Con Report: Comicpalooza 2014

No Friday Finds this week because somehow it's already Friday and I'm still recovering from the 4-day Endurance Test known as Comicpalooza.

My Booth

I've been procrastinating on writing a post about this event because it's really difficult to know what to say.  Much of my experience of the con was as a vendor except for the brief periods when I was a cosplayer, and honestly I didn't really get to experience the con much from the POV of the average steampunk.

Me on Friday

I was really stressed prepping for this con because I was trying to finish the Steampunk Darkwing Duck.  Which means I was still stitching on it the morning I wore it.  And there are not-perfect things about it.  I think I'll do a separate post all about the details of my costume construction woes.

At any rate, Comicpalooza is one of those weird con hybrids where it's ostensibly comic book oriented, but the guests tend to be TV stars, and the fans are all over the place.  In general it is more of a con for the general public than for the dedicated geeks, I feel.  The cosplay isn't as prevalent or as skilled as at an anime specific con, for example.

Last year Comicpalooza reached out to the steampunk community and devoted a lot of money and effort into attracting and entertaining steampunks.  Abney Park, Professor Elemental, Frenchy and the Punk, and Marquis of Vaudeville all performed at a steampunk ball Saturday evening.

This year, not so much.  I believe the attitude was that the steampunks had their event and this year it was going to be sort of fend for yourself for the steampunk community.  So there still were a lot of steampunk panels, presenters, vendors, and attendees, but there was no uniting event or location.  Marquis of Vaudeville and Frenchy and the Punk returned as performers, but they were placed in a horrible location and at awkward times.

Teddy Roosevelt and some buddies

I unfortunately didn't get to attend either band's performances, though I saw them both during the day.  Frenchy and the Punk were scheduled during peak vending hours and I was unable to get away from my booth.  And I TRIED to go see Marquis of Vaudeville but literally could not get to the performance space.  The "main stage" was set at the very far end of the convention center, in essentially another building.  No one knew there was anything over there.  I never made it to the space because when I tried to enter the building next to it I was accosted by a very aggressive security guard who denied us entry because "this area is closing."  He said we had to walk around the outside of the building to get to the concert.  Well when we did that (a long trek) all the doors into the building were locked.  People were literally being pushed out of the building and heading to their cars, unaware that there was evening programming.  After walking all the way back to the other end of the center and finally finding an open door I wasn't physically able to walk back to the concert.

Airship Nikolai

I'm not going to go into my other negative experiences of the weekend, but suffice to say this is a very poorly organized con for the size, and the prevailing environment is one of chaos and confusion.   While the programming and panels seem to be very good, the rest of the environment contributes to a less than pleasant con experience.

I also have to admit I didn't attend a single steampunk panel.  Between being overheated and physically exhausted I didn't have much energy to trek to the third floor and the other end of the convention center very often.  I was invited to sit in on a Corset Safety panel and that was great.  On Monday I also made it to a James Marsters Q&A that was wildly entertaining.

Wearing the Steampunk Darkwing Duck was fun on Saturday, although I had problems overheating in its layers and could only really wear it for 20 minutes at a time.  The vast majority of people had no idea what I was dressed as and I got a lot of confused/pondering looks.  But the people who did get it REALLY appreciated it.  My favorite comments included "I see what you did there," "omg, that's never been done," and being chased by two different people yelling "DARKWING!".

Unfortunately, since I was honestly having a rough time that day, I totally failed at getting pictures.  So I am aware now of three different photos of the outfit.  One camera phone pic by my husband, one taken at the Weird West Fest Booth and one that showed up on Tumblr.  I'm going to have to iron the damn thing and put it back on soon to take semi-decent shots for y'all.

The best part of the convention for me was talking to lots of people about corsets and getting 4 custom corset commissions.  So I have a huge amount to do now and don't really get a break.  Although CORSETS!

So I apologize for such a complaining and poorly put together review, but I'm still brain dead.  And frankly I'm missing friendlier, smaller, steampunk cons.  And anime cons.  I'm really looking forward to some of my upcoming events.

