A Day in the Life of Danika Cosplay

Update 1:

For the official Guild Wars 2011 Halloween contest, I decided to do a cosplay of Danika!

Here’s the collage I made of Danika (makes me feel like a creeper, lol) so I could see different views of her outfit

I also did a close-up and noticed that her bodice and skirt seem to be a bit sparkly so I’m going to be sparkly

This is my first attempt at cosplay so here’s hoping it all goes well!

Update 2:

So, my first official day of costume making didn’t go so well!  I spent the day walking around the local stores in my area trying to find shoes, gloves, and any other fabric/accessories I could use for my costume and didn’t find a thing! D:  (For those curious, that was TJ Maxx, Rite Aid – although a found a small pack of beads that I’m not sure I can do anything with, Ross, Famous Footwear, Party City – lots of cool costumes here!, Payless, Target, World Market, and a framing/art story that I can’t remember the name of).  My area seriously needs a sewing, craft, and bead store

So, back home, I did some shopping at Fabric.com and was overwhelmed at the different fabric choices (and prices).  I ended up buying 4 different types of fabric (greatly simplifying what I had originally been planning on doing!): burgundy velvet for the main skirt and bodice, black pleather for the tummy part, plain black for the bodice part, and a red satin for the front and back tail parts.  I also did some digging on Amazon.com and found some black satin opera gloves that I’ll probably end up getting since I couldn’t find any lace ones that I liked and could afford D:  I also did some digging in my closet and found some black velvet pants that I need to shorten, an old corset that I’m going to do the sewing for the bodice on, and some plain black shoes that I’m just going to have to go with for her shoes

I’m also kind nervous about how the fabric will fall, because the pictures almost look like she’s wearing a small Crinoline to make the skirt flare out a bit.  I’m not sure how I’ll be able to make that effect!

Update 3: 

OMG, just received my fabric.com shipping email that says the fabric will be here in 1 week (Sept 21)!  I didn’t realize it would take that long since I got totally spoiled from Amazon’s 2 day shipping D:  I’m kinda nervous now that I might not get finished in time!

Update 4:

Did some light shopping for some more costume mats   Still haven’t found the shoes that I want   I’m feeling better that my costume won’t look *exactly* like the game model (grumble, easier to draw than physically make, grumble) after reading this bit of advice from Tzu from GWGuru:

“Personally I think accuracy is very important, but you have different levels of accuracy you can adhere to:

1) Similar silhouette: The overall shape and dimensions match, but not necessarily the pattern or colour. Examples: An A-line
dress , knee-high boots.

2) Similar colour or hue: The colour or hue matches, but not necessarily the silhouette, and the details may be off.
Examples: a red wig, a golden necklace.

3) Similar detailing: The details, pattern or decoration on the items match, but not necessarily the colour or silhouette. Examples: a filigree ring, floral pattern on a dress.

If you think of this list as graded from most important (1) to least important (2), you know you should always try to fulfill the first,
preferably the second, and then the third if you want to be perfectly accurate.”

I figure I’ll shoot for 2 outta 3 of these as my minimum goal

I also ordered some more goodies online so I should be expecting within the next week or two: my gloves, black lace, white beads, black beads, and good ol’ puffy paint!

I also tried crocheting the lace-like portion of the necklace (the part across the chest) and it came out terribad!  As in, I’m not even taking a picture…  Anyway, this disaster is why I decided to order the black beads since I’m going to try wire wrapping and the beads to make the pattern

Update 5 (9/19/2011-6:11pm) :

Yay!  Got my gloves and some puffy paint that I ordered from Amazon!  I love, love their free 2 day shipping   Also got my confirmation email from Joann Fabrics that my lace just shipped and will take 7-10 business days D:  The white beads are still in processing   Something tells me that I should have just driven to the store instead of waiting for shipping…  Anyway, fabric should be here sometime within the next few days so I can’t wait to see if the fabric is what I really want  I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t mess up by picking out the fabrics online :O

Update 6 (9/20/2011-10:58pm) :

Lol, I feel like I’m doing product placements, because I keep mentioning stores, but I found some more supplies that I can use for my costume in Daiso (thread, hooks, sparklies to go with my beads, chopsticks for the hair).  Also had to get one of those bra extender things to use the corset that I’m modifying (hope that’s not TMI D: ), but the corset hooks are spaced differently so I need to alter those to make them fit   So far, I’ve been gathering materials and not actually doing anything, so hopefully, tomorrow I’ll actually get some stuff altered and done XD  At a minimum, I’m hoping to at least shorten the pants I’m planning on using and fixing the hooks so they’re at the right height

