2nd October 2010: DONEEEEE Done! Done done done done!

Things that I haven't shown on here/mentioned in previous journal entries, in no particular order:
- chopped the belt buckle to half the size I first made it
- finished the other boot
- painted all of the armour
- added the tip to the hilt of the sword
- adjusted the tunic so that it won't asphyxiate me
- added buttonholes to cape, and buttons to tunic

Have a teaser pic. :D Debuting at Hyper Japan tomorrow!

26th September 2010: Sword 4 Not done yet. Still lacking the little bit at the top of the hilt. I'm quite annoyed at how clunky this ended up looking. But there's no choice - the blade is rather wide near the tip, so the sheath needs to be this wide. The sheath in the official art is turned slightly on its side, so maybe it is supposed to be this wide anyway, it's just not obvious in the art. It's either that or Flynn bends the laws of physics to fit a fat sword in a thin sheath.

But at least he doesn't pull a sword out from a dimensional crotch pocket like so many other games. XD

I carved the gold bits for the sword out of foam because I couldn't find anything that's the right size and shape. The sheath itself is entirely foam apart from the blue bit which is painted cardboard, and the brown bit under the gold area which is vinyl. There are strips of velcro at the top of the sheath and the underside of the belt, so that it can be removed - I don't want to bring the sword to the Cosplay Ball!

The hilt of the sword comes up really high to my chest. :( It's the right size but my torso is shorter than Flynn's. Actually my torso is slightly shorter than most people's and I have problems getting dresses that fit me right!

25th September 2010: Sword 3 I glued the light pull to a wooden rod. The rod is sandwiched by the blade. Then I use epoxy putty to make sure everything join together, and help get the right handle shape, because the light pull isn't exactly the right shape. Then the sanding commenced, first with a dremel and then by hand. Urghhhh it's taking forever.

Before the putty went on, the sword was very very light because it's mostly just foam. With the putty it's now got a decent weight; at least it won't be blown away by the slightest gust of wind!

23rd September 2010: Sword 2 Foam again. In retrospect I should have looked for stiffer foam or other materials, this is way too soft. I can't even have the tip of the sword touch the floor because it'd just bend. Ah well. XD

In the end I bought a light/cistern pull for the handle.

23rd September 2010: Armour 5 The underside of the forearm armour is made of pringles tubes and more foam. :D

20th September 2010: Tunic 7 The boob-window is now closed!

On to the sword!

17th September 2010: Sword 1 (Do ignore Flynn's outfit colours here; his in-game colours are slightly different to the official art colours which my costume are based on. And in the game his tunic has sleeves, too.)

The version of ToV I have is the Xbox one, meaning that I don't get to control Flynn much at all. There are very few chances for me to take a good look at his sword (oh man that sounds dirty)... these are the few reference pictures I managed to get. Guess I'll make the blade out of foam. The handle I'm hoping to find an object of similar shape and Blue-Peter it that way. I've already spent a few weeks searching though, and no luck so far. Bah. =/

15th September 2010: Tunic 6 Just being silly. XDDDDD Still unfinished of course.

I made this far too tight. Need help to put it on and off. Maybe it'll be better when I have the binder on.

12th September 2010: Cape 2 Attaching the lining by hand took forever, but the cape is finally finished!

(After making the mistake with the bobbin thread colour, I tried using white top thread and blue bobbin thread on some leftover material - it turns out if I'd done that, bits of blue would show where the needle goes through. No idea if that's because of my sewing machine, the choice of fabric or my lack of skills, but it seems like I couldn't have used blue bobbin thread anyway!)

9th September 2010: Cape 1 The blue fabric is wool, and the white is the same faux suede again. And it's not that I can sew things without pinning it together first - because the white design is quite narrow in places, pinning was hard, making it pucker up and not lie flat. So I glued it down first. XDDD

After doing most of the sewing (using the buttonhole stitch XD) I realised that I should have used a blue bobbin thread, because the cape lining won't reach right up to the edge so some of the white thread will show. D: FAIL! Guess I'll find a blue felt tip and colour it in...

What's left over of the blue wool will be used as the edge around the tunic. I couldn't find bias binding that wide, and decided it'd be cool to use the same fabric as the cape, just like how I used the same faux suede for the front of the tunic as well as the cape pattern. It should help tie the whole costume together more...?

7th September 2010: Tunic 5 THE CAPTAIN TUNIC LOOKS LIKE A 60'S DRESS. O_o

Now I understand why Yuri doesn't want to be a knight; he already gets mistaken for a woman often enough. Flynn, on the other hand, might have a secret affinity for dresses? XD;;;; Or he's so manly he doesn't feel his masculinity threatened by the outfit.

