Tag: costume

Last-Minute Costume Revealed

Much to my surprise, we all managed to complete our costumes in time for Ottawa Comiccon: Holiday Edition over the weekend. My friends got some really great shots of our group, but they will have to wait until tomorrow because I spent way too long wrestling with the compatibility of unfamiliar camera RAW formats to finish going through them all. It was also my very first time trying to get edit photos of lightsabers so they look like they’re glowing.

The snowy weather provided a perfect backdrop to our group picture:


Photo by Ian Walton.

Left to right, that’s Darth Kristoff (with Olaf on his back), Darth Sven, Jedi Elsa, and me on the far right as Jedi Anna. Yes, we did do a Disney’s Frozen/Star Wars mashup.

I can definitely say that we had a lot of fun wearing these costumes, even for a con as small as the holiday one (which, let’s be honest, is more of a marketplace and less of a con). After all the work I put into this costume, I am determined to wear it on at least one other occasion, though!

Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day

I’m still working away on that last-minute costume. I got so caught up in the process that I stayed up until almost 2:00am without even realizing it! I had absolutely no intention of staying up too late. When I get into problem-solving mode, I hate to stop when I’m on a roll. If I’d been super-frustrated, I would probably have stopped earlier (although there was a large seam that I “sewed” without realizing that the bobbin had run out).

I couldn’t find my meter stick, so I did end up using a wooden prop sword in order to trace a long, straight line on my fabric. My father pointed out afterward that I could have just called and borrowed his, but the sword was only a few feet away from where I was sewing, and it worked out fine!

November 15th is Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, so I made a dinner entirely out of what I had around the house. This had nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been so engrossed in costume construction that I haven’t gone out to do groceries, I swear. I went with one of the simplest clean-out-the-fridge dishes: stir fry. I cooked up the veggies I had on hand (celery, zucchini, and frozen peas), scrambled in some egg, threw in some cooked rice and shrimp, and gave it all a good drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce while I cooked it all together for a few minutes. My husband asked for seconds, which I figure means it wasn’t half bad.

After the kids went to bed, I wanted to treat myself to some banana bread, which is pretty much my favourite quick bread. I even had some bananas I’d frozen before they went bad that I needed to use up, so the timing was perfect. I’d seen a Tasty video for 6 Desserts To Make In Your Microwave, so I thought I’d give their individual microwave banana bread a shot. Sadly, as with the microwave oatmeal bread I made a while back, I was disappointed. The more I try it, the less I think that microwaves can be used for half-decent baking.

First of all, there was a recipe in the YouTube transcription of the recipe. If you watch the video, the ingredients include 3 Tbsp brown sugar and 1/2 tsp baking powder, but the recipe under the video calls for 3 Tbsp brown sugar and then another 1/2 tsp brown sugar, with no baking powder. Luckily I noticed that there was no rising agent before I started cooking, but by then I’d already added the extra 1/2 tsp brown sugar, too.

Once the banana bread was cooked, I found it to be largely tasteless. I found that interesting, because it contains basically the same ingredients as the more traditional banana bread in the Joy of Cooking; what really differentiates the two, other than size, is the cooking method. I think that because the Tasty version is made so quickly in the microwave, instead of cooking for an hour or more in the oven, it doesn’t have a chance to develop its flavour, which probably mostly comes from the crust. Microwave cooking, in general, doesn’t create proper crusts. Also, I found the consistency of the microwave banana bread to be less like a quick bread and more like a sponge or a pudding. I cooked it for an extra 30 seconds over the recommended time and tested it with a cake tester for doneness, so I know it was definitely cooked all the way through. Even so, the consistency was more like microwave scrambled eggs than like bread.

Of course, opinions may vary, and you may like banana bread made this way. I think that I will stick to baking in the oven from now on, except perhaps for the occasional experiment.

Progress

I had planned on spending all day yesterday working on my costume, but a power outage until after noon made that highly problematic. I couldn’t even cut out pattern or fabric pieces, since that requires a large, flat surface, and the only spot like that in my house was my basement floor — where there was no power for lights.