Femme Steampunk Darkwing Duck Progress: Coat and stuff

I have a week until I start setting up for Comicpalooza.  THIS IS NOT GOOD.  I am so busy right now that I'm going a little nuts.  I keep thinking about posting, but in my downtime I'm mostly so braindead I'm just looking at memes.

ANYWAY, things are progressing, although there is still BIG STRESS about getting this costume finished.

The coat is done.  It's been done.  Today I finally took some crappy pictures of it.

I made a few changes to the pattern from the mock-up.  It's wider in the shoulders with larger sleeves to accommodate my linebacker shoulders.   I lowered the top closure and added a collar.  And I added pirate-y cuffs.

The fabric is cotton broadcloth with organic cotton lining.  Trying to find the right purple in a reasonable time frame became a huge problem, but I hope it works.

The trim is silk dupioni to match the trim on the corset.  It's bias tape.  For the trim on the cuffs I used a new seamless trim technique, but it was too time-consuming to do on the entire coat.  Plus the bias tape worked well with the curves.

















The cape is half complete, because I realized I didn't have enough pink satin for the lining.  So I had to rush order some more and it only arrived today.  The hat is partially constructed at the moment.  For your enjoyment, here's a photo of myself trying out the hat brim pattern.  I ended up making it bigger than this.

So now I just have a million things to do.  Wish me luck!

Femme Steampunk Darkwing Duck: Coat and Cape Mock-ups

So I've been very busy working on this costume.  As a reminder, you can see my previous posts on the subject here.

I've has a good idea of what I wanted for the coat for a while.  I wanted something vaguely similar to the Simplicity 2172 coat, with the underbust closure, but I wanted something more menswear styled with a double-breasted vest look.

So I did actually start with the 2172 pattern, leaving off the front pieces, and shortening it all around.  I added the double-breasted vest front.  I also added a lot more curve to the pattern because I am wearing it over a very curvy corset, after all.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do for the collar/top.  I am going to have a cravat with this outfit, so I felt like I needed something to hold the cravat in place.  I decided to try making the top meet above the bust.  I also changed the sleeves, adding more Victorian puffed sleeves.

My original mock--up was made from flowered sheets and I put this together by just basting bits and pieces of fabric together until I got something I thought might be workable.  I don't have pictures of it because it's SO ugly and it's now in pieces anyway.

The complete wearable mock-up.

I decided to make a wearable mock-up to test my new pattern.  I made it with some sheets I had lying around, but which would be actually wearable.  I also decided to test a somewhat unorthodox construction method I took from this article in Threads Magazine.  It was similar to the folded seam method I use to make corsets and I thought, "Hey, this will be a fast way to sew the outer fabric and lining at the same time!

Yeah, not so much.  I included topstitching, per the article, which means I sewed 3 lines of stitching for every seam, versus the two I would have if I'd sewn the lining and fabric seperately.  Plus the article makes no mention of how to finish the edges.  So instead of just stitching the two layers together around the edge and flipping it, I had to painstakingly hem all the edges.  It did NOT save time.
 
But ok, that's what experiments are for.  I learned what NOT to do.  I also learned that I need to interface the vest portion (DUH).  There are some changes that need to be made to the fit as well.  The shoulders are too tight for me to actually move in, and the band across the chest is too high and presses into my throat.

I'm also planning to add cuffs and collar to the final coat.  In truth the final coat is almost entirely constructed, but I'm on hold a bit until I decide exactly what I want the length to be.  The issue has to do with the cape.

Cape

I thought the cape would be the easiest part of the costume.  Make a cape...end of story.  Yeah, until I started looking into different ways to make a cape.  Half-circle, full-circle, triangles, trapezoids, shaped shoulders....

Since I dislike reinventing the wheel I decided to try out the free pattern from Fleece Fun for a Red Riding Hood Cape.  I liked the shoulder shaping on the pattern.  I printed the pattern and added 14" to make it longer.  This is what I got when I made it from from ugly garage sale sheets.

