Ryuuzaki Umi
Magic Knight Rayearth
artbook
erughghhhh. most time intensive costume to date, and it still all needs remade/is missing the kneecap armor. I was probably reaching way beyond my skill level for making this, but I tried my best~
all the light blue is casa crepe. I made all the backdrape-y, shoulder sprouting, and wrist bits the night before otakon, so they're a little rushed.
it's a little too stiff for the skirt fabric to fall properly, but I didn't have any other fabric available to me in columbus, so I had to go with it. hadn't made a circle skirt before, so it was a little confusing. lapped zipper seemed to go in okay even though I had no idea what I was doing. D: I went with a circle skirt format to try to help reduce bulk at the waist...I tried to make the whole costume with as little fabric at the waist as possible to keep it as slim-looking as I could...since the undershirt, tabard, overskirt, and circle skirt all sprout out of about a four inch overlap underneath the corset, there's a lot of fabric vying for a very limited amount of space.
the darker blue is blue casa satin, although the color was clearanced and doesn't exist anymore now, unfortunately. the gold trim is all casa satin that was painstakingly cut with a rotary cutter and interfaced for stability before being ironed into bias tape. (well, I guess it's just tape since it's not actually on the bias, but whatever.)
it was my first time doing bias tape properly, so all of it is invisibly attached by sewing it to the front side and then slipstitching it by hand down to the back side. (I think I had like 18 feet of it to do on the long waist-cape alone...D:) it took a while, but the results were definitely worth it.
the front decal is interfaced gold casa satin stitched on. the white fabric for the corset and front maxi pad and shoulder blahs is white denim, but several layers of it. there'd be an interfaced top layer of denim with whatever decorative stitching on it, a middle layer (or two?) of denim interfaced on both sides, and then another layer of denim on the bottom that was also interfaced on the back side. and then all of it staystitched together before having bias tape plastered all over it.
for the round shoulder pieces, I pinned the denim layers together and shaped it into a curve by adjusting the outer layer to a longer length and the inward layers to be of a shorter length. it's a technique more commonly found in shirt/suit collars, but due to the bulk of the denim it became necessary for producing a smooth curve.
due to all the layers/interfacing, the shoulder area is resultingly so stiff that it supports itself and I don't need any straps to hold it up, which is nice.
the tights are white interlock knit from joann's that I hand-dyed and sewed together with some elastic installed at the top to help keep them stretchy. I found some better fabric for them though, so they'll probably be replaced soon.
the collar is foamies hot glued together and painted with jacquard fabric paints. the hot glue isn't very clean since it was a test run that I didn't have time to replace and ended up having to wear to otakon, so hopefully I can make another before the next wearing.
for the collar gems and the one on the right wrist cuff I was able to use a combination of paint trays and that ever-present resin casting tray available at michael's for casting. I had to make custom molds for all the other sizes though, which was a huge pain.
so for the majority of the gems, I made originals out of sculpey, then sanded them down until I was up to using 600 grit sandpaper. after that I hit them with several spraycoats of clear sealant after which I mixed up several batches of casting rubber to dump on them to make gem molds. then they were finally cast in clear resin. I hadn't done any sort of mold making or resin casting before, so I had a lot to learn about the process before I got decent final results from the rubber molds.
I painted the backs with blue sparkly paint, which was great except for the fact that the paint likes sticking to my fabric more than the paint likes sticking to the gem. also if too much hot glue is used, it tends to melt through/discolor the acrylic to the point where it's visible through the jewel...need to figure out a way to resolve this problem in the future, although the shoulder gems were the only ones that really had issues with detaching.
11/3/09 EDIT: OKAY, FIGURED OUT A BETTER WAY. step one is to paint a piece of tagboard/paper with sparkly paint, then completely cover the back surface of the gem with a pile of hot glue before smashing it onto the tagboard. since the hot glue is clear, you can see the sparkly paint just fine still and the adhesion is better by far. :D
the hardest part of the costume was probably the front maxi pad, since I couldn't do any sort of tape for it since my fabric had no stretch. >_< eventually I figured it out though. (figuring out how to get the gold blobs around the shoulder things and on the headband was fairly difficult as well.)
