Dragon Con 2015 - Part 1 - Cyclops

Almost forgot to do this - been busy this autumn, between the house, barn, traveling to CA to help and visit with my mother, and more.

This year we just chilled on Thursday. I was behind on my Snow Queen, so I did a bit of work on that, and set up all the costume accessories for each costume so I could find them each day.

Friday was the Marvel Gender Bender Shoot:

Rockabilly X-Men:

Me and my sweetie:

Close-up of my spiffy shoes:

And one of the full outfit:

I ended up buying a dress, but not for too much. Also bought the shoes (on sale), and gloves. Fishnet stockings I already owned.

The shoes have buckles across the toes that unbuckle, so I made the rosettes with elastics on the back and slid them on and buckled them.

Made the belt and "buckle". The belt's actual closure is hooks and eyes. The "buckle" again has elastics on the back so I could slide it onto the belt and position it over the closure. Close-ups of the rosettes and brooch are in an earlier post.

The glasses I chose for the style and firey lenses. I put paper and painters tape over both sides of the lenses and painted yellow.

The wig is one I bought in the 80s. I set it in curls earlier in the year, tweaking it now and then, and then sprayed and pinned the heck out of it in August. Being an old wig it was kind of set in its ways, so I did have to adjust my original style to one the wig wouldn't fight so much. I couldn't get a completely smooth finish -- the hairs are kind of wirey -- but overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I included a purse as well -- can't really tell in the picture, but it's red and black. It's a circle if you open it all the way, and would look like the X-Men symbol. The inside is blue -- I made it reversible so that I could also use it with my Twisted Disney Silvermist costume. I wanted to have a fan with my costumes this year, and that's where I kept it when I was posing in those costumes.  Some folks really liked the idea of a fan -- I just painted one black to go with both costumes -- might see a few more fans at D*C next year :D

I like this outfit more than I thought I would, and it was nice that I could wear it for more than one shoot.

Rockabilly X-Men Accessories

Been working on some accessories for Cyclops...

Spray-painted the sunglasses frame. Taping over the lenses  (both sides) was a picky job. I did light passes from different angles, taking time for drying between passes, and still missed a few things. Had to re-tape and paint again. Better lighting while spraying would have helped, but I did most of the spraying in the basement to keep the fumes out of the main part of the house. They'll do.

Large X is a "brooch" and has a clip on the back. Used old mat board scraps for the X and back board. X is cover with faux leather, as is back board. Black gems are adhesive-backed ones from JoAnn's beading/jewelry section. Red on that and the smaller X'es is adhesive-backed holographic paper (scrapbooking section, I think?). I'd been thinking something like tail lights would be cool, reminiscent of the car-racing for pink slips, and saw this paper.

I think the clip is an old chip clip or clothes pin? Strong spring action but is basically made from a heavy wire that's vinyl-coated.

The smaller X'es are on large buttons (button backs were flat), out of my mom's old stash of buttons. I'll be making rosettes to put them on, and then they'll go on my shoes. I took the photo at this point to show that I cut the holo paper so it was slightly in from the edge of the button -- to avoid having the red show outside the circle of black I'm outlining with gems.

The fit for the gems around the outer edge was a little too tight but in this case having plastic gems was a good thing. I clipped a tiny bit from the edges of a few of them to get them to fit, and you can't really tell even holding them in your hand. Way down on the floor on my shoes, they'll be perfect.

Agent May's Boots and Cyclops' Shoes

Found boots for Agent May, at JC Penney:

I missed the really good sale ($69.99) but still got them for $99.99 -- regular price is $115.  They look like boots Agent May would wear (she has at least two pair in Season 1, one low, one knee-high).

I don't like single-use items much, and I wanted boots with leather uppers. My feet are hard to fit, so I need shoes that I can break in -- that means real leather. I'll be able to wear these boots for every day, not just for a few hours. They were a little tight at first, but after walking around in them for about 10 minutes, maybe less, they warmed up and started the re-shaping process to fit me better.


That's actually a wee problem with the yellow shoes I got for the Cyclops -- faux leather, and just a tiny bit of pinch. But they have a functional buckle across the bridge, so I'm considering modifying them -- open the solid part, add in fabric, and then the buckle will have a real function.  Also, I'm going to try to make buckle covers for the real buckle, that will make them look like the X-Men buckle; just a nice little extra detail.

Cyclops Belt

Looking at different options for Cyclops' belt. Found this while looking to see if wide belts were a 1950s thing (they were):

I like the idea of the sash, because I was trying to figure out how to deal with Cyclops wearing a blue body suit with yellow briefs.  Thinking I can just subsume those into a wide belt or sash.  The sash would do the job of carrying the yellow downward.

Shoes for Cyclops and...

These are the shoes I got for the Rockabilly X-Men Cyclops costume.

http://www.heels.com/womens-shoes/lucca-yellow.html

I don't expect to do much more on this costume for a while, but I saw the shoes when they were on sale, and when opportunity knocks....

The sunglasses should be coming sometime in the next few weeks.  I'll be keeping everything together with the dress that I'll be re-tailoring, so I can find it all next year.  Still haven't picked the spot in the house for doing this -- right now everything's in the living room but that won't do over the holidays.

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Separately, I have some cool gold pintucked fabric that I bought ages ago, and I've been contemplating what to do with it. Since we moved to our new house, I've been working away at using existing materials, to reduce the amount of fabric in storage (in theory), decorate and insulate the house, and have more new clothing to wear.  Well, and now more costumes, apparently.  I did have to buy some fabric this year, especially for Shiny, but am going to try to do less of that this coming year.

I'm contemplating doing a phoenix costume, inspired by the mythical creature, not the Marvel comics character.  The colors we're most used to in the West are red and gold, but there are other options...I'm thinking this gold fabric would make a splendid gold coat though. Fitted in the body, with a nice big flared skirt.

And I'm thinking of making a hat to go with it. And a standing collar.  Just putting these bits down for future reference, since I don't have time to do anything about it right now.

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I'll also be working on the Snow/Winter Queen over the next year.  I'll see if I can put up some photos of what I have so far; not sure when that will happen.

Dragon Con 2015 Rockabilly X-Men Update

Okay, so opted for Cyclops instead of Dark Phoenix. Ordered some cool sunglasses -- will probably have to paint the frames, but they're cat eye and the lenses are a firey red/gold.

I have a blue dress that should work, with tailoring, and can still use the gold tights.

Need:
- yellow/gold shoes
- red belt
- yellow/gold gloves
- maybe a gold sash for that splash of yellow in the middle?

I can style my own hair instead of a wig because Cyclops is a brunette.

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I might still do a Dark Phoenix, but go a little more Chinese than I was planning before -- altho' the cheongsam was popular in the 50s, interesting enough...

Rockabilly Hair

"Bangs" for people with long hair:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FO3QkCTsb8