Horns, Rings, Pants, Boots, Hooves, oh my!

I've been slacking on posting because most of my attention has been split between my time at work, keeping up with homework (midterm season), and trying to actually finish the costume ... heh. I've been working on it sporadically, simply trying to get pieces done whenever I could fit in the time. Things have become jumbled and I'm not longer limiting my working days to one piece at a time. Especially given the mechanics of some of these pieces ... needing to let things dry or set, etc. That gives me time to change gears and focus on something else.

The horns were covered with two layers of paiper mache. That was a fantastic, messy process. It was also hindered by a certain small wiener dog with his heart set on eating the floury paste -- even if it was already soaking strips of newspaper. I felt like a kid, I haven't done mache crafts since ... I don't know how long. But it was awesome. After the first layer dried (let to sit overnight), the second coat was applied then also let to dry. We threw together a quick little hammock to hang the horns on while they dried, since the mache was wrapped around all sides.

I took some of the leftover foam and constructed some rings to adorn my tail. They're bulky, but that's okay. It's sort of a cartoonish character anyway.

The less circular one fits at the base of the tail, where it "attaches" to my spine. It keeps the tail from falling to the side and laying limp once I'm wearing it, since the tail's construction leaves it narrow and prone to such flopping. These were also covered in paper and flourgoo and let dry.

The next day, I sanded the horns to get rid of as much obvious creasing from the mache as I could. It's not perfect, but I'm telling myself that horns are never perfectly smooth anyway ... I'm really just making excuses for my small failures in order to try and make myself believe it's okay. Once they were sanded, painting began. First, a layer of white spray paint. Layer upon layer until the newspaper articles were no longer visible. I'll be going to finalize this part later tonight.

The brown leggings I have for my pants were hacked at to make them shorter.

With the default length they had, they came down to barely a few inches above the cut of my boots. This was an accidental look and would have been an undesired length of exposed leg. Instead, I chopped them up good and short and plan to show off some "skin." Beautiful albino skin. >_> It's a good thing I like my legs, else this costume would be very uncomfortable to wear in public.

Using the excess from the base of my leggings, I pinned out the shape for some little gloves. They will be sewn together in to some thing, fingerless gauntlets. That way I'll have less skin to try and pale out (more than it already is).

To put some acceptable touches on my hooves (I won't call them totally finished because, ideally, I'd like to spend more time on making them just perfect with detail and whatnot ... but my current goal at the present is to get everything finished enough to be worn out ... so for now, the touches are merely satisfactory), my friend helped me sand the fiberglass smooth.

I then used a sharpie to draw out a general idea for where I wanted to have 'hoof' and where it would stop being 'fur.'

We then started using scraps of paper to make a pattern for where the black part would be.

For this, we bought tablecloth material ... the kind with a little bit of white foam on the underside, y'know? It was cheap and suits well enough.

Once that was adhered to the base of my hooves, we used pieces of the white fabric in an overlap of the black to create my little bit of ankle fur -- so scandalous!

In order to make my little 'boots,' I bought another pair of leggings -- this time from the children's department! They're sparkly, hah.

I cut the legs off as high up as I could, creating two tubes of fabric and one pair of purple underpants. I also removed the bedazzled cuff because it was A) too tight to be comfortable, and B) bedazzled. Inverting the leg pieces, so that the piece that normally encircles the thigh is closest to the ground, I stretched the tubes over the boots. Using more glue, the boot covers were adhered to the little white strip of 'fur' on my hoof. The (former ankle part of the legging) top is loose. The nature of the fabric lets me roll down the legging, put my foot in my shoe, zip the boot, then unroll the legging. I then can tuck in the excess fabric so that it hides inside the calf part of my boot. And, ta-da! Hooves fit for a draenei. The image is still rough. Since then, we've readjusted the fabrics and used a better adhesive. The first round was a bit ... fail.

Still using the purple children's leggings, I cut the center seam of the leftover waist. Now instead of superhero underpants, I had a tube. Trimming evenly, I created what I considered to be a wide enough belt to adorn over my leggings. Spandexy goodness of a belt, but it works, I think. For this reason, I bought the only pair of XL leggings in the children's department. Somewhere, some poor fat little girl is going without purple pants. I'm sorry, little girl, but they went to a good cause. Because I'm lazy and trying not to break out the sewing machine ever five minutes, the belt was attached to the pants with durable fabric glue, to create the illusion of a seamless change between garment pieces. I also put on my pants and had my friend glue a little decorative seam of ribbon to the end of the pant legs, giving them a finished look and saving m the hassle of trying to hem stretchy fabric - which I hate. (pictures to come)

I also took out the wig for a test run. My original plan was to curl it, thereby shortening the length it hangs and making it easier to deal with. However, I soon discovered that even with curls, it would drive me nuts. The wig is magic. It tangles itself without being touched. I don't want to know how much fun it would have wrapping around itself once the fibers were in a curly state. Instead, I plan to clip it up in a way that lets it stay straight (not going to lie, the idea of styling a wig terrifies me), gets it comfortably out of my face (I pranced around the house for at least an hour with it done up like this and never felt hindered or annoyed by it), and also manages to cover my neck tattoo (an issue that I always want to cover when I want my costumes to be somewhat accurate).

Huzzah!

Tonight I aim to complete painting on my horns, put together my gloves, perhaps adorn my garments with the little shinies I bought at the craft store (yey shinies!) and if I'm lucky, make my tentacles ... which is just weird. Tentacles ... -shudder-