Gold Dust Woman

 I know, man, this is crazy. I go like six months without blogging and then I just fucking spam you. 

Anyways. So, you might know if you exist on planet Earth right now, the world sucks. Just, really sucks. Damn pandemic. So as a result, I didn't get to go to a real Halloween party this year. God I miss cons. I need to make costumes! It was the perfect year for Halloween too. It was on a Saturday, there was a full moon, and I just bought a house. Combine that with the fact that my birthday is the week before Halloween, and I desperately wanted to have a housewarming/birthday/Halloween party and actually be the host for once. But no. No parties for us. My closest friends and I did decide that we would have a little private party though, we can't just not do something. So it was just going to be me, Cari, Rachel and Sarah. And we were still going to dress up. 

Obviously I didn't want to do anything too crazy. Recently you may have noticed I've been leaning into a boho witchy hippie feel for my style, and I'd even recently made myself a cool fringed kimono that felt very Stevie Nicks. That thought made my costume plan simple. I was gonna be Stevie Nicks. It would be easy and cheap, I had most of what I would need on hand already, and the dress I made could just go into my regular wardrobe, since Stevie Nicks is my style inspiration right now anyways.

I did more shopping than I should have, I just can't resist going the extra mile for the accessories and the details. 

I wasn't trying to get an exact look, more just channel her style, but you could say I was more or less going for this:

I could spam you with a hundred pictures to show you what I was thinking, but really I was just sort of averaging out Stevie's hippie gypsy look.

To start with, I had debates on the hat. I thought about doing a floppy brimmed round hat, even bought two options from the thrift store and went to great lengths to put a supporting wire around the excessively floppy brim of one of them and get some fabric spray paint to paint it black, which was shockingly difficult to find probably due to all the fucked up supply lines for stores right now. (FUCK COVID)

In the end I decided I wanted the top hat look which I should have just gone with from the the beginning because hilariously enough I already owned a black top hat. Some time ago Rachel and Cari and I thought we were going to dress as the girls from the Lady Marmalade music video, and I was going to be P!nk, since I'm a big fan of hers. And she wears a top hat. I had bought a few supplies for the costume when our fourth person completely bailed out on us right before Halloween, leaving us stranded and me with a handful of supplies I then had no use for. (We KNEW she was a flake, we KNEW that was a risk, but we really wanted to do it, so we just hoped really hard, and in the end got nothing.) Luckily I'm a crafter and no supplies ever go to waste, so I didn't bother to return the stuff I bought, I just held onto it thinking I'd find a use for it. One of those things I bought was a black top hat. I bought some fancy feathers and dug up scraps of lace and velvet from my fabric stash, hot glued some stuff to the hat and I was good to go.

For the record, I removed the rhinestones, I decided they looked too showgirl-y, not what I was going for. And yes, that rose IS made out of scraps of my Captain Hook coat! I swear, that thrift store fabric find is just the gift that keeps on giving. 

I also had a pair of black lace gloves that I bought during my steampunk phase and literally never wore, I just cut the fingertips off of those and they were perfect. 

For jewelry, I bought several thrift store rings, nothing special just some fun big flashy pieces, and I knew I needed to layer several necklaces, most importantly was a crescent moon necklace of some form, Stevie always wears a crescent moon. I already had one pretty filigree pendant I'd bought ages ago, and I should have just gone with that, but I wanted something solid, and I love an excuse to focus too hard on details. I actually had a hard time finding a solid silver crescent moon, in the end I ended up with one made out of a cluster of pyrite crystals that was pretty cool looking. I'm also happy to have that in my jewelry collection. I also bought a gorgeous fluorite crystal to add to it. That was just cuz it was pretty, I have plenty of other crystals I could have worn. I just wanted it. I layered that with a long round stone pendant and a gold chain with a tiny opalite bead that my daughter got me for my birthday and had a nice layered necklace look. 

For shoes, Stevie usually wears massive thick platforms of some form, but as I am almost a full foot taller than her teensy little 5'1" frame, that wasn't really gonna work for me. Luckily in one of my thrift store adventures I found this absolutely gorgeous pair of black suede knee high boots with like a 1"-1.5" heel in basically new condition in my size that I would have bought even if I didn't want them for my costume, they're beautiful. And so comfy!