I think I ended up spending 100+ hours on the costume, and I have more to go before I'm happy with all the pieces. Umi was my first favorite character though, so it's totally worth it since I love her to bits. I don't go to a private girl's school, but somehow I still think our personalities are a bit similar...XD and I always enjoy the way she pounds on mokona, hohoho.
all the light blue is casa crepe. I made all the backdrape-y, shoulder sprouting, and wrist bits the night before otakon, so they're a little rushed.
it's a little too stiff for the skirt fabric to fall properly, but I didn't have any other fabric available to me in columbus, so I had to go with it. hadn't made a circle skirt before, so it was a little confusing. lapped zipper seemed to go in okay even though I had no idea what I was doing. D: I went with a circle skirt format to try to help reduce bulk at the waist...I tried to make the whole costume with as little fabric at the waist as possible to keep it as slim-looking as I could...since the undershirt, tabard, overskirt, and circle skirt all sprout out of about a four inch overlap underneath the corset, there's a lot of fabric vying for a very limited amount of space.
the darker blue is blue casa satin, although the color was clearanced and doesn't exist anymore now, unfortunately. the gold trim is all casa satin that was painstakingly cut with a rotary cutter and interfaced for stability before being ironed into bias tape. (well, I guess it's just tape since it's not actually on the bias, but whatever.)
it was my first time doing bias tape properly, so all of it is invisibly attached by sewing it to the front side and then slipstitching it by hand down to the back side. (I think I had like 18 feet of it to do on the long waist-cape alone...D:) it took a while, but the results were definitely worth it.
the front decal is interfaced gold casa satin stitched on. the white fabric for the corset and front maxi pad and shoulder blahs is white denim, but several layers of it. there'd be an interfaced top layer of denim with whatever decorative stitching on it, a middle layer (or two?) of denim interfaced on both sides, and then another layer of denim on the bottom that was also interfaced on the back side. and then all of it staystitched together before having bias tape plastered all over it.
for the round shoulder pieces, I pinned the denim layers together and shaped it into a curve by adjusting the outer layer to a longer length and the inward layers to be of a shorter length. it's a technique more commonly found in shirt/suit collars, but due to the bulk of the denim it became necessary for producing a smooth curve.
due to all the layers/interfacing, the shoulder area is resultingly so stiff that it supports itself and I don't need any straps to hold it up, which is nice.
the tights are white interlock knit from joann's that I hand-dyed and sewed together with some elastic installed at the top to help keep them stretchy. I found some better fabric for them though, so they'll probably be replaced soon.
the collar is foamies hot glued together and painted with jacquard fabric paints. the hot glue isn't very clean since it was a test run that I didn't have time to replace and ended up having to wear to otakon, so hopefully I can make another before the next wearing.
for the collar gems and the one on the right wrist cuff I was able to use a combination of paint trays and that ever-present resin casting tray available at michael's for casting. I had to make custom molds for all the other sizes though, which was a huge pain.
so for the majority of the gems, I made originals out of sculpey, then sanded them down until I was up to using 600 grit sandpaper. after that I hit them with several spraycoats of clear sealant after which I mixed up several batches of casting rubber to dump on them to make gem molds. then they were finally cast in clear resin. I hadn't done any sort of mold making or resin casting before, so I had a lot to learn about the process before I got decent final results from the rubber molds.
I painted the backs with blue sparkly paint, which was great except for the fact that the paint likes sticking to my fabric more than the paint likes sticking to the gem. also if too much hot glue is used, it tends to melt through/discolor the acrylic to the point where it's visible through the jewel...need to figure out a way to resolve this problem in the future, although the shoulder gems were the only ones that really had issues with detaching.
11/3/09 EDIT: OKAY, FIGURED OUT A BETTER WAY. step one is to paint a piece of tagboard/paper with sparkly paint, then completely cover the back surface of the gem with a pile of hot glue before smashing it onto the tagboard. since the hot glue is clear, you can see the sparkly paint just fine still and the adhesion is better by far. :D
the hardest part of the costume was probably the front maxi pad, since I couldn't do any sort of tape for it since my fabric had no stretch. >_< eventually I figured it out though. (figuring out how to get the gold blobs around the shoulder things and on the headband was fairly difficult as well.)
I think I ended up spending 100+ hours on the costume, and I have more to go before I'm happy with all the pieces. Umi was my first favorite character though, so it's totally worth it since I love her to bits. I don't go to a private girl's school, but somehow I still think our personalities are a bit similar...XD and I always enjoy the way she pounds on mokona, hohoho.