Update 7 (9/21/2011-9:21pm) :

Broke out the 6-year old sewing machine that my mom gave me!  Lol, it’s kinda sad that it’s the first time I’ve used it   I attempted to shorten the black pants for the costume (after spending waaaaaay too much time trying to figure out how to make the machine threaded and working XD ), and my stitches are ALL over the place!  It’s a good thing I’m doing black thread on black pants, so my horrible and very wiggly stitching is totally not visible  Anyway, I hand-stitched the bra extender, and that was much, much easier

My fabric comes tomorrow, so I’m pretty excited!  After today’s adventure with the sewing machine, I’m kinda convinced I might have bitten off more than I can chew XD  I’m having fun making my costume though, so even if I have to hand stitch the whole thing, I’m so getting this done!  Oh, and I also decided to make my Halloween entry like a scrapbook page, so I’m going to take goofy pictures of me in the costume and then arrange it like a Halloween scrapbook page   I was also thinking of trying to carve a juggernaut in a pumpkin and adding that to the scrapbook page XD

Update 8 (9/22/2011-5:14pm) :

OMG!  I just got my fabric in the mail and I’m super happy!  The fabric is absolutely PERFECT, and I’m so happy with fabric.com right now   I took a picture, because I’m so excited:

There are 5 types of fabric there (the green is the papasan fabric I rested the fabric on) XD

Update 9 (9/26/2011-10:24pm) :

Oh dear… it’s been a few days since I’ve had an update D:  We had an old college friend come into town so my costume has been on the back-burner :O  It turns out the GW contest deadline is October 13th instead of around the 22nd as expected (panic time!).  Anyway, started working on sewing the costume base, and of course, since I’m a total newbie at costume making, I’m doing a lot of trial and error trying to get this costume to work XD

Here are some of my pics showing my newbie attempts

I decided to work on the top first so I started with using some ‘butcher paper’ to make a makeshift pattern!  This paper is what Amazon.com uses as space filler when they mail packages (they also use those air bags, but this works!).  The plan was to basically tape the paper together until I found a fit I liked

Lol, so here’s my very basic pattern in the next two pics!  It opens in the front.  If you look at the Danika pic, this is basically the red top (leaving out the black boob part until later), and I also added the rib cover part so I can attach the skirt to it.

Next, I had to cut the pattern so I could actually put it on the fabric   Even though this is the red top, I’m using a black base since that just so happens to the extra non-stretchy fabric that I had :O  The rib part is red, because that extra fabric happened to be thicker, and I want it strong since that’s what the skirt will be attached to.

Here are the beginnings of my actual costume!  I’m using safety pins, because I’m too much of a chicken to use actual pins while trying to do a fitting XD

Update 10 (10/01/2011-10:29pm) :
Well… I learned something the very, very hard way :/  When deciding to make a cosplay outfit while pregnant, DO NOT CHOOSE THE NPC THAT IS 6 FT TALL AND SIZE ZERO!  Lol, let’s just say that the costume and I do not flatter each other at all XD  Oh well, too late to turn back now ;-P  With the Oct 13 deadline coming soon, I’m pretty nervous about getting everything done in time.  I figure I’ll need to finish by this upcoming Saturday at the latest so I can get my hubby to help me take daylight pics on Sunday.  Here’s crossing my fingers!

Time for some pics, eh?  Well, I finished the top base, so I used the black part as the template for the actual red velour fabric that will match Danika’s top.  I hand-sewed the velour directly on top of the black part, because the sewing machine still confuzzles me and my hand stitches look far more controlled than my wild and crazy sewing machine ones.

With that done, I decided to ditch the corset and just use a regular ol’ bra to be the base for the black portion of Danika’s top.  Lol, in hindsight, I should have picked a red one, because the top doesn’t fit perfectly and the dark blue straps sometimes show.  I also tested out sewing some sparkly things on the fabric   I’ll probably add some more later since it looks like Danika’s top has many more.

Next up is the skirt pattern! Like the top, I first made the skirt out of that packing paper so I could get the right length and everything.

Lol, I TOTALLY cheaped out and got the minimum fabric yardage I could get so as you can see in this pic, my pattern was actually longer than the fabric I had!  Luckily, the top part was going to be covered anyway so I just sewed on some scraps   Luckily, I had enough for the red part, but I had to place the patterns JUST right to do so!