Luckily, I had a good portion of the rest of the day to work on the costume, and some progress was made. I am happy to say that at least one element of the costume is complete. I did have to take a break to cook and eat dinner, though.

I didn’t want to make something that took hours of prep work, since I should have been spending that time sewing. I still had one enormous zucchini left to cook (my friends, overloaded with their harvest, kept bringing me more), so I made a big batch of baked Panko zucchini sticks. Normally I wouldn’t peel the zucchini, but this time I did because the squash was huge and old, so the skin was very tough. For meat, I chopped up some chicken, coated it in Golden Dragon Thick Teriyaki Sauce, and fried it up on the stove while the zucchini baked. It all turned out quite well, and it was found acceptable by my friend who came over in the evening to work on her own costume. We were up until well past midnight sewing, and we’re not done yet!

Last-Minute Costume

Some friends of mine had these great mash-up Halloween costumes this year, and they’d mentioned at a party this season that they’d like to upgrade them for a mini convention coming up this month. I’d like to say that they dragooned me into cosplaying with them, but I kind of volunteered. I’d made a similar costume before, how hard could it be, right?

I’m adapting two McCall’s patterns: M7225 (Misses’/Men’s Cape and Tunic Costumes) and M7229 (Men’s/Misses’ Nativity Scene Costumes). I don’t want to come out and say what it’s going to be just yet, because I’m not a hundred percent sure that I’m going to get it done in time. What I will definitely say is that it’s definitely not what the pattern designers had in mind.

I’ll be re-using some stencils from a few years ago and, if you know the movie that part of this costume is based on, these motifs might give it away. Even so, I’d be surprised if anyone can guess exactly what this mash-up costume will be. (No giving it away for those I’ve already told in person!)

At any rate, I think that this view will be my life for the next few days. I really hope that this costume turns out well; if so, I might be able to persuade my kiddos to do a group with me for the next ComicCon. Right now they’re talking Legend of Zelda instead, which I totally approve of, but it would be so much easier if I already had one of the costumes done this far in advance.

Last of the Leftovers

I forgot to post about this year’s Halloween costumes, probably because I didn’t make anything new. Thing 1, Thing 2, and I stuck with our Pokémon Go costumes from ComicCon, because I’ll be darned if I put in all that work for us only to wear the costumes once. That’s the deal that I made with my girls when I started making them Con costumes: their costumes have to be based on something that they like well enough to want to wear again almost half a year later. So given that the majority of Halloween activities happen after dark, the best photos of their costumes were taken back in May.


Photo by Richard Dufault Photography.

For Heroes & Villains, which is an annual geeky Halloween party around here, I reused my Femme Joker costume. I added a hat (which is really more purple than blue), a cane, and I took the makeup from almost-jolly Cesar-Romero-like paint, to something a little more sinister, not quite Heath-Ledger-like but closer.

I think I am almost done the Halloween party leftovers, too, except for the cookies. Last night I made grilled cheese for the family dinner, using Light Rye and Caraway Bread (page 75 of Bread Machine: How to Prepare and Bake the Perfect Loaf by Jennie Shapter (2002)) and old Balderson cheddar, with a side of sliced avocado.

For me, since I can’t have the cheese, I made toast out of the bread, and served it alongside Montreal smoked meat and a salad with iceberg lettuce, avocado, and Woolwich Dairy Soft Unripened Goat Cheese Crumbles. It’s a little bit healthier than what we’ve been eating all week, I think! Now if only I can get the temptation of the mini chocolate bars out of the house, things will soon get back to normal.

Link’s Tunic

My eldest daughter’s birthday is coming up, so I wanted to make her something extra-special as a gift. When we went to ComicCon this year, Thing 1 kept spotting foam replicas of Link’s Master Sword (from The Legend of Zelda series) out on the sales floor, and she asked me if she could have one every time she found one. My response was that it was too expensive; I had given the girls a budget of $20 each to buy something, and the swords usually came in between $30 and $35. Instead she came away from the con with a chain necklace with a pendant shaped like a Golden Snitch, which also lit up from inside with a tiny LED, and she seemed quite satisfied.