(Because of the boob window, I'm putting the zipper on the back of the tunic rather than the front. I'll try to make it look like it's front opening when I put the dark blue edge on.)

7th September 2010: Tunic 4 Neatest bit of sewing I have ever done! Yay!

6th September 2010: Tunic 3 After failing to find white suede, I bought a rather nice white material which I think is a polyester/viscose mix, thinking that I'd use it for the white panel.

Then a few weeks later, Franklins started stocking faux white suede. Really good faux white suede. So I bought some, thinking that I'd just use whichever looks best against the blue.

As for the blue fabric, I bought some faux blue suede on ebay, but it never arrived so the seller refunded me the money. At this point I decided to take a risk and dye the polyester/viscose fabric with Dylon "bahama" machine dye. Although I'm going for the official art tunic, which is pale blue, in the game it's a darker blue/green. The polyester/viscose wasn't going to take the colour as well as cotton, so I figured if it took all the colour, I can say it's right for the game, and if it didn't, then it's right for the official art...

...and I ended up with the pale blue. :D

After all this, the ebay fabric turned up. XDDDD A month after I bought it! I paid the seller back. It's a really nice suede too, and the colour is more the "game" colour. But oh, whatever. I'm going with the pale blue. I'll save the darker one for something else.

I made up my own pattern by adopting a pattern from a previous cosplay (ball!David Nassau), basically just to find out where the waist needs to be, and the curve of the sleeve(-less) area. Using that, I made a toile with calico. Pinned the calico together, then adjusted that to get the size right. The final calico pieces have now become the pattern I'm using to cut out the fabric.

Hope this will work. I'm quite worried about Flynn's boob-window... er I mean chest opening...

5th September 2010: Boots 3 Ta da!

The foam armour is glued on, and there's a belt attached to the back of the big piece, which goes around the back of the boot.

After trying the boots on and finding that I'd made the armour too high, I made some adjustments. But the overall look is unchanged.

5th September 2010: Boots 2 Foam foam foam foam foam foam foam.

Glue glue glue glue glue glue glue!

31st August 2010: Armour 4 I painted the armour pieces with latex and acrylic... and then decided the finish was just no good, so I proceeded to pull off those layers I'd painted. XD; Then, looking at it, I just figured it might be better to start again.

The second picture shows the re-done ones. The piece on the right goes on the arm, the piece on the left goes on the boots. They aren't painted yet, the foam I used is grey that's all. They also need to be heated up and curled into shape.

31st August 2010: Boots 1 These are also from http://www.equestrianclearance.com/. Since boots from the places like Shoe Zone or PriceLess shoes are still some £20+, why not get riding boots that are bound to be hard-wearing for £17? Flynn does ride in the anime as well.

To save a quid or two I bought a child-size pair, but they turned out to be too tight for my calves. So a split was made down the back and eyelets punched. Since there aren't picture of what the boots look like from the back, I guess this is acceptable (and kind of cool. XD)

I kind of like the look of these. Too bad I'm going to be gluing armour onto them. Perhaps I should get another pair...

31st August 2010: Armour 3 Lots of small, fiddly pieces of foam, sealed with glue, rub-n-buff'ed, then sealed with glue again.

The gloves came from http://www.equestrianclearance.com/. They're leather, comfortable and come in different sizes, which is great because my hands are extra small. The best part, however, is the £5.99 price tag. XD

Wearing these I can do basic things like hold a drink, but won't be able to pull my wallet out to get money. Perfect excuse for people to buy me drinks at the Cosplay Ball. >D

24th August 2010: Tunic 2 I haven't been able to find good fabric for the light blue panels of the tunic, or for the cape, so I ordered some on eBay. Well nothing's arrived after almost 4 weeks, so I'm getting the seller to refund me.

The fabric search continues... in the meantime, I'm going to make a toile.

22nd August 2010: Tunic 1 It looks like Flynn's cape is buttoned onto the tunic. I've spent a long time searching for good buttons, but most haberdashery shops just have slightly cheap-looking "military"-ish ones. Eventually I got these, at a market stall which sold various military memobrilia, for £1 each, which is about the same price as the not-so-good ones at a shop. :D The man who sold them to me said these were for general service in WWII. I'm not sure if that's true but they sure are pretty and suitable for Flynn's knight outfit!

Cleaning them was a time-consuming process. In the top picture, the ones near the front are uncleaned ones, the one near the brass polish bottle are the semi-cleaned ones. Then finally the bottom picture shows the cleaned ones. It took /hours/, literally. I think they can be cleaned further but my hands and fingers are rejecting the idea for now.

Hmmmmm, if they really were WWII buttons, my fingers could now be covered in not just brass polish, but also dead people... ah, the things I do for shiny-ness...