And voila!  I’ve got the skirt pieces all cut out and kinda assembled :D  This is also when I tried it on and realized short pregnant woman and 6ft size 0 NPCs look very different in this outfit style XD

Also, to make it even harder… Danika’s skirt is on an invisible crinoline or something…

So, being totally confused on how to get this effect without actually building a crinoline, I looked around the house and found some tulle and … packing peanuts. Yep.  And I attach this beauty to the back of the black costume pants.

Lol, with all the excess fabric and packing peanuts I’m packing, let’s just say this costume visually adds quite a few pounds XD

Update 11 (10/06/11 – 4:27pm) :

Eep!  Talk about crunch time!  I had been debating whether to submit my costume alone or me cosplaying with it on.  I’ve decided to just go with it and go all the way and model it, which means I need to be done on Sat so my hubby can help me take pictures on Sunday during the day :O  I’ve already made a checklist of all the things I need to do and it’s still pretty long so here’s crossing my fingers that I’ll get it done in time!

I’ve got the base part of the dress cut, so now I’m adding the red satin accents.  First I made the pattern and pinned it to the dress to make sure I like the length. Here’s the front and the back patterns.

Using the pattens, I cut the pieces from the red satin and used the sewing machine to sew the edging. I thought about hand stitching, but then I figured I really, really need to get used to a sewing machine to save time

OK! Getting tired of sewing so I figured it’s time to add some beads to the top. First, I had to figure out what kind of bead pattern to do given the amount of beads I have. I actually have 2 different type of beads: the $1 from Rite-Aide and the ones I ordered from JoAnn Fabrics. I measured the length I had to do beading and figured for every 2 inches, I can use 1 of the Rite-Aide beads and 3 of the JoAnn ones. Yeah… I’d rather do math than have to go out and get more beads

With the top beading done, I moved onto the skirt. Since the red velour is pretty soft, I ended up cutting some plastic strips from the waist armor part and using that to strengthen up the areas where I would put the beads. I ended up only putting it around the edges, because I realized I might not have enough black fabric for the waist armor! I’ll have to go back and do the center beads later on.

I hand-sewn the small accent piece on the skirt. Lol, you can see how terrible my stitching is with the machine. I tried to hide my hand-stitches in the pre-existing stitches.

This is just a reminder of what I’m going for in the front panel since I then moved to the front panel.

I finished the bottom portion of the front panel using sequins and beads.

Oops! If you can see the lace in the background, there was clearly not enough in the package. I ended up having to make my own “lace” by crocheting black DMC floss since I didn’t have any crochet thread…

Here are a few more of my sad little crochet creations XD The DMC floss was thicker than the crochet needle liked so each of those little pieces’ designs are tight!

I added a bit of the store bought lace (lol, running out of DMC thread now) and added a few sequins. I haven’t added the beads yet, because I’m not sure how many extra of each type of bead I’ll have left (actually had to throw some beads away where I couldn’t get the needle through )

Back to beading! I’m just doing the edges right now since I need to do the waist armor before working on the center beads. You can see how I first space the Rite-Aide beads 2 inches apart…

…and then go back and fill in with 3 of the JoAnn ones!

Update 12 (10/13/11 – 12:44pm) :
Sorry for the late update! I had been frantically working on my costume in my free time so I hadn’t had the time to update my progress gallery But, no fear! I have plenty of pics to share I actually submitted my official contest entry yesterday night so I’m currently in decompress mode It’s so weird not having to keep thinking about the contest XD

Anyway, going back in time and showing off some more progress pics…

Shoes! Taking a break from the main costume, I switched over to working on Danika’s shoes shown below. Isn’t it weird how even though Danika is so elegant… she has kinda childish flowery shoes? Maybe that’s one of her little quirks?

Well, I used some black shoes that I already had and decided to make the flower adornments using puffy paint for the shininess and color and a mousepad for the thickness.

I used a silver gel pen to draw my flowery template (lol, messed up on the first attempt) and then cut them out using regular scissors.

Coloring took a little time, but only because I had to keep setting the adornments aside to dry.

And voila! I used rolled up scotch tape to attach them to my shoes (hey, I still like those shoes and want to use them!).

