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The Hero’s Closet

G_owl

Published on October 23, 2014 at 280 × 427 in G_owl

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Hey there!

I’m Gillian, a cosplayer, writer, editor, and occasional illustrator with an unruly fabric habit. I love patternmaking, fabric manipulation, embellishment, and big, ambitious projects.

My book The Hero’s Closet is available now!

Here’s some nice crunchy WIP for a Sunday mornin

Here’s some nice crunchy WIP for a Sunday morning!

Basically none of whatever the Empress wears under her robes is visible in the reference materials we’ve seen so far, so I’m making something up based on the available information. Most importantly, the full-length embroidered panel at center front needs to hang from something that isn’t the floaty gathered blouse - ideally a structured bodice or corset with lots of boning to prevent distortion and sagging from the weight. The curvy panel shapes are strongly influenced by Maika’s armor from the Monstress issue 13 cover, which I built back in early 2018 and still love. The neckline is shaped to match the upper edge of the embroidery panel, and will be refined in mockups to play nicely with the blouse underneath as well.

One of the main reasons I made my own dress form last year was to get an accurate, pinnable shape that would let me delve deeper into draping, and this bodice seemed like an excellent candidate to try. I’ve mostly been a flat patterning partisan thus far, but trying to lay out all these curvy seams while preserving fit was not a fun time and after a frustrating first mockup I needed to try something different. So we’ll see how this goes!

#patternmaking #cosplaywip #cosprogress #draping #cosmaker

Tiny progress is better than no progress, right? I

Tiny progress is better than no progress, right? I’ve been floundering a bit and not really working on the big projects, but I did finish ff7r and I have IDEAS now. Not sure if I’ll do the full costume but I thought I might start by having a go at Tifa’s gloves, so I started tinkering with a pattern for that. And since my patternmaking scrawl isn’t very photogenic, have an attempt at some materia instead. I need to get some smaller glass cabochons for the real thing, but I like these as a proof of concept! #materia #ff7remake #ff7cosplay #tifalockhartcosplay #cosplaywip

Terrible hair fuzz but hey, it’s Empress progres

Terrible hair fuzz but hey, it’s Empress progress! I finished my third mock-up for the blouse yesterday, and I’m just about ready to start the real thing. The seams are working well with the capelet, the back keyhole is lying nice and flat, and it didn’t all go to hell as soon as I put the sleeves in. So!
Next step is to transfer the pattern outlines to my fabric and do the little bits of embroidery around the circle insets, and then I can start cutting. I also got just one of my robe fabrics in, so as soon as the other arrives I can start doing appliqué and embroidery tests on that too. #cosprogress #cosmaker #cosplaywip #monstresscosplay #monstress #shamanempress

Three weeks and 60-odd hours later, I’m official

Three weeks and 60-odd hours later, I’m officially past where I was before I decided to remake the boots. Welts are on, shanks are in, and now I just need to fill and level the underside of the boots, put the soles on, build the heels, and finish and polish the damn things. Not so bad, right? Except for the bit where we’re down to the wire now 😅

#crownchampionshipsofcosplay #cosplaywip #cosplaycobbler #cosplayshoes #cosmaker #cosprogress #ciricosplay #witchercosplay

So I nearly forgot to talk about this at all in pr

So I nearly forgot to talk about this at all in prejudging (thanks @pitchforkcosplay for the timely reminder) but I’m actually really happy with how the new scabbard turned out and I don’t want it to get overshadowed entirely by the boots. This was my first real attempt at tooled leather, using a medium-weight veg tan leather from Tandy (don’t remember the exact thickness.) I created the pattern by wrapping the sword in tinfoil and tape, drew out the design by hand, and transferred it to the leather by rubbing a soft pencil on the back of the pattern. Then I etched the whole thing with a swivel knife and opened up the lines a bit with a modeling tool to make them more pronounced. I actually carved the whole thing twice because I wasn’t thrilled with how it came out the first time.
I cut a plastic template for the finished scabbard shape and stitched the center back seam closed over it, then slid in a dowel that I’d shaved into a point to force it into the oval shape while it dried. I also added some scraps of cardboard to ensure the finished shape would be open enough to fit the sword.
Once the scabbard was dry I re-wet it lightly and dyed it with water-based leather dye ordered from @sorrellcustomboots , then finished it off a light wax coating. I adore how this dye worked out - there’s no separate antiquing or painted weathering going on here, just the dye itself and how it settled into the tooling.
The end caps are worbla painted with metallic acrylics, and the straps are just scrap leather lightly painted with the same stuff. The upper clasp hooks into my armor strapping, and the lower strap attaches to my belt to keep the scabbard from swinging. I’ll probably do a blog post a bit later with all the wip photos, but the folks who’ve been following my stories have seen most of it already.
#leathercrafting #cosplayprop #propmaking #witchercosplay #ciricosplay #thewitcher3wildhunt #zireael

Finished the first set of outlines for the Empress

Finished the first set of outlines for the Empress blouse embroidery and was second guessing whether I really want to satin stitch over all of them as planned or leave them open. I do think the outlines look nice on their own, (I was worried they would get lost against the jacquard pattern but they actually stand out pretty nicely in the silk thread) but if I’d planned to leave them open from the start, I’d probably have been more particular about the stitch consistency. Or picked a chainstitch or something instead of this split stitch. If I decide to keep this I’d probably want to rip a bunch of it out and try again, which would be its own kind of nightmare with the tricky-to-undo split stitch on delicate gauzy silk jacquard.
Anyway, I did a little sample of the satin stitching just to see. I do think it’ll help to define the smallest feathers a little better, but the thread I used for the outlines looks a little chunky in satin stitch and I might want to step down to a finer silk. At least satin stitch is easy to remove cleanly.
#handembroidery #silkembroidery #cosplaywip #cosprogress #cosmaker #monstresscosplay

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