Introducing Na’Gath and plans for Tracon vol. 251

It happened that I went blue today and asked Yoki to take some pictures of my latest cosplay. Meet Na’Gath, a carefree shaman based on World of Warcraft female troll. The garments are actual item designs in the game… I might have spiced them up a bit.

Based on the two hours I wore the costume, I say that this cosplay is rather comfortable, possibly because I chose a bodysuit over bodypaint. For the face and neck, which are the parts I had to paint, I used water soluble products from Grimas. I didn’t fix the paint and I could have concentrated more with the make-up, but in all it turned out quite well.

 

It doesn’t show up too well in the pictures, but I’m wearing a pair the blue fake eyelashes I accidentally found while looking for some bling to put on the pointy ears.

It’s possible that my costume will be the only one from the three we’ve been making that will debut at Tracon. It happened that first we had to drop the show competition because of unexpected setbacks and last week more followed. One of our trolls and three other party members might have to skip the occasion, but it’s quite alright. If we won’t make it to Tracon this year as a group, we will book another convention for the trolls next year. Thank goodness, there are so many conventions in Finland nowadays. 

But I and Yoki will be strolling at Tracon in few weeks for sure. Yoki will be portraying her original character design and possibly dig an older outfit from our costume crowded closet. For the first time we will swap costumes, as I have been thinking of wearing Saya Otonashi from Blood+, which Yoki wore at last Desucon. For the other day, my choice of costume is probably Na’Gath. Altough, based on the expession, Kuura seemed not to appreciate the troll in me.

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Some troll stuff

Is it August already?! I really need to schedule a blogging day to our cosplay calendar…

 

We’ve been crafting our costumes and they are slowly taking form and starting to resemble more cosplay costumes and less gym wear with all the jersey and body/leggings patterns. I think that now after settling the material and pattern issues and trying every possible technique required at least once, the rest of the construction should go rather smoothly. 

This far there have been few setbacks from re-doing the clothing plans to having to raid department stores for certain blue stockings. And I’ve actually trashed few costume pieces with which I wasn’t happy with, but that and all the other hindrances have been worth it.

I love those toes!

Yoki’s visiting our third party member, who I will call Thalla from now on to simplify things. They will fit the costume for Thalla and wrap up our performance plans. I thought that this weekend would be a convenient moment to write something and show what we’ve been doing for the past month. Here are some pieces from here and there.

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Show me your teeth, mon!

I continued on the path of prosthetics and happened to solve our teeth problem sooner than I expected. Again I learned that talking to someone about your construction problems might actually help you, offer you ideas or even solutions. I casually started pondering to our mom that I had no clue how to make the teeth to our trolls, so that they would be reasonably priced, fairly safe and durable. I don’t actually remember what she said to me, but it lead to creative frenzy, which gave birth to a set of teeth with teeny-tiny, pretty tusks.

I’m currently making set for Yoki and trying to take photos so that I can make a construction post about them. From my set I can only show you the final result.

Materials used: modeling clay, latex and drop of acrylic paint.

 Smile!

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Loose facial features

Our troll project is slowly making progress. Next to the wigs, I have sketched out the outfits for all three of us and some I have already started sewing. The weapons are on Yoki’s drawing table and the performance has also been somewhat decided. The prosthetics were the only big costume section I had left aside. I kind of avoided it a bit too, since it was something I wasn’t familiar with. But yesterday I grabbed the bull from its horns… or troll from its tusks! However you like to put it.

I started from taking a cast from our third party member’s nose and sculpting the master molds for our ears. I’m going to make the nose by casting latex on a negative mold and the ears by brushing or dipping the positive molds on latex. Or that is at least what I have planned. I’m not sure which method is the best, since this is my first time working with latex.

Today I finished the positive sculpt for the nose and made the first “casting” test for the ears. The male tusks I'm going to solve with ready-made product, but the female teeth issue is still wide open. I'm still looking for a right solution with them.

I want to thank my good costumer friend Batsy for providing us with the latex! You can be sure that I will shortly have a pile of questions prepared.

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Progress with songstress Diva

I still haven't finished the gown even if predicted otherwise... all because I realized that I have to sew the satin bias tape by hand. Oh well, I thought and started to do everyting else but sewing the bias tape by hand, like making new curtains to my workroom and sorting the wig self. Despite the distractions, I now have the dress in decent condition. Some tweaking here and there is required, but I'm confident that I finish it well on time.

 

I have also the world oddest bolero under construction.

The wig is also taking form with the rose and feather brooch. The extensions and the bun are all attached with hair clamps, since Yoki will be using the wig in its normal form the day before. Fangs we fitted and customized the other day.

