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Description
Our entire Masquerade group for Otakon 2010 which was just this past weekend! We didn't win (oh well 5 for 6, can't win 'em all! But congrats to those who did!!! ), but our parody of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" was a hit and we were stopped for so many pictures! We all had a blast!

We decided to go nostalgic on this one, choosing all old school characters (since we knew none of the boys would want to be involved in a Sailor Moon cosplay). I was Sailor Neptune, my partner Sheena was Chibi Moon, and my bf Keith was Ivan Ooze. The 3 of us together were responsible for creating all 7 costumes. The breakdown is as such!

Me- Soldiers: Bodysuits w/sleeves, most accessories, Kaleidoscopes, gloves, and overall assembly.
Ooze: double layer robes
Harlock: jacket, cloak, and sheath

Sheena- Soldiers: Skirts, collars, bows, boot trim, Saturn boots, and Chibi Moon wig.
Harlock: Pants

- Soldiers: Staff, glaive, mirror, and some accessories.
Harlock: gun, belt buckles, and boot cuffs.
Ooze: collar, belt, bracers, and all make-up/prosthetics.

!CONSTRUCTION NOTES!

*Soldier Bodysuits*

I found a pattern to use as the base, however, I had to make several adjustments to it. For one, it had an a-symmetrical, wrap around torso and two, naturally it didn't have the underbust seamline detail found in the character designs. So to accomplish this I took the front pattern piece and drew a line where the center of the body would be. I cut here so that I was rid of the a-symmetry for the wrap. Next on both the front and back pieces, I traced a line for the underbust seam, taking into consideration the bust size of each girl. I cut the pattern again along this line. The two front pieces (upper and lower body) were placed on folds to create symmetrical sides without a center seamline. The back pieces, didn't quite line up the same way (the grain of stretch wouldn't have been straight across the body), so the back was made up of four pieces (upper left and right and lower left and right). Sewing the pieces together was easy until i hit directly between the breasts in the underbust seam. It look a little finessing to get the pieces sewn together and the curve just right without any weird bunching.

Now that I had the basic assembly done, I began working on the different sleeves for each individual soldier.

Pluto: No sleeves

Saturn: I drew and cut the shape from cardboard and traced it onto the fabric, slapped two pieces right sides together, sewed along the design and flipped inside out. I did a topstitch to flatten out the poof of the layers before attaching them to the suit.

Moon/Chibi Moon: I created one pattern to make the largest of the sleeve layers, then after cutting each set, I would cut the pattern's length to the proper size for the next. Each layer was only a single piece of fabric that I overcast with an extremely small zigzag stitch so the edges were completely sealed. I loosely sewed the layers together before attaching them to the suits.

Neptune: By far the biggest pain!!! My partner and I had already decided to not do the puffy band on the skirts because we didn't like the appearance much in real life. So I decided to apply this to my sleeves as well to keep the consistency. I started by sewing 6 narrow tubes and flipping them inside out, then topstitching each one on both the left and right sides to flatten them out. I then lined them up, two sets of three, next to each other on another piece of fabric and mounted them by sewing along each topstich. Attaching them to the suit was the annoying and time consuming part (took me days to get it right) because getting the right angle and the right amount of sleeve without pulling oddly at the torso of the suit just didn't work out as smoothly as I thought. But I finally got it and cut the excess fabric afterwards.

After the sleeves, each suit's arm holes, leg holes, and collars were finished with elastic. These bodysuits were step in (no zipper or opening, you simply step into the neck opening and stretch it up and over your body), so the collars couldn't be permanently attached. I stitched small segments of velcro at the shoulder seams and near the center of the neckline where the tips of the collar fell.

*Soldier Gloves*

This was simple enough since I followed the exact same strategy as my (Neptune) sleeves (just added some extra length in a slight curved shape for the wing tip on Saturn's gloves). I was working with spandex, so since I used a special straight stretch stitch it just because incredibly time consuming. It took me 3 nights to do them all!