18th August 2010: Armour 2 Things are briefly painted/gessoed, then glued together some more.

And it turns out I won't need straps to wear them, because they fit very well on my arms and shoulders! :D

Will paint some more after I've made the shoes as well.

18th August 2010: Armour 1 Plastazote, mostly. Where there are layers of plastazote glued together in the arm tubes, I tapered/thinned out the edges (dremel ftw) so that when it's glued there isn't a huge "step".

For the pauldrons, I papier-mached a salad bowl three times, cut up the pieces and glued them together for the right shape...

17th August 2010: Woes 1 HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO FIND THE RIGHT CAPE FABRIC AND BUTTONS?

(Cape - the fabrics I like don't have the right colour. I don't want anything swishy or satiny because his cape isn't like that. Can't use anything with a thick pile because of the design that needs to go on top. All fabric stuff I can find that's the right blue are acetate satin, crushed velvet, tarp and polycotton. Whyyyyyy. D:)

4th August 2010: Armour plans 2 I just realised that I could also do cross straps, so each one loops over the side of my neck. It might be more stable this way.

Anyway. Straps. Yes. I think straps are the way to go.

4th August 2010: Armour plans 1 Figuring out how to put the armour together, and how to keep it on.

Right now I'm thinking that each section of the arm armour can be attached to a long glove (velcro/glue, etc), but the sections themselves not connected. The armour itself might be easier to make this way, but I'm not sure about how well it can be attached to fabric, and when I move and the fabric stretches and twists, that might cause the armour pieces to come off.

Or, the sections are hinged together somehow. Somehow. I think I might go look up how real arm armour is jointed together and try to get some inspiration.

In either case, at the top of the armour I'm thinking of doing a strap that's like the front of a backpack, with a buckle and adjustable strap (see my amazing photoshop impression XD). The buckle can be hidden under the blue & white clothes. If I make this arrangement both in the front and back, it should help the armour stay on my shoulders and arms.

That's the theory anyway...

3rd August 2010: Belt 2 This was so ridiculously easy to do I feel almost guilty. XD I didn't even need to punch holes in the EVA foam before putting the eyelets through; the metal eyelets just cut through it.

Looking at it though, I guess it might have been better if I used (fake) leather instead. The overall look might be better. Maybe I'll do that and make another belt if I have time later.

The only problem right now is that the prongs are too flimsy, so when I put the belt on they don't sit very well. So I will either reinforce the current prongs by putting a bit of plastic card on the back, or replace them with metal strips or polymorph. Haven't decided which yet.

3rd August 2010: Wig 1 Wig test. This used to be the wig for my David Nassau cosplay. Although I wore that cosplay many times I only ever used the wig once because I got a haircut and decided to use my own hair. XD

Anyway, this was really simple to do, with a bit of trimming and some got2b hairspray - which is AMAZING and everyone should use it!

I need to tame the bulk behind my ear somehow. Probably bobby pins. As for the longer bits around my face, I intend to glue the hair to my face using eyelash glue, which I've done for Zidane before and worked rather well.

1st August 2010: Belt 1 Flynn's buckle seems to be plain and gold. I was a bit worried that it'd just look tacky and bling. Trying to imagine how that buckle would look in real life and remembering how animators tend to simplify designs (think manga vs anime), I decided that I should add a bit of detail to the buckle.

The details are very simple because they only need to say "this buckle isn't just a massive clunky thing" rather than shout "hey these weren't on the official art!111!!" I based them on the design that's on his cape. They were done using crystal lacquer and then painted over.

The prongs are made of thin EVA foam because they can curl around the middle without creating too much bulk. These are now being lacquered so that they'll look 3D and shiny.

30th July 2010: The Plan The plan is to make the outfit out of suedette, because I love using that material. It's easy to sew, clothes made out of it never look cheap, the fabric hangs really well and looks good on camera as well. The alternative is to make it out of good quality wool, which I haven't tried before. For the Cosplay Ball heavy wool might be too thick and hot though. So, the next mission is to find suedette in those colours, which is pretty difficult. Suede(tte) seems to only exist in shades of beige and brown, plus black and red if you're lucky. Bright white suedette often turns out to be sub-quality poly suede, but I want the stuff with the "waxed" back.

I'm going to make the belt buckle out of the 6mm plastazote. The belt itself will be EVA foam, which has a more "closed cell" structure than plastazote and has a rubbery feel. I've got massive rolls of it in 2mm thickness, and in white which means I don't need to do any painting! I've already tried putting eyelets through it and that works just fine. :)

As for the armour itself... I haven't actually decided yet, there will need to be some experiments. It's likely to be a combination of papier mache, plastazote and EVA foam. The key is to make sure it stays together, but I must be able to dance in it too (for a given value of dancing.........)