Ahoy, there.

So, I've got a bitch of a post for you today. I have failed entirely to post at all about the fact that it's now September, and do you know what happens in September? Rose City Comic Con. Which of course I'd been planning on going to since last year. So, that means I've had a whole new cosplay I've created and I haven't posted a damn thing about it.

Whoops.

So.

We had mentioned for Emerald City that we were going to do the Avatar the Last Airbender nomad band, which we decided to postpone for Rose City.  So, Rose City starts coming near.... and turns out we still don't want to do the nomad band. Which means we need a new idea. It actually didn't take too long to decide, we went with Disney Villain drag. It's like two months before con at this point. Totally doable, although I knew these were going to be elaborate and I still would have liked a bit more time, since with my job I wouldn't have as much free time as I used to. Previously I had been doing my work from home barely doing anything job, allowing me to spend all my time making costumes. With my current job I just had to grab all the spare time I could and pray nothing went wrong so it all went smoothly.

So, our group picked our costumes. I wasn't really sure what I wanted, I thought maybe Gaston or something? But then in conversation with Cari and Danny they told me they had picked the perfect one for me- Captain Hook. Yessssssssssssssss. I don't know why I didn't think about that. I grew up watching Hook with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman and that is an absolutely amazing costume.

Look at that gorgeous elaborate bitch. My daughter doesn't really need a college fund, I need gold trim!

Cari wanted to do Gaston, Matt wanted the Queen of Hearts, Danny wanted Cruella DeVil and Dante wanted Ursula. They were all just amazing picks and I was really excited, even if somewhat nervous about the elaborate-ness and lack of time.

So, I did some shopping, found some amazing burgundy velvet at the thrift store, spent stupid money on ten yards of gold trim (ohhhh, as if that would be enough, you sweet summer child.) and found me a pattern.

I went with this one, the coat was the exact style I wanted. And in the end, the vest and the shirt ended up being perfect for Cari, so it was super extra neat!

I already had a shirt I could wear, one of the frilly shirts I got when I had my brief steampunk phase-

I also figured I'd just wear my black jeggings under it, nothing fancy since you wouldn't even see them. And I had found a plain black sheath dress at the thrift store that would serve as the tunic Hook wears under his coat. So I'm doing so well! But there's still so much sewing, and I really need to be able to actually help Cari with costumes this time. Chain chomp just had so many things go wrong I wasn't able to help nearly as much as I wanted. 

So I start cutting and sewing a bit when I have time and trying not to stress.... meanwhile work has just gone straight to hell and isn't letting up, I'm dying from the stress and hating my whole life. Do you know how hard it is to find just the right amount of wine to drink away the stress while still being able to operate a sewing machine? It's not easy.

Aaaaaaand then I stopped working there. It was unplanned and abrupt but that place was toxic. And lucky for me there just happened to be an opening on a contract with my previous company for something similar to what I was doing before, and I jumped all over it. And even better, I ended up with a week break in between jobs with nothing better to do than sew, which basically allowed me to practically finish my costume! But I'm getting ahead of myself. The moral of this paragraph is that suddenly the time constraints were lifted and my stress levels just plummeted.

So, cutting and assembling the coat went pretty well. I used a heavier velvet as a liner, I think they used to be curtains that I got from the thrift store for nothing. Nothing dramatic happened getting it together. So I started sewing on the trim. This is how far my ten yards got me:

 

Oh honey.

So, I had to go to the other Joann's location to get more trim, since I'd cleaned out the close one. When I handed the lady at the counter the spool of trim, I told her I wanted all of it. When she started unrolling it there was like a yard that was cut separate and she tried to set it aside. I stopped her. When I said everything, I meant everything. So I kept sewing... I swear to god, I saw lines of gold in my sleep. 

Around this time, I took a weekend trip with my family to visit my dad. In conversation I mentioned to my dad that I was going to be Captain Hook, he ran off back into his room and came out with a little $3 costume store hook prop. Because of course he just had that on hand. This is my family, people. Where do you think I got my nerd from?

So, this is the hook my dad gave me. Obviously it looks nothing Hook's hook, and the bell is too small for my hand, but that is a solid base to work with. Making a nice hook shape out of foam or plastic was a big concern of mine, since I couldn't just use a metal hook from a hardware store or something, since that wouldn't be allowed in a con. The hook popped right out of the bell, so I could use something else that would actually fit my hand. 

So, I bought a plastic stemless wineglass, drilled a hole in the bottom, and used thermoplastic beads to make a solid plastic core between the hook and the handle inside. I also added thermoplastic to the tip to give it a sharper point, I didn't love how blunt it was. I sanded the hook a bit, it had some brand logo on the side that was not gonna fly. It sanded off so easily though.

So, I made a batch of my homemade gesso that I used when doing Sailor Pluto's staff- half drywall joint compound and half white glue.

So, I put on a coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it.  And somewhere in here I think I started to lose my grip on sanity. But the thermoplastic on the tip was so hard to smooth out. I honestly don't remember how many coats I did. But I finally got it pretty much smooth. So I bought a can of high build primer and sprayed on a coat, let it dry, stepped down to a finer grit sandpapter, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it. And then I put on another coat, let it dry, and sanded it.

I used the whole damn can of primer on this thing. There are no pictures because there was no visible difference. But I became obsessed with perfectly smoothing this thing, I really wanted it to be smooth and metallic and reflective. So, I was doing all this in between other things, any time I had a gap in sewing I'd go sand and repaint. 

I also needed a skull shaped pin for my ascot pin, and I'd been keeping my eyes open for a skull of the right size. And then I realized my friend Sarah literally collects skulls. I texted her asking if she had anything and she sent me this back:

And I already could tell that white one by the rabbit skull was perfect. I learned to make a silicone mold so I could take a mold of the skull, it was just silicone and cornstarch, super easy and fun. Once I had the mold, I tried to use polymer clay in it, but the nature of silicone shifting meant when I pressed clay into the mold it distorted the clay and ruined the details. So I tried filling the mold with hot glue, which would have worked, but the first time I didn't get enough in there and it was really time consuming and used a lot of glue. So I tried thermoplastic beads, which of course worked perfectly. 

I actually used a gold shimmer fabric spray paint to paint it, and did a watered down black acrylic paint wash for the details. I don't have a picture of it, but I also added black rhinestones to the eyes. I love it.

So, in the meantime, I'm still sewing. I added gold trim to the coat cuffs, and a long line down the back of the coat, and realized I was not going to have enough trim to do everything I wanted. I needed more gold pointy things in the front, and lines down the sleeves and around the shoulders and I really wanted some pointy things on the back as well. Plus I wanted some for the tunic. So I made another Joann's run, this time to the next town over because the local ones WEREN'T RESTOCKING FAST ENOUGH. I had to hope that this last trip would be enough, because the next Joann's was nearly two hours away. At this point I gave up on screen accuracy. We were drag kings anyways, it didn't need to be perfectly accurate, it just need to be fabulous.

I also made the decision at this point that I wasn't going to do the sash as the sword. There were so many other details to this costume, as well as everyone else's that I wanted to help with, I'd be fine without the sword.

Okay. So, it's really late and I'm tired of typing. I will come back to this tomorrow and continue the process!