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Troll toes trial no. 1

Since I don’t have anything under construction right now (except for few fancy dresses for summer and a quilt works), I thought to continue our troll project with experimentations on the foot-side. It’s weird that WOW troll has three fingers but only two toes! The asymmetry is rather weird, but I will roll with it. The fingers I’m going to solve by sewing custom gloves, but the toe matter is bit trickier. I’ve seen costumers making the feet over boots, but I wanted the toes to look like they bend and act rather naturally. And I really want to make the feet look good, since people seems to loath them so much.

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to make the toes out of foam. The “how” is the thing I’m still pondering, but my first trial gave a good base to the future construction.

First I kindly asked Yoki to lend her foot so that I could draw the outline on a piece of foam. After that I sketched out how the fake toes would look like and how they are placed compared to the real toes. Then I cut away the inner section and the excess around the troll toes.

When I had the first piece ready, I copied it on another piece of foam and cut the top part of the foot. I rounded the edges and carved the inside of the top part hollow so that it would sit nicely on Yoki’s foot.

Then I trimmed the pieces until they looked fairly nice. I also added creases to where the toes might bend naturally.

Then I had a problem. These two photos show how I try to find a solution to how to wear the damn think and how to fade out the angularity of the cut edges. I ended up using the stockings for the trial.

I’ve bought a pile of blue stockings to be used as pieces of bodysuit for the trolls, but for the trial I used regular lycra to act as skin. After sewing a tight fitted sock I stuffed the toe part inside. I screwed up the pattern, but the idea worked quite nicely. Yay, for troll feet!

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Trollolollolol

Well, I didn’t finish the red wig… But I might as well reveal that the costumes we are certainly going to make this year are female trolls from World of Warcraft. They weren’t mentioned in the post where I revolved around costume plans for this year. To be frank, I might as well delete the whole post because the content isn’t anyhow correct anymore. It seems that I’m at work for whole holiday season. So it's no for going to conventions or at least for two days, which means no competitions as they usually are held at Saturdays.

You’d think that I would be a wreck, but I’m not! I’m too excited about our trolls. They are going to be our characters for Tracon’s show competition, if that kind of contest is part of the repertory. Plans changed also on that front, because our original plan was to use characters from Star Wars universe. Not a bad switch, I’d say. Wow characters are certainly more familiar to the audience in roleplay/anime convention and show class gives nice freedom with the costume design and construction.

The construction part offers again new methods and materials. We are going to take our time and hopefully get the costumes in presentable stage in the summer. What I’ve noticed with some Wow cosplayers, the costumes are never really finished. They just keep upgrading, like in the game.

The red wig I presented in the previous entry was mine. Thanks to a nice flow I got going on yesterday evening, Yoki’s wig was finished just few hours ago. As my high tail up-do reached over my shoulders, I decided to make Yoki’s wig short.

It still needs some trimming and styling on the sides, but it has to wait because for that I need Yoki's head. The bone necklace is also something I made yesterday from leftover Das clay. The feathers were the result of an experimental dyeing process with disinfectant... Weird.

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Blended wefts and high ponytail

I didn’t remember that making wefts was so easy! I really surprised myself with them and with my old wig, which actually has been featured in our blog. Here is the link to my previous post. In short, we dropped the costumes I had planned the wig for. Over a year and a half ago I just shoved the wig into my closet and almost forgot all about it. Until this morning that is, when I looked it up thrilled and motivated to re-style it. I got free day from work and because we had discussed about our costume plans with Yoki last weekend, I decided to start on that front. And this is what I got done today.

Oh, a shovel!

I’m really, really pleased with the wig. I made some blended wefts from the long ponytail I had cut off the wig mixed with burgundy red fibers, also remnants from last decade. I’m not going to write about making wefts, there is many tutorials about them in the web, but I’m going to give a hint to those who find tulle hard to work with. Use iron-on interfacing. Stitch the fibers on the glue side and when you have trimmed the excess carefully iron the interfacing between a piece pattern paper. I fried few fibers, luckily they aren’t visible.

Wefts on base before cutting...

...and after.

Next to making and sewing wefts, I cut the wig so that the extensions blend in. I feathered the wig quite heavily, but made it look chunky, like if it had been cut with a knife. Almost nothing went to waste; what I had cut, I rolled and teased into dreadlocks, which I then attached right back where they came from. The bangs keep their shape thanks to hairspray.


I still need to attach the ponytail properly. When I’ve done that, I will come back and possibly reveal what costume I’m actually making.

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