Now for her hair decorations…

I ended up using some bamboo chopsticks (smooth around, not like the ones you have to snap apart and then spend 5 mins pulling out splinters from your hand) that I had picked up from Dasio (pretty cheap at 20 for $1.50 in case anyone was wondering ). From the pic, it looks like her hair sticks are covered in black thread so you can see some of the base stick through the loosely wrapped thread. I decided to use a sharpie to mimic the effect, because there was no way I was going to wrap thread on a smooth chopstick and expect that to stay like that in my hair XD

Tada! Here are 3 of my drying hair sticks. I think I was holding the fourth one for some reason :/

Alright, now comes the part that I had been absolutely dreading: making the waist armor…

I’m still cringing just remembering it >_< First off, I cut a black base out of regular fabric. I then got the pleather-type material (it’s cloth on one side and plastic on the other) and cut it into 4 strips like in the reference picture. I didn’t want to show the edging from the cut strips so I tried to use craft glue to keep the folded edge down. My reasoning was that since the material was plastic on one side, glue should adhere the to sides together. I used paper binder clips to keep the material together while the glue dried…

…and waited and waited, then realized it was a terrible idea XD I also realized that scotch tape actually worked in keeping the fabric down, because the tape adhered to both the plastic AND cloth side really well! So, let’s just say that scotch tape, became my best friend at the moment

For the armor brackets in her armor, I decided to use plain ol’ paper fasteners that you can find at any office supplies store. Specifically, they’re brass fasteners with an inch prong. I used a sharpie to ‘paint’ the outer part of the fasteners. From here, the plan was to use a craft hole puncher and a hammer to punch tiny holes into the armor for the brackets to slip through.

Yeah… that didn’t work. Apparently, this material did not like being hole-punched. I ended up using a pin to make a small hole where I wanted the hole to be and then having to cut around the pin with one of those sharp stitch removal tools. My hubby’s response to this approach: “Omg, don’t stab yourself with that thing.” This part was seriously a pain to do since I had to go through two layers of the pleather, the base, tape, and – in some cases – craft glue.

After multiple trips to the mirror, I managed to curve it so it fit my back. I also learned that when making armor that needs to curve around the waist, curved strips instead of straight strips will work out much better. I had to pucker up the armor a bit to get the curve going, whereas I wouldn’t have had to do that if I used the curved strip instead. After lots of fumbling around, I finally finished the back armor with the brackets 1.5 inches apart.

Update 13 (10/14/11 – 3:52pm) :

Time for more pics (lol, well, long past time, but still)!

With the back part of the waist armor done, I decided to go back to beading.  I can bead all day, but there’s only so much of working on waist armor I can handle XD.  I finished up both sides of the center beading for the skirt using some other scrap material on the back side to give the cloth more strength.

Next up is the back satin accent of her skirt.

Around this time, I was really running short on time (I think this was Monday and I had to get done by Tues for pics), so I decided to go with the store-bought lace as is instead of crocheting some more to fit the pattern better.

I then added some white sequins…

…and finished up with beading

I also went ahead and finished the beading on the front panel.

About now, I think it was Monday night so I knew I wouldn’t be able to do as much on the necklace as I wanted to

I started off with some of the black velvet scraps that I had left over from the black pants I had altered back in the earlier updates. I tried putting some white sequins on the edge, but I realized I didn’t have enough sequins to do both edges. Instead, I made some white cords out of DMC floss and used that. For those wondering, all you need to do is have a super long piece of yarn/string/etc, keep one end stationary, twist and twist and twist, pinch in the middle, and let your material relax and twist itself into the cord I learned that one way back in middle school when DMC floss bracelets were the rage. I think nowadays, middle school kids would have no idea what DMC floss even is XD

Next up is the necklace part that hangs on the chest. I used wire and beads for that part. I don’t actually have jewelry making tools, which is why the edges and points don’t look very sharp. I bent everything by hand… and spilled many, many beads on the carpet. Vacuuming is not going to be fun >_<

I filled in the center parts with some beads that were threaded (NOTE: do not put all the beads on the thread before weaving into wired pieces. It makes it so much harder to tie off sections. I ended up not tying off like I’d wanted to). And, finally, I finished off the back part. It hangs off, because I didn’t plan that well. At least it was wire so it held shape even though it wasn’t docked on one side

Well, that’s the end of the progress pics on my phone. After this point, I was in such a rush that I didn’t take any more WiPs. I ended up quickly finishing the front armor (prongs spaced 3 inches apart to make it faster) and didn’t get to alter the gloves, make earrings, finish off the necklace, add more sequins, or add more lace to the bodice on the chest, so I was pretty bummed out that I ran out of time to do all the things that I still wanted to do

Anyway, next update will be about our ‘photoshoot,’ editing the pictures, and what I ended up submitting to the official contest

Update 14 (Oct 15, 2011 – 9:35PM) :

Last update!  We took pictures on Tuesday night, and it was a rush to get everything done!

