Leela's Build Log

I hadn't planned on making a Leela cosplay, but a friend suggested a Futurama cosplay for me, and I thought Leela would be  fun challenge. I'd never done much with wigs before, and constructing a cyclops eye that looked less cartoony intrigued me. Plus, I figured it'd be pretty easy to do, and comfortable to boot!

It was easy to find source material, so I started working on the wig while I binge watched Futurama. 

I purchased a Ferrari wig & long weft from Arda Wigs in Electric Purple. I really dug the color and needed a wig with wefts long enough that I could restructure into a pony tail wig. Why didn't I just buy a pony tail wig, you ask? Because the ponytails sat too low on my head to do Leela justice!

 First I had to measure my head and add some padding to my wig head to make sure my wig wouldn't be too small for my head. Then I put the wig back on the head and pinned it down so I could set the size of the wig.

Next came the tedious task of re-wefting the wig. Essentially, wigs are constructed to the fibers lay in whatever direction the hair falls on a wig. Generally, wigs are made with the fibers pointing down. As you can see in the picture below, this wig was no different. The large lace area on the left is the crown in the head, and the wefts are the vertical tan colored rows. The horizontal rows are elastic lace that hold the wig together and helps it to conform to your head. 

To re-weft the wig, I used a seam ripper, curved needle, and thread in the desired color. First, I would separate the weft from the rest of the hair, and then I separated the wefts from the elastic by seam ripping the stitches out. 

Once I had separated the weft and ripped the seams out, the weft was free to be moved around. I'd flip the weft so the hair was pointing up, and then carefully sew it back onto the elastic guides. I found as I went that I could cut out parts of the wefts because the wig would have been too poofy and too heavy once all the wefts were pointing up. So I left a few inches on the edges of the wig (where I'd need the most coverage), and would cut out the middle portion of every other row. 

That part took forever. FOR-EV-ERRRR. 

Remember that from the Sandlot? It was like that. 

 Once that was all done, then it was time to construct the ponytail part by "stubbing" the wig. I'd take sections of the wefts at a time and gather them up into a ponytail at the top of the head. I'd tie a cut up hairband to the base of the hair, and then chop off everything over 2". Cut up hairbands worked perfectly because tying them around he hair stub was way easier than using them like normal and twisting around to pull the hair through. 

Then it was time for the glue! I used clear waterproof window caulk to glue the strands together. Basically, you squirt some into the wig fibers at the stub, and massage it through to make sure all the fibers are saturated. I wrapped thread around the top part of the stub to keep it together while it dried. 

I learned two important things doing this: wear gloves when working with caulk; and make sure you have a caulking gun if you buy the usual tube of it! I didn't have a caulking gun, and was too stubborn to buy one. I ended up pulling the cap off the back of the tube and scooping it out and onto the wig. 

After stubbing the wig, I put glue on the package of long weft (I curled it in a spiral first), and stuck it on the stub I had constructed. Then I coated caulk onto a few layers of wig fibers I had cut off while stubbing the wig and wrapped that around the base where the stub meets the long wefts so it would look nice and neat. 

I couldn't take pictures sadly, because I had caulk everywhere!  Including on my dog. She's such a good sport. I was afraid I'd ruin my phone, so the next picture I got was of me in my newly constructed wig! It's awesome and I love it. 

Time to construct the cyclops eye! I had originally planned on cutting up a 2 liter bottle, and heat forming the plastic into a visor. This did not work as planned. I poked myself in the eye, and learned that soda bottle plastic does not like to be heat formed. Cyclops eye: 2, Julie: 0. 

Time for Plan B. I worked on making the eye out of craft foam, nail polish and an old pair of false eyelashes. To make the eyelashes look right, I cut up both strips of falsies and "glued" each clump together in a way that made sense. I didn't actually use glue, I used black fabric paint so I wouldn't have to glue, then paint the lash line.

While the eye dried, I used floral wire to construct a visor that fit on my head. I covered the wire frame with pantyhose I had cut up to make it so I could see (sorta) out of it, without needing to resort to buying white contacts also. The result was that the visor would hold its shape without even needing earpieces to hold it up. I used E-6000 to glue the eye to the visor.

Now I moved onto the easy stuff: making Leela's bracer and boots. I used craft foam painted with acrylics for the bracer. For the boots, I hot glued gray fabric to an old pair of rain boots and painted details on with black fabric paint. 

One of the fun things about Leela is that not only is she a bad ass orphaned space captain, but she wears all kinds of outfits! So, the possibilities are endless with her. I had fun learning about wig construction and tinkering around with how to get the eye done. Challenging but rewarding. I didn't even end up watching all of Futurama before I was done making the whole thing, it was so easy! 

Now it's time for some of Leela's Glamour shots!

Build Log: She-Ra, Princess of Power

I remember having almost every She-Ra Toy you could think of as a kid. I also had the underoos and watched he show religiously. She-Ra was a HUGE part of my childhood and it really was only natural that I should make a She-Ra costume. So, here goes!

Now, I hadn't particularly thought about putting together a build log for this when I started it, so I mostly took pictures to show progress & share individual pieces. Feel free to comment or message me for more info if you’re interested in learning more!

First up, this was the art that inspired the look I wanted… I was inspired to make a Norse Princess feel to it, especially after watching Thor 2. I wanted to add lots of details and Celtic knot work type designs to give it depth because the original She-Ra design from the cartoons isn't too detailed itself.

Sewing is not particularly my strong suit, so I figured I'd get that part out of the way first. I used the same pattern as for my Poison Ivy costume Simplicity 2069), and just winged it on a skirt. I wanted a nice crisp look for the fabric, but something that would be cool to wear for hours, so I decided on Linen. 