However, I had two days at the con without the kids along, and in my browsing I managed to find a competitively-priced Master Sword, along with a cheap plastic Hylian Shield. I stashed the sword and shield away for a few months to save them for her birthday. But I also figured that I could take the gift up a notch and make her a play costume to go along with the pre-made items.


McCall’s M6224

To me, a play costume is one that I don’t spend a huge amount of time or money on because there’s a good chance it won’t last all that long, since my kids are allowed to wear play costumes whenever they want and to do whatever they want in them. This is why most of their play costumes are second-hand finds, hand-me-downs, or bought on the 90%-off sales after Halloween. To that end, I used McCall’s pattern M6224, which I already had in my stash from ages ago. (Although I didn’t use this specific pattern to make the girls’ ComicCon costumes this year, I should note that one-piece pajama patterns are great to adapt into costumes.)


Cutting the pattern.

This time I didn’t use the one-piece pajamas and instead went for option C, which is a short-sleeved pajama top reminiscent of the scrubs one would wear for working in a hospital. I lengthened the top a bit to make it more of a tunic than a shirt, which will eventually be belted into place. I used fabric from my stash as well, which was the remnants of a dark green sheet that I’d used parts of for some craft or other years ago.

As the pattern envelope promised, the pattern was really easy to make. I think it only took me about two hours from unpacking the pattern to ironing the final product. Now, it looks a little big to me, but pajamas and tunics both are meant to fit loosely, and anyway it will be belted in. If worst comes to worst, I can always take it in. Strangely, my biggest worry is that the neck hole may not be large enough; the fabric has absolutely no stretch whatsoever, and Thing 2 has a massive noggin, just like both of her parents.

Die-hard Zelda fans probably are looking at the tunic and thinking, “Isn’t that supposed to have lacing, and a collar?” Yes, I suppose it is, if I was going for true accuracy. I kind of went for a look between adult Link in Ocarina of Time (what with the length of the sleeves, not to mention the sword and shield) and Four Swords Link (with the V-neck tunic). As much as I love 100% accurate costumes, I didn’t think it was necessary to play dress-up at home. Also, generally the more accurate the costume, the more time and money it takes, neither of which I wanted to spend on something that would probably get food and dirt smeared all over it.

The next step is to get a belt and a long-sleeved shirt to go underneath, as well as to make Link’s cap. Hopefully I’ll get it all done in time!

Ottawa ComicCon Day 3: Pro Photos

Day 3 of Ottawa ComicCon (Sunday) I went as a femme version of the Joker from Batman. This was my easiest costume of the weekend, since I assembled the pieces instead of making them. I bought the ugly purple ladies’ suit years ago at Value Village for about $10; I’m pretty sure it was originally a mother-of-the-bride dress from the 1980’s. It was too small for me at the time, but the outfit just screamed “Joker” to me, and I hoped that one day I’d fit into it. (Now it’s actually a little bit big.) I bought the wig at Audrey’s Costume Castle and it was the last one of its kind that they had in stock, so I don’t know the make or model. The striped hose were from an American Mcgee’s Alice costume I’d done years before, and the shoes were just ones I’d had in the closet. The bow and flower were all from Michaels. I thought final look would be more Jack Nicholson’s Joker than anything else, but in the end I think I looked more like the 1960’s Cesar Romero Joker. At any rate, I don’t think anyone was confused as to who I was supposed to be.

(All photos in this post by Richard Dufault Photography, also known as Open Shutter Photography.)

Ottawa ComicCon Day 2: Pro Photos

Day 2 of Ottawa ComicCon (Saturday) I went as Death from the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels. In these novels, Death is an anthropomorphic personification that is generally regarded as a male skeleton, with glowing blue eye sockets, in black robes, who is about seven feet tall. By making a frame that sat on my shoulders, my Death was actually closer to eight feet tall, and would be even taller if someone bigger than me were to wear the costume. It only just fits under average ceilings. The belt at Death’s “waist” is actually in my armpits. It’s hard to get an idea of scale without anything in these photos to compare it to. This costume is almost more of a puppet than anything else.