Now, Stevie is blonde and in the past I have had trouble with blonde wigs. I was going to just wear my old Princess Peach wig to avoid spending money I didn't have to and just deal with a kinda shitty wig, but in the end I couldn't do it. I cracked and bought myself yet another shitty cheap wig from Walmart, but weirdly enough this cheap shitty wig had a nice natural blonde color and and good looking wave and was actually surprisingly flattering on me. I think the problem with the Princess Peach wig is that it's YELLOW not blonde and turns out I look awful with yellow hair. I'm probably going to save this Stevie wig and replace my currently Princess Peach wig, it looks so much better on me. I guess I shouldn't have tried to look like cartoon Princess Peach. Y'know, cuz I'm not a cartoon. 

I didn't bother at all worrying about Stevie's eye color, this wasn't THAT intense of a costume. 

I struggled with the shawl. I had to have a shawl of course, that was so required it's not even funny. My original vision had something black with a red or pink flowery pattern and a fringe. Maybe with sequins, a little sparkle in the shawl is totally acceptable. And in chiffon or something similar, for good drapey flowy ness. I searched thrift stores for weeks. I bought three different scarves, a skirt and a dress in an attempt to at least find fabric I liked and turn it into a shawl. I even straight up bought some black chiffon and fringe trim thinking I could sew appliques on it to get the flowers. 

Right. Sew appliques onto chiffon. THAT sounds like fun. 

It was never right. 

Side note, the reason the dress didn't work:

The dress was a very nice full length halter top chiffon flowery thing that was really very pretty. It was blue, and the color wouldn't work, but I figured I could dye it.

Ignore the fact that I'm clearly wearing the wrong bra for this dress. Isn't it pretty? 

So I bought some red fabric dye specifically for artificial fibers. Hell, I bought TWO bottles because this dress is 100% polyester and I knew from experience it didn't want to be a different color. (RIT DyeMore, if you're curious, in whatever they call the red color. I don't remember.)

After a long bath in a hot pot of super strong red dye, I got this:

Looooooook at those pretty pinks and purples! I love it so much! Once I put this on and took pictures I knew I had not bought myself fabric for a shawl, I had bought myself a new dress. There was no way I could take this apart for a shawl.

Anyways. Finally I bought a scarf off of Amazon that wasn't too expensive. I really was trying to keep the cost down for this costume and I wasn't doing a great job. But when the scarf arrived it was so SMALL. Barely any wider than one of my basic winter scarves. That did not make me happy. So I returned it and in a fit of frustration just bought a nice one that finally made me happy.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C18G86J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There were literally three other Stevie Nickses in the reviews of this shawl. So clearly this was the way to go. It's beautiful, by the way. Sparkly and flowy and gorgeous, I love it. No red flowers, but that's okay. I'm very happy with it and I'm not sad I have it now. 

So, the last and the biggest piece, the dress!

I debated for a long time whether I should do like a tiered flowy skirt and a tank top or a dress or what, but in the end I settled on dress. I tried to just buy something, but didn't find anything quite right. And then I stumbled across something that had the exact fabric look I wanted.

Is that not. Just the worst. Thing you have ever seen. God, I don't think I've ever worn a more unflattering dress, I look like I'm wearing a goddam green lace potato sack. And what the hell is that weird lace insert at the neckline? The damn thing is nearly choking me as it is, you afraid someone is gonna see my collarbone? I hate it so much. It's so bad. The horror this picture fills me with is indescribable. However. The lacy fabric is super pretty and the alternating godet panels have a nice flowy gauzy texture, the skirt is a full circle skirt and the dress. Is 100%. Rayon. Which means it will just looooooove to change colors for me. So. I throw that dress into a boiling hot pot of black dye and let it simmer to get some of the horrible out. (regular RIT dye this time, god I love a natural fiber.)

Yessssssss. Boil, you abomination.

When it was done I had this:

Okay, let's be honest here, we all knew it wasn't the green color that was the real problem.

Originally I had thought I could just remove the sleeves, but after putting it on I knew I would need to completely redo the top part of the dress. So I cut off the top of the dress an inch or two above where the godets ended and just.... just..... just fucking THREW the top part away from me. I didn't even want to look at it. 

I started on a new top, I wanted just a basic V neck tank top style top. I did consider just making this a skirt and wearing one of my black tank tops with it, but I knew I could do better than that. 

In a box of old vintage patterns Sarah had given me a while ago, I found this:

Literally a pattern from the 70s, which is wildly appropriate for my 70s singer costume. It's so old, look how yellow the paper is! But it was a very simple basic shape and that's all I needed.

For the fabric, I dug scraps out of my scrap box. The solid black lining was actually the jersey like fabric liner from the skirt I bought thinking it could be an option for my shawl. And I decided I wanted to do a layer of lace over that just to add more lacy texture to the dress. Luckily I had several large chunks of black lace in my collection from my steampunk phase.