Yeah, that's got a looooong way to go, but not bad overall! The next thing I wanted to work on was the chest piece. I chose to work with craft foam for a lot of the costume, and I'd never worked with craft foam before! It wasn't too hard, once I got the hang of it.

The first thing I did was to check out some techniques for the foam since I really wanted to give the chest armor a feather motif. I settled on "engraving" it! First I took a ball point pen and pressed real hard and made grooves that sorta looked like feathers. I've always pressed hard when I write, so this was easy! Next came painting and weathering. I used acrylic paints to for the gold base coat and weathering. Shiny!

Bracers were next on the list. Once I had engraved my basic design onto them, I coated them with some wood glue and started to trace the raised designs onto the bracers with puffy fabric paint. I was lazy, and just used what I had on hand: green! This took lots and lots of puffy paint. And a long time to dry. The right is after the bracers after had been weathered. Pretty much done, except for the blue jewels I wanted them to have.

While the bracers dried (which took forever), I started to work on the helm. Oh yeah, check out my awesome wig I got for She-Ra! Thank you, Arda! I'm a pretty awesome looking blonde thanks to the Candy Striper wig! Anyways, I prefer to do my mock-ups on paper first and work from there. This is my paper crown. Burger King's got nothing on me!

Once I had the paper patterns set up, I traced them onto some left over Sintra I had and heat formed them into how I wanted them to look.  I was so excited to have something I could wear now  for the helm, that I couldn't help myself and had to put it on. See that? I'm barely containing my fangirl excitement at almost being She-Ra!

The helm looked cool, but pretty flat and blah. So I got out some Magic Sculpt, and a big NorCal Margarita and added a TON on detailing for the wings and some simple designs on the rest of the helm. 

After about 5 coats of wood glue, I spray painted it all gold. Lovin' it!! 

I love weathering things. It just makes everything armored more awesome looking. I even weathered the backside of the wings in case anyone got up close and was looking! One of the neat things I did to the gold armor pieces was to coat them in a clear acrylic with gold glitter after weathering for some added glam and sparkle. It's hard to see in the pictures, but it looks amazing in person!

Next up: the belt. I didn't feel comfortable freehanding the knot work designs I wanted for the belt, I I traced it with my trusty ballpoint pen onto the craft foam belt.

After the bracers, I had no more puffy paint for the belt, So I went out and got some yellow puffy paint so I wouldn't need quite as many coats of the acrylic! I didn't coat the belt in wood glue this time, opting for a look that would be more like leather. So I just painted the acrylic right over what you see in the pic above. 

So, I was originally planning on using these boot covers over some shoes I'd been using with my costumes for a while now. However, I went to Big Wow Comicfest right after this picture was taken and decided I just couldn't wear heels like that at a convention anymore. Actually, I swore off heels all together. They hurt my feet, and I know beauty is pain but I cant have fun if I feel like my feet are being battered like in Misery. 

So,  had no idea what to do about She-Ra's boots now, and I decided to work on something else entirely. One of the things I like doing is making everything myself. So, rather than trying t find some gems that were large enough for the sword, chest, belt, helm and bracers I decided to make them myself from resin! First I made Magic Sculpt casts of the gems, then I made a silicone mold. Now for the resin casts! The first set failed horribly, and I learned that actually reading the directions would've helped immensely...

The second cast worked much better! Yay for reading! I did the colors on these using nail polish. The blue ones look like a pool, I love it!

Next was the sword. Ohhhhh boy, this was so exciting! First the paper mock up. I actually don't like the traditional design of her sword, with those cutouts. So I changed it up a bit, but still kept to to the original style. I traced it onto some 1/2" Sintra and started cutting it out. Sintra is usually pretty easy to work with, but 1/2" is a huge pain! It took days to cut it out, and sand so that the edges were beveled on both sides.

Magic Sculpt time again! As you can see, I left the grip and area where the gem will go without details. I coated this sword with probably about 7 coats of wood glue before sanding it down. Then I spray painted silver. So shiny! 

 

And weathering again! I spent a lot of time weathering the blade to get the look I wanted on it. There's some glitter nail polish that I used to highlight some of the areas on the sword itself as well. The grip is some spare pleather and gold embroidery thread.

Go on, drool over it. the Sword of Power is positively awesome! Sometimes, when no ones around, I play sword fight with it because I'm cool like that.

I started gluing my gems onto everything and was feeling pretty awesome about the sword being completed, I got the necklace (made from Sintra and fabric paint) and the cape done. When I took this picture I realized I had forgotten entirely about She-Ra's "boob wings"!

It was pretty easy to get those made up, now that I've become somewhat of a pro with craft foam! I wanted them to have a similar engraved look as the chest armor, which turned out awesomely!

Now it was time to tackle the shoe dilemma. Thankfully, we watched 300 and got inspired by the Spartan's sandals! A quick trip to Walmart where I picked up the base shoes, and ribbons. I hot glued it all together for a really awesome result!

At this point, the whole outfit was pretty much done. But I had realized that the day I was planning on wearing everything for She-Ra's debut that it was supposed to be over 100 degrees! So I decided to change up the wig so it wouldn't be so hot. A whole afternoon of watching Community later, I had braided sections all over the wig. I weaved in some gold embroidery thread, and made little stretchy beaded hair ties to match the colors of the gems. I wish I had taken more pictures of this, because it looked really awesome!

So, I wore She-Ra to the Santa Rosa Toycon and had an amazing time with it! I got my picture in the local paper's online gallery of the con and I even won Best Portrayal!!!

 Here's a few more vanity pics of She-Ra for you to enjoy....