Happy Halloween!

Don't Blink

Getting into the halloween spirit

I bought a couple of pumpkins a week ago to carve, and finally carved one last night. In keeping with the theme of Dr. Who for Halloween, I carved the new TARDIS logo into the pumpkin, with BAD WOLF around the logo, using the DW as the middle letters. Unfortunately it is sort of hard to see the carving with the lights on, as the carving around the DW is very thin, I will try to get a picture up where you can see it lit up from inside.

I also cut out and started painting a couple of tombstones to put out in the front yard with me. One will be for Rory and Amy, and one will be for Clara. I am a huge nerd. Themed Halloween.

Painting...done?

Almost done. Just tweaks and small stuff left to do. The back of the dress is done and painted, and I added on "bow ties are cool" in Gallifreyan. I "tagged" my statue costume with Time Lord graffiti.

Pictures of the whole thing on will probably appear once the dress is totally dry and I've fixed any and all problems.                                  

So much paint

Dress is taking forever to paint, and is using so much paint. I ran out last night, after painting the top on the back of the dress. Luckily for me, I ordered paint off Amazon Tuesday night, so paint will magically appear at my house today. That will hopefully be enough to finish painting the skirt and any places I may have missed. It's taking a long time since I can paint a large area, but I have to wait for it to dry overnight to turn it over and paint the other side. Then run out of paint. Hopefully tonight is the last dress painting session.

Finished wings, sewn dress

Not a lot of updating recently, but there has been significant progress. The wings are fully painted, their color is matching now, and all that is left is to attach fabric to the base to hide the sockets.

I buckled down this weekend and sewed the dress pretty much all in one go, which took probably about 8 hours. A lot of pinning and eyeballing things later, a finished garment appeared. I ended up sewing the skirt and the top separately, and then attaching the top to the skirt, creating gathers along the hem line. Way more complicated than it needed to be, but that's how I roll.

Turned out not too shabby, although somehow the bottom gathers of the top all sort of pull towards the front, and despite ripping out the seam multiple times and repositioning the gathers, still did the same thing. Guess I can't fix that problem, oh well.

One thing I really need to do in the future is pattern before I start sewing, it will definitely make my life easier and the construction go faster. I also need to learn how to properly put in a zipper, because they are the bane of my existence. Most of the time I was sewing was putting in a seam, looking at it, tearing it out, and redoing it. Correcting mistakes probably took at up at least an hour or two of my time.

After the dress was done, I figured out where to put the slits for the wing sockets, and cut those out and sewed down the edges. I test fit the harness under the dress, and luckily I don't have to adjust anything. The harness is a bit bulkier under the dress then I wanted, but I'll live with it. As you can see in the top right, from the front, you can't see anything of the harness, and that is the most important part. The harness does pull the back of the dress away from my neck, but nothing too funky.

Last night I started painting the dress. It's going to take awhile, and unfortunately I can't fit the finished dress over my dress form. The shoulders of the dress form are just slightly too large for it to fit without ripping a seam. At least for the front I'm painting on the form, but I'll take it down and put cardboard into it to give it some rigidity while I'm painting and paint the rest of it that way. I also have to lighten up the paint job on the front, the mask is appreciably lighter than the dress at the moment.

Luckily the dress is easy to paint, highlight the folds, lowlight the creases. Unluckily, there is a lot of dress, and a lot of fabric, approximately 4 yards worth. Now to see if I have enough paint or not.

Wing Progress, Pt 5

Wings are now mostly painted. Drawback to mixing paint to get the shades of grey that I want; one wing looks lighter in color than the other, going to have to fix that. Aside from tweaks to the wings, they are mostly done. I also still need to fix the sockets and make them a tighter fit.

While waiting for the paint to dry, which is enthralling, I started on the dress. I had cut out fabric for the neck line a week or so ago, so I sewed that to make the base for the rest of the top. Then I started draping fabric and pinning it how I wanted.

I ended up pinning all the fabric for the back, and started pinning the front, although I'll probably fiddle with the front for awhile before I decide I'm happy with it. The waist band will be elastic to increase drapey-ness and comfort.

All in all, things are starting to come together. The dress is probably going to be way more complex than it needs to be, but that normally happens when I make things.

Wing progress, pt 4

Paint, paint, paint. Painting is taking a long time, since I can only do one side of the wing at a time. I also have to let this one dry before I can move it and start painting the other one. Then do both back sides, and probably repaint some of the front. 