*Soldier Accessories/Props*

Tiaras: 4 oz leather, cut, carved, and painted gold. Elastic glued to each end. Jewels were given a "setting" of a gold chain. Moon and Chibi moons were hot glue made from our usual sculpt and mold creation technique.

Bow Brooches: Neptune and Pluto were flat jewels with belt buckle rings glued over them to create a "setting". Saturn I did not make ( did) but I can tell you that he did a sculpt and mold, then lined the mold with glitter before filling it with hot glue, so it was very sparkly! =3 Moon and Chibi started with the base of very large pink jewels. I was going to create the gold setting with craft foam, but it wasn't coming out clean enough, too many uneven edges. I resorted to gold colored rope trim, which worked out awesome! Other details included garment leather, craft foam, and pieces of random jewelry and charms (some dipped in glitter to conceal designs, like moon man faces). Their skirt brooches are the same.

Chokers: Easy enough. Ribbon folded in half and velcro. Neptune's charm was bought and painted gold. Pluto's was a jewel with a gold chain glued around it for a "setting" and attached with a jump ring through an eyelet. Saturn's (made by ) was bits of the brooch mold and technique reused.

Earrings: Neptune, Moon, and Chibi were purchased. For Saturn's I purchased the pieces (earring posts, saturn charms, and purple drop crystals) and assembled them myself. Pluto, I used the mold and hot glue technique, painted them red. I cut in the same shape from a sheet of red mirror surfaced....I dunno what material, plastic maybe? I glued that on top to make the earrings look more like real jewelry. The edges were kinda rough looking and i couldn't find any ribbon or beads that would be a complimentary trim, so I dipped the edges in glitter. The final product was glued to earring posts.

Moon/Chibi Bun Covers: I took a plain, round, plastic ornament, cut it in half and to size. After painting red, I wrapped each with craft foam. Chibi's got craft foam wing tips, with pencil used to detail the center line and both got elastic to secure around the buns.

Moon/Chibi Hair Clips: All the wings were leather glued to flat back pearls which were then glued onto hair clips. It was more time consuming than it was complex.

Moon/Chibi Kaleidoscopes: The only props I made....well decorated really. The base was these perfect bubble wands I saw in the store! I yanked out the actual bubble wand and proceeded to decorated with different pearls, leather moons, craft foam wings (two layers of sticky sided, slapped together, detailed with pencil, and painted white), craft foam crown, and styrofoam ball. made the handles by layering cardboard and painting them pink. I covered up the rough edges by trimming them with adorable ribbon. I intended to fill them with water and glitter when we got to the hotel (didn't want to risk packing them that way and then possibly popping open) but we forgot the glitter! ;____;

*Final Solider Asssembly*

As mentioned before, velcro was used to attach the collars to the bodysuits. To attach the bows I used heavy duty snaps. They were sewn to the tips of the collars, the back of the skirt waistband, and the upper back of the bows. This kept them completely secure as well as prevented the bows from flopping (even though they were backed with heavy interfacing)

*Captain Harlock*

Jacket: Military jacket pattern followed almost completely. I stoped the length at the waist, extended the front flap, and used velcro instead of buttons to close it (didn't want anything that would be visible). I tediously sewed the black stripes on the yellow trim using several passes of very small zig-zag stitches. The skull and crossbones patch I made myself. I cut the shapes from white canvas and the same lightweight black cotton used for the jacket. I overcast the edges with a small zig-zag stitch, then repeated for assembly. I stitched in the teeth detail on the skull.