Why, yes, that large chunk of black lace is a piece of a dress! This was a thrift store find ages ago that I had taken apart for other reasons, and luck of all lucks, this is a STRETCHY lace! Which means no zippers or buttons or anything, this can be a pull over the head dress! And I had EXACTLY enough to make the bodice. 

So I sewed that all up, I made the shoulder straps by just cutting the hem off the original sleeves of the dress, they were almost exactly the perfect length. I did have to add darts to the bust that the original pattern didn't, and I'd just like to say that those were the most perfect smooth darts I've ever done in my life. They were the same length, came to a nice smooth point that didn't create sharp points on my bust and they made a perfect fit for my chest. ON THE FIRST TRY. I didn't have to adjust them at all, I just pinned and sewed and was done. It was glorious. I've never had that happen before, and probably never will again. Really, this whole thing was going so smoothly I should have been suspicious. 

So I had the bodice done. I could have just attached it to the skirt and called it good, but I really wanted something layered and flowy and frilly. So to start with, I pulled out the black chiffon I had bought, and basically cut out a circle skirt, except I didn't round off the corner so it would be square shaped, giving me an uneven handkerchief hem. I then sewed black satin ribbon all around the hem. I put the bodice on my dress form and pinned this part of the skirt below it so I could see what I was making.

So, next I wanted to layer the original dress skirt overtop of this, but I also wanted it to have the same square handkerchief shape as the chiffon layer. So I folded the skirt into quarters and laid it out on the floor. (DAMN I need a proper cutting table.)

I marked the middle and then about 9" up on either side. It wouldn't be a perfect square, but it would have a similar shape that would echo the chiffon layer at least. I then cut from my 9" mark to the middle.

I could have gone higher up to get a perfect square but I didn't want to lose too much length. To hem this piece, I actually took a long, long piece of ruffly black lace that I believe also came from my steampunk phase, I think it was leftover from that short burgundy bustle skirt I made, and sewed it all around the hem. I had to manually gather in a few places and carefully space it out, but I managed to have EXACTLY enough lace to do the whole hem. Man alive, I cannot believe how often things worked out exactly right for this outfit. 

I pinned this to the dress form over the chiffon layer. Next I had some big chunks of a different black lace that I just sort of free form pinned overtop, creating a little hip swag on one side and just some random extra lacy layers. I wanted the whole thing to be a little hodgepodge. 

I even like the way the shades of black aren't all exactly the same.

For the waistband, I didn't have any plain black elastic, but I did have this sparkly gold 2" wide stuff. I considered using the gold side, but decided I just wanted it to be all black, so I just made a black fabric tube for it out of scraps of the black jersey that was the lining of the bodice, since it would stretch with everything else. 

Attached the skirt and the bodice to the waistband, carefully pinning and going slow on the skirt to make sure I'm getting all the layers, and in the end I had a cool goth hippy witch dress!

I'm sorry, guys, black has got to be one of the most frustrating things to try to take pictures of. It just doesn't want to show the details. 

Halloween came, and I put it all together!

Oh right, I also added this little black corset style belt overtop, I already had that and it fit in well with the outfit. 

I was super pleased with how it came out, and I had a great deal of fun swishing around in all my flowy layers. Although I did learn I need to shorten the shoulder straps, I was adjusting those all night. It was a great costume, and now I have a sweet black lacy dress!

Xena: Warrior Princess Costume DIY tutorial: Part Six: The Hair, The Eyes, The Makeup and Playing The Part

This is the sixth and final part of my multipart walkthrough for creating your own Xena: Warrior Princess costume. In this one we'll be covering all the finishing touches to make you a really convincing Xena.  The other parts are here:

Part One: The Corset
Part Two: The Skirt and The Boots
Part Three: The Main Armor Pieces: The Breastplate and the Backplate
Part Four: The Accessory Armor Pieces: The Shoulders, The Armbands, and the Kneeguards
Part Five: The Weapons
Part Six: The Hair, The Eyes, The Makeup and Playing The Part ***You are here***

This is likely to be a short post. Technically, none of this step is necessary, if you want to rock your own look in a badass warrior outfit, then fucking rock it. I believe Xena would agree. If you specifically want to look like Lucy Lawless then a few more tweaks can be made.

First of all, the hair.

Now, I was lucky enough to be born a brunette with a preference for keeping my hair long. And a few years back decided to get bangs and found out that I have just the best face shape for bangs and so have kept them. I also have developed a definite hatred for wigs based on past experiences. So when I realized I had the same basic hairstyle as Xena, I decided to just roll with it.

