Props and Edits1/20/12Yesterday I bought the molding supplies (resin casting epoxy, liquid latex, resin spray, and SuperSculpey Firm). Using the SuperSculpey, I made a small pyramid just a little over 2 1/2 inches in diameter. I baked it, then painted a few layers of liquid latex over it. I sped up the drying process with my good'ol hair dryer, but I still left it to dry overnight. Today I touched up the inside of the latex mold. When I cast the resin it won't be perfect, but it'll pass for good enough for me. XD Pictures will be up in a few days when the resin has been cast and its done!
1/22/12Resin has been cast! Just waiting for it to harden now.
1/26/12Pictures of the resin process are here~
The clay mold base:
>>And here's the liquid latex. XP
All dried up, it looks like this:
With that, as well as some good ol' Castn'Craft, I produced... these!
Obviously, they're not perfect. I need to sand them down so they're nice and pretty, as well as make one about half its size; then I'll add some varnish to take out some of those imperfections and get some more shiny on there. It should be passable in the end. XD
2/3/12Been a while! Oops! But I have been working on the costume! Just the other day I got my wood bits in to make the belt! I got some regular wooden discs and "dome" shapes. The domes are slightly smaller than the discs, so I just glue-gunned them together and got the basic shapes for Zelda's belt! I sealed them, then painted them gold, used some other paint to wear it a little, touched up the gold again, sealed them again... and ta-da! Zelda's gold belt! It's not strung together yet (I'm prolly gonna glue them on a ribbon with Velcro ends), but that part is essentially done. I'll get some pics up soon!
heart 2/6/12Pictures of the belt are up!
These are the wood pieces. On the left are the two pieces separate, right, together. Whipped out the good old glue gun to attach them.
That's the whole belt, painted and strung together with an opaque ribbon I found. I painted it with gold and added some "wear" with some copper and black paint. The ribbon was glue-gunned to the wood pieces, and then reinforced with a layer of wood glue. As of now, the belt hooks together with Velcro - while it holds fairly well, I want to invest in a hook clasp sooner or later. In the end, it was sealed with a coat of clear matte acrylic.
Just a close up.
2/22/12So it ends up I couldn't take the lazy way out and just buy a sash like I wanted to. Everything I've found just hasn't been right, and things that were suitable didn't have a fringe. So last night I decided I'd make it myself. Looked up a fabric with a fringe on JoAnne's website, then went today to get it. Also got some interfacing to stick in between the fabric so it wasn't just a loose wad of fabric - because the sash looks leatherette or something like that (the fabric itself is like a faux suede). I pieced them together with a messy result... so to make it look pretty, I sewed some pale yellow lace onto the ugly sash seam I made and ended up with something looking pretty nice. It may not be actually there in the game, but I think the lace adds a flare that'll say "Hey, it's
that Zelda cosplayer!" Added the decorative threading, and tada.
I just need to make the "buckle" thing now to complete it... But that's for another day. I just spent three hours of labor on this and my back hurts. X_x
3/6/12In this area, I've managed to do a whole lotta work. I fixed up my resin gems and gave them the blue backing. Made the brooch for Zelda's dress, which will be secured on the dress using snaps (that way it'll be removable for washing purposes). Then I began work on the sash buckle thing. I ended up getting a thick sheet of craft foam, gave it a fabric backing using the spare sash fabric I had, gessoed it, glued it, painted it, sealed it and sewed a clip on it so that the sash closes together. The buckle itself is removable via Velcro. It's pretty ugly to look at when you know it's there, but it's out of view otherwise. XD I have pictures, I'm just too lazy atm. Sorry. D:
I've also decided to work on the lyre. It just came as a whim, and I never had any initial plan to make it at all. But I figured, Zelda and the lyre. She pretty much always has it, save for when Link has it. So, with all the cardboard at my disposal, I cut out the pieces and hot glued them together. I'm going to be using some old wire coat hangers for the strings, but I need to attach that stupid wooden stick first. But my dad needs to cut it first since it's a little long. I plan to paper mache it all to give it some extra strength, put the 'carvings' in with a craft foam layer above everything, and then paint it. But I'll probably handle that at the very, very end. -w-
3/8/12So I lied. I've totally been working on the lyre because after last night working with biasing, I kind of don't want to look at the dress for a few days.
-w- I noticed the shape was kind of off on the initial cardboard skeleton, so to remedy it, I put some cardboard inserts on afterwards. After messing around with the wire cutters and using two metal coat hangers as my victims, I got my 'strings.' Hot glued them to the cardboard. Got my small wooden pole as a counterbalance, and then paper mache'd the cardboard bits. Ta-da. It's still a bit messy, so sometime soonish I'm going to paint a layer of plaster over it before I gesso and paint it. By the way, the cost of the cardboard and plaster and the coat hangers is not going to be included in this project because this is stuff I've had lying around my house. >.>
Oh yeah, I also said I'd upload pics of my sash buckle and the improved gems. Bam.
3/15/12And here's a link to the current looks of the
harp. It's a little big to post it here and I'm feeling particularly lazy and not wanting to deal with photobucket right now. Nonetheless, I really hope you all take a look at it. I'm really proud of it so far. I just need to paint it. X3
4/11/12This has been done for a bit, so I was surprised to see I didn't update this sooner. Here's the completed lyre:
4/15/12So I ordered my ears today. Took a big chunk out of my wallet. Enough so that I am holding off on buying my wig until my next paycheck in two weeks. -w- Nonetheless, I'm sure they'll be worth it. They're uber long and from the ever reputable Aradani Studios - so I expect they'll be worth the money.
4/27/12Wig came in today. It is incredibly long and needs to be styled accordingly, but I love the color. Special thanks to lunaishtar on Cosplay.Com for referring me to the wig! X3
5/4/12I'm redoing the brooch gem. It looks all... off. And it's been bothering me for a while. I'm just waiting for the professional mold to come in, then I'll start on it. Not sure if I want to try using some blue food coloring to make some color or stick with the backing... I suppose I'll use a little and if it's not enough, give it the backing.
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My dress! Tada! Sleeves got sewed on today with a little help from my mom! The dress, as I've said before, is too long. It'll be cut down to size soon. But first I need to handle another problem... That being the dress is too big! You probably can't tell from the pic, but the back is waaaaaaay too big. So I need to take it to my aun't so she can fix it up for me. Then I'll add the biasing (that's not going to be fun DX ) and the gem. I'm going to see if I can make the gem with a snap on the bottom so I can remove it when the dress needs washing.