Cloak: Oh god I whipped this up in one night and it probably should have been a 2-3 night project. Had this been assigned to me in the first place I would have taken a different approach. It was originally my partner's and when she fell behind I finished up my stuff as soon as I could and picked up the supplies for the cloak only a few days before the con. I would have preferred to use gold rope as the trim, the kind that's attached to a ribbon of cotton so that you can sandwich it between layers. My partner preferred to attach ribbon to the outer edges and so that's what I was stuck with since I didn't have the time or money to go out and buy new trim. So, I began by cutting out a flared shape, 30 inches on top and 60 at the bottom, in both black and red fabric, sewed together, and flipped inside out. The second layer was four pie slice shapes and the collar was kinda winged from there. The collar was backed with SUPER HEAVY INTERFACING so it would stand up with ease. After all the pieces were assembled together I folded the gold ribbon trim around the edges and tacked down with a large zig-zag stitch. I added a snap closure and a large gold button for show and voila! Cloak!

I made the sheath too, but there's nothing to tell. Two different colors of brown vinyl, glued in a cone shape, blah blah blah. It was a quickie job with what I had on hand.

*Ivan Ooze robes*

There were a few challenging points that we were keeping in mind while designing this cosplay. The first being that Ooze has a super gaudy and probably super expensive costume made of supplies that were either hard to define or were obviously latex. The other being that we were going to be in Baltimore, late summer, and my bf was going to be not only in layers, but a full face of latex and a helmet of plastic and various materials. We needed to do our best to keep the fabric parts as lightweight as possible to make him comfortable and melt as little as possible.

Layer 1: I used this very very lightweight black fabric with a gold shimmer. No pattern was used as I just used a bathrobe for size and shape reference. I did the same for the sleeves (but entirely winged the gathered shoulder puffs), making them outta fabric lining and using a dress shirt for reference. I bought two spools of lanyard to wrap around the sleeves, but we had no idea how little that actually was, so there isn't nearly as much around the arms as we would have liked.

Layer 2: The outer layer, again, referenced the bathrobe and winged the collar that was attached inside the edges to give the appearance of another layer. None of this sounds complicated, but it gave me more trouble than it was worth.

Overall I think that concludes my explanation of all parts that I worked on. Each individual piece wasn't really complicated or difficult, but when you're working on 7 costumes at the same time and coordinating with others in order to get it all to come together then even the simple stuff becomes mind boggling.

Description
Our entire Masquerade group for Otakon 2010 which was just this past weekend! We didn't win (oh well 5 for 6, can't win 'em all! But congrats to those who did!!! ), but our parody of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" was a hit and we were stopped for so many pictures! We all had a blast!

We decided to go nostalgic on this one, choosing all old school characters (since we knew none of the boys would want to be involved in a Sailor Moon cosplay). I was Sailor Neptune, my partner Sheena was Chibi Moon, and my bf Keith was Ivan Ooze. The 3 of us together were responsible for creating all 7 costumes. The breakdown is as such!

Me- Soldiers: Bodysuits w/sleeves, most accessories, Kaleidoscopes, gloves, and overall assembly.
Ooze: double layer robes
Harlock: jacket, cloak, and sheath

Sheena- Soldiers: Skirts, collars, bows, boot trim, Saturn boots, and Chibi Moon wig.
Harlock: Pants

- Soldiers: Staff, glaive, mirror, and some accessories.
Harlock: gun, belt buckles, and boot cuffs.
Ooze: collar, belt, bracers, and all make-up/prosthetics.

!CONSTRUCTION NOTES!

*Soldier Bodysuits*

I found a pattern to use as the base, however, I had to make several adjustments to it. For one, it had an a-symmetrical, wrap around torso and two, naturally it didn't have the underbust seamline detail found in the character designs. So to accomplish this I took the front pattern piece and drew a line where the center of the body would be. I cut here so that I was rid of the a-symmetry for the wrap. Next on both the front and back pieces, I traced a line for the underbust seam, taking into consideration the bust size of each girl. I cut the pattern again along this line. The two front pieces (upper and lower body) were placed on folds to create symmetrical sides without a center seamline. The back pieces, didn't quite line up the same way (the grain of stretch wouldn't have been straight across the body), so the back was made up of four pieces (upper left and right and lower left and right). Sewing the pieces together was easy until i hit directly between the breasts in the underbust seam. It look a little finessing to get the pieces sewn together and the curve just right without any weird bunching.