So there's actually a HUGE amount of fabric in this cape.  The pattern pieces are so wide at this point, that I can't make them any wider and still get them cut from my fabric.  I really like the fullness of this cape, but is it too short?  It's difficult to judge.  I don't want a full-length cape, but does it look silly to have a cape shorter than my coat?  The original Darkwing Duck cape is very billowy and distinctive, but I don't want something too big to handle and pose with for photos.  This cape feels very good, but does it look wrong?

So I appreciate thoughts on this.  

Femme Steampunk Darkwing Duck Corset

So I actually started work on patterning this corset for myself probably almost a year ago.  It went through several mock-ups and I finalized the pattern and decided on the fabrics and lace last August or so.   Only after that did I really formulated The Plan for the Darkwing outfit and realized I conveniently needed a purple corset for a base.

To be honest, not much of this corset is going to show under the coat (I am continuing to develop the very rough drape).  Just the bust area.  That's ok, because the lace doesn't really go with the rest of the costume.

I made this corset mostly to show off both my figure (cause if you got the hips...) and my improving corset skills.  I was mostly wildly successful.   The only thing I'm unhappy with is the exact fit of the bust.  I was trying to account for my LARGE asymmetry  (one of my breasts is easily a cup size bigger than the other), but the fact that I pattern many months from actually making the corset means I made a few mistakes and by the time I was putting everything together I saw what I could have done better, but it was too late to totally redo.  But that's nit-picky.  (One day I MAY make a perfect corset.  That is not this day.)

Technical stuff: The corset is made from a self-drafted pattern that I tweaked and tweaked to get the shape I wanted.  I wanted something that was full-coverage enough that I could wear it for formal events.  I also wanted to get the maximum dramatic effect on the hipspring, because I COULD and I didn't feel any of my corsets had really shown my hipspring off fully.   Also I wanted to get a good side-seam symmetrical overbust pattern.  That means that the side seam runs directly down the middle of my side, with most of the hip curve in that seam.  It makes the hip more dramatic but it's more difficult to construct smoothly.

The corset is double boned with all 1/4" spiral steel except at the grommets.  The busk is an extra wide (and extra long) busk which I've found works best with my curvy figure.  The fashion fabric is dupioni silk backed with fusible woven interfacing with appliqued lace along the entire bottom. I love how easy the silk was to work with after interfacing.  Always doing that from now on. Strength fabric is cotton duck (cause I'm broke) and the floating lining is twill.  The bones are encased in the pressed open seam allowance of the top two layers.  This is a method I don't really like because it's not as strong as a welt seam but I double stitched each seam so hopefully it holds.  The double boning is nice, but I do still generally prefer having a bone in the middle of the panel.  Some of these panels are very skinny in one place and very wide in another and that means I couldn't have a bone running down the middle.

The light purple works fabulously, but it was initially an accident because I ran out of the dark purple silk.  My pattern pieces were so weird in shape that I didn't have enough room to cut the whole corset from my 1/2 yard piece of silk remnant.  So I used a complementing color and it all worked like I planned it that way.  I'm considering using bias of the light purple around the edges of the coat to match.  That probably will come down to time.

I have no pictures of the back because those pictures mysteriously disappeared from the camera.  Which means I don't have a very good idea what the back looks like on, either.  I have no idea how much of a waist reduction this is because I NEVER remember to measure.  I should be able to close it further once it's seasoned/broken in.  But it's really comfortable even though it's a pretty good cinch.

One of the complications for the rest of the costume is that I wasn't thinking of making a whole matching outfit when I chose these colors/fabrics.  I won't be able to actually match this purple, since I can't afford to make the whole costume in dupioni and the dye lots wouldn't match anyway.  So I have to find the right colors of purple to go nicely with this while still playing the right role in the Darkwing costume.  I think I have the cape fabric sorted, but I'm still waiting on swatches for the coat.  Cross your fingers.  (Also notice how the one photo makes the purple look way redder.  Yes, it's retouched a bit, but the color really does shift from blue-purple to red-purple depending on the light.  Which means it will probably clash no matter what I do. )


ETA: For the curious, this is a 4 inch reduction from my natural waist.  I was surprised that at least for now the waist measurement is the same as my usual corseted waist.  My measurements in this are 45-32-48.