I had about half a bottle of Arctic Fox semi-permanent hair dye in Transylvania left over from my chain chomp cosplay back in March. So I dyed my hair black. Trust me on the brand, too. I tried a few others previously and none covered as nicely and as darkly as that one. And semi-permanent is nice if you're not looking to commit to color. I knew it would just wash out after a few weeks, and since my hair is already fairly dark, it would just be a gradual graceful fade.

Xena's hairstyle varies slightly, sometimes it's half up, sometimes it's got a few decorative braids. My favorite is the braided headband style. I'm sure if you're talented enough you can use your own hair to braid a headband across the top of your head. I am not that talented. Hair styling is definitely a weakness of mine. So, I bought a fake hair braided headband:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Women-Girls-Braided-Faux-Wig-Elastic-Rope-Pretty-Plaited-Hair-Band-Headband/162266321538?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Once my hair was dyed, all I had to do was make sure my hair was straight, which is as simple as blow drying it after showering, I didn't even find it necessary to use a straightener, and then put in the headband. Ridiculously easy. And then I didn't have to worry about fighting with a wig!

However, if you don't have the right hairstyle already, or just don't want to dye your hair, then I suppose you'll need a wig. I'd suggest not getting a cheap ebay wig, I've done that a few times and it's never a good idea. www.arda-wigs.com is a pretty well regarded site, although I can't say I've ever bought from there. You're welcome to get your wig wherever you like. It just needs to be somewhere just around your shoulder blades in length, and it needs to have bangs, which you'll have to trim to suit your own face. This is a pretty good basic tutorial for trimming wigs if you need more help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-qLiicy3Yo

I'd still suggest getting the braided headband and wearing it over the wig, wigs aren't really suited to braiding.

That's it. The hair is really pretty simple.

Next, the eyes.

Now, I have naturally light greenish eyes, so I wasn't going to worry about the eyes originally. I figured I was close enough. But then I started watching the show. And I realized that the show just loves to give long lingering shots to her staring intensely with her absurdly vibrant blue eyes. So I decided I needed colored contacts. www.uniqso.com is my favorite site to buy colored prescription contacts, and the ones I got are here:

https://www.uniqso.com/products/sweety-k-crazy-lens-platonic-aqua?variant=13156465704983

So, here's the thing. I bought those in an effort to save a few dollars, they were cheaper than most of the others I looked at at the time. However, these were SUPER INTENSE. In fact, they were really a bit too much, and rather cartoonish.

Yeah, it's got a bit of a filter on it. It's a selfie, sue me. The eye color is accurate.

I ended up wishing I'd gone for something a bit more natural. The other not so fun part of those contacts is that the blue part was a solid opaque ring, and I could see it out all around the edges of my vision. After a few hours I'd gradually stop paying attention to it, but it was super annoying for a while. They will, however, completely cover your natural eye color, if you happen to have dark eyes. But there are also lots of other more natural options if you have lighter eyes and just want to make sure they're blue. Or maybe you already have blue eyes, you lucky bastard.

That website also allows you to easily select your prescription strength for each eye, if you need that. But I think they only go up to something like -12 or so. Works for me, but not everyone.

And then the makeup!

Yes, you should wear makeup. You're in costume. Why leave your face plain when the rest of you is dressed up? The good news is Xena's look is pretty subtle.

Now, I do wear makeup regularly, and my normal look is pretty neutral, but I did reference this post for extra tips:

http://gildedlilybeauty.blogspot.com/2013/11/xena-warrior-princess-make-up.html?m=1

My own process was very nearly the same as my daily makeup. Primer, foundation, concealer, powder. Contouring is definitely a good idea, Lucy's got some pretty bangin' cheekbones. I'm super bad at this, I added a little, but I was afraid to go too far. I'd suggest looking up some other makeup tutorials on that subject if you need it, it's an easy google search.

For my first Halloween party I didn't do much more than eyeliner and mascara but ended up feeling like my eyes were too plain. So the second time I kicked it up a bit. Liquid eyeliner along the top lid, and pencil liner from the center of the bottom lid to the outer corner. Neutral color all across the lid, and then a dark brown or black on an angled brush to blend upwards from the top eyeliner. Then just a little of the same dark eyeshadow blended into the crease. A few coats of mascara was all I needed to finish. The only thing that was different from my usual look was I didn't add the eyeliner wings I usually like to do. So that was easy enough for me.