Now that I had the basic assembly done, I began working on the different sleeves for each individual soldier.

Pluto: No sleeves

Saturn: I drew and cut the shape from cardboard and traced it onto the fabric, slapped two pieces right sides together, sewed along the design and flipped inside out. I did a topstitch to flatten out the poof of the layers before attaching them to the suit.

Moon/Chibi Moon: I created one pattern to make the largest of the sleeve layers, then after cutting each set, I would cut the pattern's length to the proper size for the next. Each layer was only a single piece of fabric that I overcast with an extremely small zigzag stitch so the edges were completely sealed. I loosely sewed the layers together before attaching them to the suits.

Neptune: By far the biggest pain!!! My partner and I had already decided to not do the puffy band on the skirts because we didn't like the appearance much in real life. So I decided to apply this to my sleeves as well to keep the consistency. I started by sewing 6 narrow tubes and flipping them inside out, then topstitching each one on both the left and right sides to flatten them out. I then lined them up, two sets of three, next to each other on another piece of fabric and mounted them by sewing along each topstich. Attaching them to the suit was the annoying and time consuming part (took me days to get it right) because getting the right angle and the right amount of sleeve without pulling oddly at the torso of the suit just didn't work out as smoothly as I thought. But I finally got it and cut the excess fabric afterwards.

After the sleeves, each suit's arm holes, leg holes, and collars were finished with elastic. These bodysuits were step in (no zipper or opening, you simply step into the neck opening and stretch it up and over your body), so the collars couldn't be permanently attached. I stitched small segments of velcro at the shoulder seams and near the center of the neckline where the tips of the collar fell.

*Soldier Gloves*

This was simple enough since I followed the exact same strategy as my (Neptune) sleeves (just added some extra length in a slight curved shape for the wing tip on Saturn's gloves). I was working with spandex, so since I used a special straight stretch stitch it just because incredibly time consuming. It took me 3 nights to do them all!

*Soldier Accessories/Props*

Tiaras: 4 oz leather, cut, carved, and painted gold. Elastic glued to each end. Jewels were given a "setting" of a gold chain. Moon and Chibi moons were hot glue made from our usual sculpt and mold creation technique.

Bow Brooches: Neptune and Pluto were flat jewels with belt buckle rings glued over them to create a "setting". Saturn I did not make ( did) but I can tell you that he did a sculpt and mold, then lined the mold with glitter before filling it with hot glue, so it was very sparkly! =3 Moon and Chibi started with the base of very large pink jewels. I was going to create the gold setting with craft foam, but it wasn't coming out clean enough, too many uneven edges. I resorted to gold colored rope trim, which worked out awesome! Other details included garment leather, craft foam, and pieces of random jewelry and charms (some dipped in glitter to conceal designs, like moon man faces). Their skirt brooches are the same.

Chokers: Easy enough. Ribbon folded in half and velcro. Neptune's charm was bought and painted gold. Pluto's was a jewel with a gold chain glued around it for a "setting" and attached with a jump ring through an eyelet. Saturn's (made by ) was bits of the brooch mold and technique reused.

Earrings: Neptune, Moon, and Chibi were purchased. For Saturn's I purchased the pieces (earring posts, saturn charms, and purple drop crystals) and assembled them myself. Pluto, I used the mold and hot glue technique, painted them red. I cut in the same shape from a sheet of red mirror surfaced....I dunno what material, plastic maybe? I glued that on top to make the earrings look more like real jewelry. The edges were kinda rough looking and i couldn't find any ribbon or beads that would be a complimentary trim, so I dipped the edges in glitter. The final product was glued to earring posts.

Moon/Chibi Bun Covers: I took a plain, round, plastic ornament, cut it in half and to size. After painting red, I wrapped each with craft foam. Chibi's got craft foam wing tips, with pencil used to detail the center line and both got elastic to secure around the buns.

