So, I fell in love with this character after randomly coming across this drawing. I am not a huge “vampire story” fan (never read nor saw Twilight.) I don’t think I have ever read ANY vampire story, actually! This ^^ inspired me to pick up both a manga and novel of Trinity Blood. I ended up liking a LOT of the characters and their amazing wardrobes 🙂 Having never done any sort of vampire or armor of anything besides leather, my long term project was chosen!
First, came my favorite part…sketching!
Then, since I knew the fabric part would be easier for me, I started some simple and cheap armor. No worbla for me yet…investing that much money in an experiment was too scary! I just used a tee shirt and duck tape on my mannequin for the breast plate. I also had mod-podge handy, so did many coats of that over the tape to even out the ridges and ugly lines. It was not fun and only did a coat or so a week. This is why this costume ended up being so drawn out!!! UGH.
Then, months later, I had more time and a renewed interest in the costume. I left the “armor” alone and started patterning the eyelet underdress and velvet jacket. This was much easier for me and much more fun.
Jacket and over corset pattern
Simple “eyeballed” underdress from a basic corset pattern, strapless with a zip back
Once I got rolling on the jacket and gathered up ALL of my spare gold braided trim, I didn’t stop to take many photos!
Above is the back of the jacket and under bust corset.
This shows the underdress and starting work on the design at the bottom of the jacket. I was going to hand embroider the whole panel, but switched to trim and paint since I wanted to actually complete this thing!
I WAS able to do some embroidery on the sleeves:)
This is gold metallic leather, and is the upper portion of the puff sleeve.
While I was working on the arm bands, I got inspired to finish up the armor. Here are the two shoulder pieces and the front pieces with the leather arm bands. I tried some foam for the shoulders and torso parts of the armor and they worked out to be sturdy enough once doubled up and duck taped! I used puffy paint to make the designs mostly! The torso pieces are only attached at the top edges, so the armor bends with motion. I used a lightweight chain and studs to attach the front armor to the shoulder pieces and then to the back to meet at the center point of the corset where they attach with a clip! I finished it all up with a little silver paint over the bronze and her gems.
Lastly, I painted the decorations down the sides of a pair of red tights, gathered some of the eyelet for a neck ruffle, added some lace and buttons to some thigh high flat white boots, made a red sash/little wallet and made the hat. I don’t have a picture of the hat in progress because I was trying to finish it quickly in time for DragonCon…I used a vintage cap, and pieces of plastic mesh covered in my blue velvet to construct a simpler/smaller version of her huge one. My daughter dyed a strip of the white wig red for the signature stripe and we are done!! The last minute things really added up, haha!!
Hat, wig, and ruffle.
Armor on without the final armor touches
At the convention, very happy after 10 hours in FLAT boots and no armor! ….Next time 🙂
I have lots of new costumes to add and update, but wanted to go ahead and post some shots from DragonCon. This was my first time, and I brought along the little ones, too, so it was a big adventure! Most of the shots were just quick ones on my phone, so did not come out well, but I managed to save a few.
I think I had 4 or 5 customers at this convention in costumes I made, but unfortunately, I didn’t get any shots of them in action 😦
Day 3 for the Wonder Woman Shoot
Day 3, after watching people posing all weekend!
Breanna as Snow White
Restaurant Selfie – Day 1
Group at Hardy Ivy Park
Worn out
Astharoshe Asran, Day 1, ditched the armor!
Just a few folks
We found another Espeon!
The girls were thrilled to see so many Anna and Elsa cosplayers!
One of our favorites was this “Child of Light”
MiaLa costuming blog 