I ended up using white face paint cream that I got from Party City (they didn’t carry white body paint ), so the biggest issue I had was worrying about the cream smearing all over my clothes.  It was actually SUCH a pain to work with and smooth out!  For the stripe across the eyes, I used regular grey eye shadow (slightly wet so it’d be easier to put on the skin).  I used black eye liner to draw in her window’s peak on my forehead and charcoal eye liner for eye makeup  I had to use tons of hairpins in my hair to get it in a bun, because my hair is so thick (ended up snapping my hubby’s comb trying to get my hair in a ponytail XD).

Onto the photoshoot!  We turned on all the lights in our living room and figured that was enough for lighting, so we turned the flash on the camera off.  Big mistake!  Even though the pics looked great on the camera view screen, when viewed on the comp (after I took off my costume and make-up), the pics were blurry and grainy!  That was a HUGE bummer  Anyway, we took a total of 62 shots (looking left, right, back, and front and sitting – all with different expressions/poses), and I picked the least blurry images.

Luckily, I had Minami and Tzu from Guildwarsguru.com as my fairy godmothers since they helped me find a way to make my blurry photos work!  I sent them an example of a pic I was planning on using (background already removed), and they did their magic!  Minami did the center image, and I was totally blown away at how she improved the image!  I had also told her I was planning on using an ingame screenie of the Echovald Forest or a textured dark green/blue, so she added in the background!  Tzu also did her magic and showed what the pic would look like with a real background (rightmost), and I really liked how that looked!

Since Minami did the first pic, I wanted to do the rest so I could learn how to enhance photos better, and so I asked her what she did so I could follow it.  Here’s the steps she did:

“First, I put a black background in behind you. Then I zoomed in very close, and erased the white outline that surrounds you (that happens when you use the select tools to extract yourself from any background).
I upped the contrast on your pic, so that the colors stand out more.
Then I painted on a new layer all the white parts of you (with a pen/tablet, so it’s pressure sensitive), and also enhanced the eyeline part with a darker color and another new layer.
Then I painted with red (and new layer) around the most blurry beads.
I used the sharpen effect (not the plain sharpen, but the other one… smart sharpen).
The I put in the BG from the game, and picked a color from it with the color picker and flooded it onto a new layer. I set that layer to “overlay” and tested different lightness of the color to see which one fits the best.”

Meanwhile, since I loved the look of the real background that Tzu suggested, I took my camera and went to the park behind my house to take some pictures There’s actually a cute little trail back there as you can see in this pic

With those shots, I tried following Minami’s steps and adding in the nature shots. Here’s one example of a messy shot before I even removed the background:

And here’s after sprucing up the image following Minami’s suggestions (and also cleaning up my hair, lol.  So hard to manage!) and adding in my nature shot:

Lol, this is no where as good as Minami’s photoshopping skills, but at least it’s a start for me  Oh and btw, that book that I’m reading and finding fascinating is a really old dictionary XD

I also took various shots of just my costume since the sun miraculously appeared (Wednesday at this time), and I figured I could use some of these shots if needed.  Here are two of them:

Alright, so at this point, I had five shots of me in costume in addition to all the other costume shots.  I wasn’t sure how to arrange my collage so I could show of my costume to the best advantage.  Then, after looking at all my pictures, I realized I actually had a story that fit perfect with Danika’s character background!!!

For those not familiar with her history, Danika is the daughter of one of the Kurzick house leaders (House of zu Heltzer).  She basically grows up in over-protective Cathedral zu Heltzer, and she spends her free time reading books and dreaming of other places.  So, when I was looking at my pictures, I realized I could arrange them in a way so it looked like she was sneaking out with a book and dreaming of the places that she just read about.  I also filled in the extra space with a shot of my costume fabric and added the GW: Factions logo.

Here’s the end result:

I didn’t use borders for the pics themselves, because I felt there was enough contrast so you could see they are clearly different pictures and the story flowed well from left to right

And that’s that!  This is pretty detailed, because I’m using this as a ‘diary’ that I can look back at and have a laugh while reminiscing  For all those that read all my comments, I hope it wasn’t too boring, and for those of you that didn’t, I hope you enjoyed the pictures

Thanks for stopping by!