I didn't even bother with lipstick. You could probably wear a nude lipstick if you wanted, but I was going to parties where there was going to be drinking, why worry about reapplying a lipstick when I just needed my natural lipcolor?

Xena's look is really a pretty simple one. Even if you don't wear makeup you can totally handle this.

All you need now is the attitude. You don't take any shit, and you laugh in battle. You find short irritating blondes irresistible. And of course, the warcry. You know the one. I just screamed "AIYIYIYIYIYIYI!" At the top of my lungs, as high and loud as I could. It's a real party stopper, let me tell you what. Unfortunately I never did learn how to do those crazy flips.

And that's it. It's kind of incredible after all this time and work, it kind of seemed like it was never going to end when I was working on it. But I did eventually finish. And now so have you! Enjoy your amazing new costume and all the admiration and compliments you're about to get. And for god's sake, put on the knee guards and boots before you put on the corset. Trust me on this.

Kick ass, warrior princess.

Xena: Warrior Princess Costume DIY tutorial: Part Five: The Weapons

This is the fifth part of my multipart walkthrough for creating your own Xena: Warrior Princess costume. In this one we'll be covering the weapons, just so important for any warrior.  The other parts are here:

Part One: The Corset
Part Two: The Skirt and The Boots
Part Three: The Main Armor Pieces: The Breastplate and the Backplate
Part Four: The Accessory Armor Pieces: The Shoulders, The Armbands, and the Kneeguards
Part Five: The Weapons ***You are here***
Part Six: The Hair, The Eyes, The Makeup and Playing The Part

PART FIVE

THE WEAPONS

Unfortunately, time did not allow me to make Xena's whip as well, but I did cover the sword and chakram. Let's start with the chakram, I think we all know that's the more iconic piece.

Materials:

about 1 medium sheet of Worbla
10mm EVA foam
5mm craft foam
wood glue, gesso, or desired primer
sandable spray primer/filler
18 coin shaped abalone shell beads in 10mm diameter
Spray Plastidip
wood burner tool
sandpaper in medium and super fine grits
gold and silver paint- your preferred painting method
black acrylic paint
clear spray varnish
dremel with a grinding bit

So, take note up above, Xena's chakram looks different on each side. So. Let's start with patterns!

https://www.instructables.com/id/Xena-Costume/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Xena-Costume/

Based on screenshots, I figured that my chakram should be about 10" across, so I resized and printed the patterns at that size.

I made multiple mistakes in the process of this chakram, please please please read through my process so you don't. You may notice my materials list doesn't mention some things I'm about to use, like expanding insulation foam, because some of my attempts got totally scrapped.

So, my first thought was expanding insulation foam. It's just such a nice way to make whatever shape you need. So I sprayed some foam onto some posterboard in a roughly circular shape.

Obviously I did the sword at the same time, but we're not talking about that yet.

So, I let the foam cure and got this:

Spoiler alert: It did not go well.

The sword pieces were horribly warped, but we'll get to that. The chakram pieces weren't as bad so I thought I could still use them.

I cut them out and glued them together and started carving. There were a lot of big bubbles, so I started gluing chunks of foam into the gaps. As I was working on this I realized this was not going well. And it was still a little too thick.

And then I looked at it. And realized the thickness I wanted was basically the 10mm EVA foam. And then I felt dumb.

So I threw away the expanding foam chakram and cut out a new one from the foam tiles. I took some scraps and cut some angled strips and glued these around the edge to add a little bit for the sharp edge, I worried dremeling a sharp point would take off too much and make it too small. ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: I was wrong. Do not do this. You don't need to add anything for the sharp edge.

Once the glue was set I dremeled it down a bit to try and make it smooth, and then smeared Kwikseal sealant around the edges to fill in what still wasn't smooth.

Once that was done I covered it in Worbla. This piece is pretty straighforward, just cut out rings of Worbla, heat and press. If you've already done the armor you should be an old veteran at this by now, and this is a really easy shape. The hardest part is just making sure the blade edge cools straight and not wavy.

Once the Worbla is done, you'll need to prime it. We've already talked about Worbla's sandy texture, we can't have that for a metal weapon. Plus if you're like me and you used a floor tile for foam, one side has a very bumpy texture and you're going to need to make sure that doesn't show.

I used the same homemade gesso I used for the breastplate, 50/50 mix drywall joint compound and Elmer's white glue. Two or three coats, sanding between each coat. Then I gave it two coats of the spray primer/filler with more sanding. It was pretty smooth by this point.

So I cut out the designs from my patterns and laid them on the chakram to see how it looked.