Moon/Chibi Hair Clips: All the wings were leather glued to flat back pearls which were then glued onto hair clips. It was more time consuming than it was complex.

Moon/Chibi Kaleidoscopes: The only props I made....well decorated really. The base was these perfect bubble wands I saw in the store! I yanked out the actual bubble wand and proceeded to decorated with different pearls, leather moons, craft foam wings (two layers of sticky sided, slapped together, detailed with pencil, and painted white), craft foam crown, and styrofoam ball. made the handles by layering cardboard and painting them pink. I covered up the rough edges by trimming them with adorable ribbon. I intended to fill them with water and glitter when we got to the hotel (didn't want to risk packing them that way and then possibly popping open) but we forgot the glitter! ;____;

*Final Solider Asssembly*

As mentioned before, velcro was used to attach the collars to the bodysuits. To attach the bows I used heavy duty snaps. They were sewn to the tips of the collars, the back of the skirt waistband, and the upper back of the bows. This kept them completely secure as well as prevented the bows from flopping (even though they were backed with heavy interfacing)

*Captain Harlock*

Jacket: Military jacket pattern followed almost completely. I stoped the length at the waist, extended the front flap, and used velcro instead of buttons to close it (didn't want anything that would be visible). I tediously sewed the black stripes on the yellow trim using several passes of very small zig-zag stitches. The skull and crossbones patch I made myself. I cut the shapes from white canvas and the same lightweight black cotton used for the jacket. I overcast the edges with a small zig-zag stitch, then repeated for assembly. I stitched in the teeth detail on the skull.

Cloak: Oh god I whipped this up in one night and it probably should have been a 2-3 night project. Had this been assigned to me in the first place I would have taken a different approach. It was originally my partner's and when she fell behind I finished up my stuff as soon as I could and picked up the supplies for the cloak only a few days before the con. I would have preferred to use gold rope as the trim, the kind that's attached to a ribbon of cotton so that you can sandwich it between layers. My partner preferred to attach ribbon to the outer edges and so that's what I was stuck with since I didn't have the time or money to go out and buy new trim. So, I began by cutting out a flared shape, 30 inches on top and 60 at the bottom, in both black and red fabric, sewed together, and flipped inside out. The second layer was four pie slice shapes and the collar was kinda winged from there. The collar was backed with SUPER HEAVY INTERFACING so it would stand up with ease. After all the pieces were assembled together I folded the gold ribbon trim around the edges and tacked down with a large zig-zag stitch. I added a snap closure and a large gold button for show and voila! Cloak!

I made the sheath too, but there's nothing to tell. Two different colors of brown vinyl, glued in a cone shape, blah blah blah. It was a quickie job with what I had on hand.

*Ivan Ooze robes*

There were a few challenging points that we were keeping in mind while designing this cosplay. The first being that Ooze has a super gaudy and probably super expensive costume made of supplies that were either hard to define or were obviously latex. The other being that we were going to be in Baltimore, late summer, and my bf was going to be not only in layers, but a full face of latex and a helmet of plastic and various materials. We needed to do our best to keep the fabric parts as lightweight as possible to make him comfortable and melt as little as possible.

Layer 1: I used this very very lightweight black fabric with a gold shimmer. No pattern was used as I just used a bathrobe for size and shape reference. I did the same for the sleeves (but entirely winged the gathered shoulder puffs), making them outta fabric lining and using a dress shirt for reference. I bought two spools of lanyard to wrap around the sleeves, but we had no idea how little that actually was, so there isn't nearly as much around the arms as we would have liked.

Layer 2: The outer layer, again, referenced the bathrobe and winged the collar that was attached inside the edges to give the appearance of another layer. None of this sounds complicated, but it gave me more trouble than it was worth.

Overall I think that concludes my explanation of all parts that I worked on. Each individual piece wasn't really complicated or difficult, but when you're working on 7 costumes at the same time and coordinating with others in order to get it all to come together then even the simple stuff becomes mind boggling.