Set up my sewing machine though, so I can start in on the dress while I wait for paint to dry. 

To do list update

Back in the first post on this project, I wrote down a to do list. I figured that now would probably be a good time to look back at it and update that list. Now let's see:

Old to do:

Make a wig, paint the wig
Since I don't want to do any body painting, make gloves/neck cover out of tights
Make the dress - one of the largest pieces, but a fairly easy day of sewing
Paint the dress
Make the wings and the harness for the wings

Things I can check off: wig, glove and neck covers, wing harness

In progress: wings, currently painting and sanding

Not yet started: Dress

Good progress so far, but I've only got about 3 weeks left until Halloween, it's time to get my butt in gear on the dress. The dress is the largest and most important part for you know, being clothed, and that is probably important.

Wing Progress, Pt. 3

Foam, foam, foam. Craft foam has a really weird smell that gets into everything it touches it seems. Did a lot of cutting and gluing last night, and the end result is what you see below. One wing is now entirely covered, hooray!

The next step, besides getting the other wing covered, is to sand down offending edges, and create details in the feathers. Unfortunately the pictures don't show much of the detail, as all the feathers are blending in together, but the whole inside face is individually cut and glued feathers.


Probably going to get the other wing done first, then just go to town with the sanding. I need to make some adjustments along the area of the sockets, but that's just fine tuning at this point.


I was worried that the skeleton would not provide enough rigidity, but I made the bottom feathers out of two layers of craft foam glued together, and that seems to be fairly solid. Give it a couple of layers of paint, and it should have almost no wobbles.

Wing Progress, Pt. 2

I have started to cover the wings in foam. Finally. I have a cold, which is making it difficult to be motivated enough when I am home to work on the wings. Despite the cold, I did manage to put a final bend in the wings and start the process of turning the frame into something that resembles feathers and wings.

After doing another wear test, I realized that the wings, being mounted at an angle, were sticking out way far behind me. The pipes were bent all in a flat plane, and that wasn't working for the overall aesthetics of the wings. Thus, I bent down the sides, and I think it's turning out pretty well now.

Covering the top portion of the PVC with craft foam took longer than I thought it would. It also left more seams than I thought it would. However, I do own a dremel, so I've started to sand down any really big seams or edges with the dremel before I start painting. Once I am finished with all the foam, I am going to use a paint/primer spray paint that is meant to lay down thickly so I can sand down any seams further after one coat. Then more paint, a second round of sanding, and potentially more paint/primer. Then the detail paint. Then done?

Also started adding on wire reinforcements for the foam. The long side wires will be reinforced so they aren't so wobbly, and they are actually shorter now than they are in this picture. I tried it on after I added the long wires, and realized it came down to mid calf. A bit too long for my liking.

Shortened up those wires, and started tracing out the big long feathers that will make up the bottom part of the wings. Hopefully I'll get more of the foam cut out and onto the structure tonight, as long as I'm not incapacitated by too many coughing fits. Colds suck.

Wing progress

Wing update:

I completed the bending of the PVC for the upper wing structure. Both the harness and part of the wing structure were made out of PVC since I can bend it into the shape I want. Other wings that I have seen on le internets have visible seams from being glued together cardboard or foam. I'm hoping to avoid that by laying down foam and/or paper mâché along the top, making a seam free wing. 

The rest of the wing will be roughed out with wire. This is to reinforce the cardboard and foam which will make up the rest of the structure and feathers.  Once I get everything in about the place I want it, it will be time for paint, and then glue everything. 

Mostly happy with the shape and how the frame turned out. They are almost symmetrical, which I was worried about. I don't want one of them sticking up higher than the other. Before I bent the pipe, I did a wear test, and put on the harness and had my very patient partner socket the wings in. Not too heavy yet, they should be comfortable enough to wear for a couple of hours without much pain. Although I will have to have my partner put the wings on and off, since I can't get them on and off without him. Therein lies the problem with wings. At least I will be able to get everything else on and off by myself.

Commence dress?

So I thought perhaps to start on the dress last night, get that going since it is going to be a long and tedious paint job once it is sewed. Cut out the material for the neck line. Looked at the state of my crafting area. Major clean up required to move the sewing machine onto a spot that is usable. Despair.

Long story short: I cut out some material and then lost all motivation to do anything else, made the smallest iota of progress.