of like-minded people out to demonstrate their costume and prop-making skills.  Next time, Friday trip, not a Saturday; too hot, very crowded and queueing for nearly two hours to buy food and get cash out...  Still, onward and upward to May's event!

Where next then for the intrepid adventures of the costume blog?  Well, a few things to learn from this year's convention and a host of new projects to get started on!

First off, little 'un is sorted for costume now as she chose to wear the brown corduroy overcoat I made earlier on in the year - somehow despite being made for me it actually fit her quite well...  teamed with the pirate shirt I'd made, the sash and belt arrangements from her previous outfit, she was sorted:

The other half seemed to be fine too, until we realised that her coat had ripped at the shoulder seam, largely I imagine to it having been made in a bit of a hurry and not designed to fit over a corset the way that she wears it.

Rather than re-making the same coat, we decided to see what else was out there pattern-wise, in no small way owing to how difficult the previous coat was to put together!

Don't get me wrong, it looks great once finished, but after making and fully lining two of these coats I'm really looking forward to trying something else out - there are so many fiddly panels to get right...

After some searching, we came up with this one:

McCall's M6819, upon further investigation the only pattern apparently MORE complicated than the one we'd used previously...  We'll be going more for the look in the left picture above and I plan to make the bodice/coat and skirts separately to make the whole thing easier to store and wash.  Six meters of fabric should be fun!

Now I liked how my short coat had worked out - this picture especially as it was taken as about a dozen people asked to take photos of me and the missus, thinking we worked for Ubisoft and were there to promote the new Assassin's Creed game - I'll take that as a compliment!

My problem with this design was that to my mind it strayed too far from the original design aesthetic I'd been trying to re-create - everyone else had something based around a long, flowing coat while mine was just too different.   And the hood, I still haven't perfected that. Back to Google and I ended up buying a new pattern:

I liked the look of the lapels, the length and the added bonus of a removable cape, so this'll be my next attempt to get back to the design roots.  I'll be sticking with the colour palette from my previous coat with the main colour being a dark blue, lined with a mixture of dark brown and a paler blue, though doubtless this will change as I get further along.  

Last but not least, my friend Scott's costume.  Unfortunately he wasn't able to join us this time at the convention, but I was planning to update his look either way.  His costume was the first one I'd finished:

As my designs have progressed and taken a slightly different route Scott's Ezio-inspired waistcoat has definitely started to show it's age, plus I'm not happy with the quality of the work compared to the standard I work to now.  I was planning to sit down with Scott to work out what he wanted to go for this time around but decided in the end to make life easier (for me) and remove the element of choice.

This is what I bought as a base pattern:

Burda 2471 - I've wanted a copy of this for some time.  The Napoleonic French line infantry uniform is one of the most recognisable and beautifully designed military coats I've ever seen and I'm really looking forward to giving it a try.  I actually bought two copies of this pattern while I had the chance, that way I can produce Scott's new coat and have my own copy to make for pleasure.  Handily, this pattern also features a waistcoat and trousers, should that be a direction we choose to go in.  Now all we need is a colour choice, as I've already been given a definite "no" to green...

And as always, there's still the question of the dreaded hood.  I've made six now, none of which I'm entirely happy with.  If anyone ever perfects the Assassin's Creed style hood, trust me, sell the patterns and you'll make a fortune from nerds like me.  Some frantic and inspired late-night pattern designing has left me with this:

I'll be putting together a test run soon, so hopefully an update to follow and more on the next round of coats for next year's convention season!

Until next time.