I can't describe the way my stomach dropped when I saw this. That looks AWFUL. It's all uneven and lumpy and I just couldn't stand it. No matter how many people tell me I'm crazy. So I scrapped it again.

This time, I decided to go with 5mm foam. I had felt like the 10mm was a little thick, so I took the opportunity to try a thinner foam. I cut out a new foam circle, and due to lack of time only trimmed the square edges rather than dremeling (another mistake) and covered this new foam ring with Worbla. I added a thin snake of Worbla all around the edge to give it the blade edge (which was ALSO a mistake) but it did come out okay.

The next problem was that this chakram really didn't want to cool flat. When all the Worbla cooled it ended up a bit warped. So I heated it and spent it's cooling time pressing it into the table and flipping it and pressing it again over and over to try and get it flat. It cooled warped. So I heated it again, pressed it into the table and placed my cutting mat over it and let it cool. It cooled warped. So I heated it AGAIN and pressed it into the table, pressed the cutting mat over it, and placed a large frying pan full of water on top of it and left it there for FOUR HOURS AND IT COOLED WARPED. I gave up at that point. I was running out of time.

The is where we ended up. It is more even than the first one, but because I added the extra Worbla for the blade it still ended up a bit too wide. But I wasn't going to start over again.

I primed and sanded it again, but I was out of the spray primer so I couldn't get it quite as smooth, so I ended up using some spackle to smooth it out a bit more. I guess it worked, but the spackle wasn't the best choice, I came to realize later.

Once it was nice and smooth, I taped the pattern to the chakram. This is where the wood burner comes in. If you have skill with carving designs with a dremel, that might be a better choice, you can carve the designs in with an engraving bit of some kind. I have terrible control with my basic one speed dremel so I didn't dare. With the pattern taped to the chakram I just traced around the outlines with the wood burner, carving the edges and the circles where the abalone shell beads would go.

By the way, the beads I got are here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Natural-Abalone-Shell-Gemstone-Beads-15-5-Oval-Square-Coin-Oblong-Etc/372091050451?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=640978824390&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

One strand gets you more than twice as many as you need. And I learned from experiments you can totally sand them if you need to to get them smooth with the surface of your chakram, all you have to do is put a new glossy topcoat on them after sanding and they're as good as new.

Putting the abalone shell beads in was actually kind of fun. Once I'd marked out where they went I'd just stab the circle repeatedly with the woodburner until the Worbla and the foam underneath were soft and melty, and then I could just press the bead into place and hold it there while everything cooled. That way I was able to sink the beads in so they would be flush with the surface of the chakram, and the adhesive properties of the Worbla glued the beads in place.

The downside of the spackle wasn't obvious on this side, but on the other side where it's got the sharper pointed designs I had an issue with the spackle crumbling where I tried to carve the points. So the other side is a little messy. I would have loved to start over again and do it properly with gesso and spray primer and no extra added on for the blade edge but I was out of time before the party I planned to wear this to and couldn't afford to start over.

Also, I realize it might not make sense to put the beads in before painting, but I didn't want to do the woodburning over paint, I had some concerns about fumes and burning things. So I cut out small circles of painter's tape to cover the beads so I could paint freely. I sprayed it down with Plastidip, and then due to the fact that I had run out of gold Rub N Buff, used my airbrush to paint the gold parts. I then used silver Rub N Buff for the silver sections, it was pretty easy to be careful and not get it onto the gold parts. I rubbed it down with watered down black acrylic paint to weather it, but later wished I hadn't done that either, Xena's chakram is pretty shiny and flashy. A few coats of spray varnish later and the chakram was done.

In the end I'm not unhappy with what I made, but good lord I struggled with this, and I still feel like it's kind of a weak point in my costume. I still kind of want to scrap it and make a new one....

But it's time to move to the next weapon. 

The sword!

Materials:

about 1 medium sheet of Worbla
thermoplastic beads
10mm EVA foam
Kwikseal bathroom and kitchen sealant
wood glue, gesso, or desired primer
sandable spray primer/filler
7 coin shaped abalone shell beads in 16mm diameter
Spray Plastidip
wood burner tool
sandpaper in medium and super fine grits
gold and silver paint- your preferred painting method
black acrylic paint
clear spray varnish
dremel with a grinding bit
hot glue gun
hacksaw
toy sword

Based on other tutorials my idea was to carve it out of expanding foam and cover it with Worbla. If you remember from the earlier pictures, my expanding foam turned out like this:

I think what happened is the outside dried first and when the foam wanted to keep expanding, didn't have anywhere to go but down. And unfortunately I had sprayed it on paper, which did not resist the push of the expanding foam. Sure, theoretically if I was good at carving I still could have come up with the sword shape out of this, but I realized immediately that it was going to take an absurd amount of time and effort and I seriously doubted I had the skill. So I trashed it. And based on my previous experience with prop making, and my boyfriend's suggestion, I decided to go buy a toy sword and overhaul it, like I did for my Captain Hook hook.