(All photos in this post by Richard Dufault Photography, also known as Open Shutter Photography.)


Discworld Death loves cats.


The arms of the costume are articulated and can be manipulated from inside. The hands, however, are stuck in one position.


Death with Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service.


My mother as Death of Rats.

My mother went along with me and made a costume for Death of Rats, another Discworld character. This character is also known as The Grim Squeaker, and is really more of a small aspect of Death given physical form in the book Reaper Man. As per Wikipedia, “Death of Rats resembles a rodentine skeleton walking on its hind legs, wearing a black robe, and carrying a tiny scythe”.


Unfortunately the Death of Rats’ cowl kept falling down, and we didn’t notice until after the photo shoot.

Ottawa ComicCon Day 1: My Photos

I brought my camera along to Ottawa ComicCon on the days where my costume would allow it, and I took plenty of photos. Of course, I didn’t notice that my ISO was bumped up ridiculously high until well after the fact — something about wrangling children and costumes in a crowd makes photography somewhat challenging. So most of my photos are really grainy. Even so, I here are some of the most fun costumes that we saw; of course, the ones my kids wanted to have their pictures with are ones that they’re familiar with, so Friday’s photos concentrate on kid-friendly productions.


Thing 1 and Thing 2 with Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch).


We found three Pikachus (Pokémon) in the same area, so we rounded them up to take photos with my little Eeveelutions. I don’t think any of them know each other.


Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the T.A.R.D.I.S. in the Doctor Who booth.


Thing 2 with a Dalek, which was her favourite because it was orange, her favourite colour. In the Doctor Who booth.


Thing 1 with a blue-and-silver Dalek in the Doctor Who booth, also chosen because it contains her favourite colour.


Thing 2 and Thing 1 beside their favourite parts of the Star Wars universe: the droids! (R2D2 and BB8 from the 501st’s booth.)


Given that they went as characters from Zootopia last year, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were thrilled to meet Judy Hopps.


Thing 1 and Thing 2 were very happy to meet Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas — especially Thing 2, as it is her favourite movie. Don’t let her expression here fool you.


My mother took the kiddos for a few minutes, so I had a chance to snap a pic of this fantastic Storm (X-Men).


RWBY character Ruby, with a Grimm.


Thing 2 with Pokémon Cubone. This poor guy couldn’t see through his head piece at all! Looked great though.


Thing 2 and Thing 1 with Hipster Sally (The Nightmare Before Christmas), as executed by the fabulous Lilithia Dark. She even let Thing 1 hold her stuffed Zero! The girls were super excited — once again, especially Thing 2, who adores this movie. “Mommy, she was so awesome!” I agree.

If you recognize yourself or anyone you know in my photos and want me to link to your cosplay page/Facebook/blog, just let me know!

“Baby”

I plead complete exhaustion after attending all three days of ComicCon in costume (and of course staying up late all of the nights before to complete said costumes). I haven’t yet had the chance to process all of my photos, and at any rate the professional photos that I’d like to share haven’t come back yet. However, I did promise a friend that I would take pictures of Baby, a reproduction of the car from Supernatural:


Photo by Ottawa Supernatural Impala

And of course I had to have my photo taken inside of this iconic vehicle. I showed up early on Sunday, so I didn’t end up having to wait in line. Perfect! There was very little head space in this car, though. They must have the seats cranked way back when filming, because Jared Padalecki is something like 6’4″ and Jensen Ackles about 6’1″. They would have to be folded like origami to fit in the car the way it was set up at the Con.


Photo taken by my mother.

I meant to have a photo taken in Baby last year, but in all of the hooferah of ComicCon I totally forgot. If you can’t tell by the smile on my face, I’m happy that I remembered this year.