New Costume In Progress: Femme Steampunk Darkwing Duck

Yeah, that's right.  So here's the thing, about a year ago I saw the following drawing of Steampunk Darkwing Duck by Deviant Art user Mechanique Fairy.  (Her entire Steampunk Disney series is AMAZING.) And I thought it was about the most awesome thing I'd ever seen.  My first reaction was that I wanted to make that costume, but I didn't consider wearing it myself.

A few months later I looked at the picture again and I suddenly thought, "What would the female version of this look like?"  And I was doomed.  I knew I had to make it, and I decided I would try to make it for myself to wear to this year's Comicpalooza.  Well, I've been busy in the 9 months or so since then, but I now have about two months left and I'm really going to try.

So, in case you're not familiar, I want you all to know how awesome Darkwing Duck is as a character.  He's a bit obscure, since his only real appearance was in his early 90s Disney afternoon cartoon.  I freaking loved that show.  Darkwing Duck is the more loveable Batman, an everyduck who is a hero in his own mind, dedicated to foiling evil doers everywhere, in serious purple-caped style.   His love of gadgets and inventions fits perfectly into steampunk, too.  The show was a clever parody and satire of the superhero genre, packed with references.

Classic Darkwing

So I'm doing a Femme Steampunk Darkwing Duck and I don't care if anyone wants to give me hell about it.  I can't think of a more fun costume to do.  And at this point in my costuming I don't care about what anyone may think.  I have always been afraid to do any costumes that didn't fit my steampunk alter ego, but now I'm way more interesting in making something with impact.

So I will begin blogging about the different pieces of this costume very soon.  I have two pieces of it already finished.  Let me break down what I'm planning.

Costume Pieces:

• Striped Bloomers - These are already complete and I posted a picture of me wearing them already.  I decided to keep the striped pants of the inspiration image, but feminize them by making bloomers with lace.  This also gives me a versatile costume piece I've been wanting anyway.  I didn't really consider making a long skirt since I think I need to keep some of the action element of the character.
• Corset - If I make a costume for me to wear, there will be a corset.  It's actually a physical requirement to keep me going all day at a con with my back condition.  The corset for this project is also finished.  I actually started working on it about 9 months ago, and originally it wasn't intended to be part of this costume.  It was just a fancy purple corset to show off with.  But since I made it from two different colors of purple dupioni, it works as a base garment for this. I've been working on it in my spare moments and it's DONE.  I can't wait to show y'all this corset.  It's the best I've made.
• Coat - This is the most involved piece of the costume.  It is going to be somewhat similar to the Simplicity 2172 coat in that it will close under the bust, but it will be double breasted to incorporate the gold buttons of Darkwing's coat.  I am going for a pirate-y, menswear inspired style.  I have the rough beginnings of this draped and I'm desperately looking for the right purple fabric.
• Cape - Darkwing must have his cape with magenta lining.  I have a dark purple taffeta and a magenta taffeta ready for this.  I am planning to incorporate a shoulder cape like the inspiration pic.
• Hat- I've seen steampunk versions of Darkwing (I've found 4 different versions, actually) that make his hat into a top hat, but I want to keep the distinctive Darkwing wide hat.  This is going to take a bit of experimenting to get the right shape, so I should maybe get started on it...
• Accessories - Teal cravat, mask (I'm a bit nervous about the mask), maybe some spats.  I also want to make a new utility belt, although I don't know if I'll be able to make a DWD belt buckle or not.  

I also have to continue to make things for others as I sell them, and prepare stock for vending Comicpalooza. Plus I promised my husband a new vest.  Eep.