A quick trip to Walmart through the Halloween section and I came back with this:

Look at that sweet wolf's head, isn't it cool? 

Yeah, this thing is going to look 100% different by the time I'm done. 

Now, if you want to make something from scratch, you will need PVC pipe and EVA foam, you can just trace and cut out the shape of the sword out of several layers and glue it around the PVC pipe and then dremel it into shape. I could have done this, it was within my abilities most likely, but I was nervous. And my Captain Hook hook went really well. With everything else I was doing I decided the base sword would simplify my life. And for the record, the expanding foam idea might have worked if I had sprayed it directly onto this toy sword and then carved it down into the shape I needed, with the toy sword as a core to base what I was doing on.

So, when printing out my patterns, I'd found a nice straight on image of the sword:

I'd done some math looking at screenshots and figured I needed the sword to be about 27" long, and had resized this image and printed it at that size. I cut it out and traced the shape onto 10mm foam. Then I laid the toy sword over top and traced that to show me how much foam I needed to add to make it the right size. Then I glued it to the edges of the sword. Interestingly enough, the thickness of the plastic blade perfectly matched the foam.

I also ended up deciding the 27" was too short and added a few inches, it ended up closer to 30".

I am aware that my blade is much larger than the pattern's. I had to work with the toy sword base, and I didn't want to try cutting it down. This is where making one from scratch with PVC pipe and EVA foam might have been better- it would have been easier to get a more accurate shape. 

I dremeled the edges to give it a nice sharp edge and smooth the seams. Then I ran a line of hot glue right down the middle of the blade on both sides, and then spent a great deal of time covering the blade with Kwikseal and smoothing it to taper from the middle of the blade to the edge.

I also took my hacksaw and cut off the wolf head and replaced it with a big wad of thermoplastic beads that I carefully shaped into an oblong oval shape, pressed the end of the hilt into it to make a divot that it would settle into, and once it had cooled, glued to the end of the sword. 

I bought my thermoplastic beads here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077JZXGYV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They're super cool, you just dump a handful of them into boiling water, wait until they turn clear, pull them out with a spoon, and mold them into whatever you want. I've already found hundreds of uses for them, I recommend getting a big bag. They're just like the Worbla too, extra bits you cut off or don't use can be remelted and reused.

I had thought I wouldn't need to worry about the shape of the guard too much because it was fairly close, but after looking at it I decided it wasn't really close enough. So I ended up hacksawing off the ends of the guard, and using my paper pattern traced the shape of the ends of the guard onto 10mm foam, it took two layers for each end, and then glued them in place. 

Next came covering it in Worbla. I traced it twice on a sheet of Worbla, for the front and back, making sure to leave extra around the edges because the sword was a little thicker than anything I'd covered in Worbla so far, I needed to make sure there was enough Worbla to wrap around. Covering it in Worbla is the same as everything else, heat and press. 

Things to keep in mind: The pommel- the round thing at the end of the sword, if you don't know sword terminology, although I realize if you're a big enough nerd to cosplay you probably know sword terms- is made out of thermoplastic. When you heat the Worbla and lay the sword on your Worbla work board and then keep everything warm as you press the Worbla down, you will quite likely start to melt the pommel. Also, if you used my method and put a line of hot glue down the middle of the blade, that'll probably try to melt as well. That part is actually helpful, you can squish the hot glue at the tip down to sharpen the point a bit. Getting the pommel covered in Worbla did take adding some extra scraps and heating and squishing, which got the pommel pretty melty- I had thermoplastic oozing a bit between gaps in the Worbla. But once I got it covered I could just squish it back into shape and let it cool, so not a big deal. 

Next I needed to add the details. I added some long triangles to the base of the blade, one large one and one smaller one. You can use the paper pattern or just freehand it. I made some strips of Worbla  out of scraps and wrapped it in an X around the middle of the guard where the blade met. Then I made some disks of Worbla that I attached to the center of the guard over the center of the X on both sides. I made an oblong disk that I stuck to the bottom of the pommel as well. While all the disks were hot I pressed one of the 16mm abalone shell beads into the center of each disk to make an indent for where the beads would be glued in. I also heated the Worbla on the ends of the guard and made bead indents there as well. I also made sure to squish and straighten the edges to make a nice blade edge.

Next up was priming. I used my homemade gesso and sanding between each coats, and then a few coats of spray primer and more sanding. Just like with the armor I wasn't too worried about a perfect surface, Xena's sword has got some pretty noticeable wear marks, so it didn't need to have a mirror finish.

Once that was done I used my wood burning tool to soften up the indents I'd made for the beads and pressed the beads into them, just like I did with the chakram, and then covered them with circles of painter's tape for painting. I sprayed it with a coat of black Plastidip, airbrushed the hilt and the details on the blade gold, then covered the blade with silver Rub N Buff. I spread the handle grip in E6000 glue and then wrapped it in suede leather cord, that I lightly brushed with black Rub N Buff to darken it. I didn't want to go buy black cord, so I worked with what I had. To weather everything a bit I just used watered down black acrylic paint and a sock and rubbed it down. I gave it a few coats of semi-gloss polycrylic, removed the tape circles, and it was finished!

I'll be honest. I'm not super thrilled with the lumpiness of the blade. But I'm pretty proud of the hilt. I would also like to remake this using the PVC pipe and EVA foam method, I do think that's the better option. But for my first sword ever I'm not too unhappy. 

However! There was one important thing missing. Was I planning to just carry the sword around all the time? Definitely not! I needed a sheath. 

The sheath is pretty simple.

Materials:

5mm craft foam

contact cement

half a yard of pleather

Worbla scraps

leather cord

suede cord

3 16mm abalone shell beads

hooks or lobster claw clips

gold paint

black paint

brown fabric paint

I laid the sword on a sheet of 5mm foam and traced a generous outline of the sword blade up to the hilt. I cut it out twice and glued the edges together with contact cement. If you force the foam to bend around to glue the edges flat to each other the curving foam will naturally hold itself open for the sword. I then traced the foam core onto pleather with a wide ragged edge on one side and extra at the top to tuck over. I sewed it closed on the straight edge, then lightly glued it around the foam core. I didn't stress too much about the glue, it was just for safety. I then stitched down the open end as close to the foam core as I could. I used a zipper foot, but it still wasn't easy, that kind of shape just isn't meant to go through a sewing machine. 

I trimmed the flap on the ragged edge to match up with the opening of the sheath, and took the excess fabric around the top of the foam core and tucked it inside, gluing it down.

After that I took some suede cord and braided it. In order to get it thick enough I had to double up the strands. I cut it exactly as long as was needed to wrap around the sheath, and made 2 of them. Then I glued them on with E6000. I had to sort of manually hold them in place while the glue set, but I was just sitting around watching Xena anyways.

I made three disks of Worbla scraps and pressed 16mm bead imprints into them. Due to Worbla's wonderful tendency to fuse to my pleather, all I had to do was press them in place, no need to worry about gluing. I gave them a few coats of wood glue, painted them gold and glued the beads in the indents. A little watered down black paint for weathering and they were good to go. 

I used my leather punch on the smallest size and punched holes a little less than an inch apart all along the seam on the ragged edge of the sheath and wove leather cord through the holes. I just used a tiny drop of super glue at each end of the cord to fix it in place.  I took a pair of scissors to the edge of the ragged piece and just sort of roughly chopped it. I also took a bit of brown fabric paint and painted the inside of the ragged flaps so it would look more leather-like when it flapped around. 

To hook the sheath to myself I took some lobster claw clips I had scavenged from the same old purse I'd used the straps from previously. With scraps of Worbla I made some strips that I fed through the loops on the hooks and then pressed into the back of the sheath. It requires some help from a friend, but when I'm dressed up the top clip hooks to the O ring in the back of my corset, and the bottom clip hooked to the laces of the corset further down. It sat perfectly over my shoulder where I could easily draw it. And attempt to put it back... Aiming for the sheath over my shoulder was a little more complicated.

And that was it. Easy peasy. 

The nice part is that the sheath is nice and soft and flexible so if I take the sword out it doesn't prevent me from sitting back and leaning against it. It squishes and bounces right back. I also had a Deadpool at one of the Halloween parties I went to that found it quite entertaining to sneak up behind me and steal the sword, which was shockingly possible. I never thought I wouldn't notice the change in weight, but he got away with it repeatedly.

Well, you're a properly armed warrior now! There's just a few little details to wrap up. But we will cover that in the next, and final post.

Part Six: The Hair, The Eyes, The Makeup and Playing The Part