My, how time has flown! I haven’t blogged in AGES and even though it’s been a while, I’ve resolved to write more often. (Much to my web designers “FINALLY” I’m sure). While I could bore my readers with tales of glory and adventures, I see fit to spare you.
You’re welcome world.
Tonight I post about my latest endeavor – from the wild wild world of One Piece, I introduce – Perona!
I don’t usually come out and document or blog about a piece when it’s for competition, but I think it’d be a fun way to drag, I mean, bring you, the reader, along for the journey.
…..and it might make me document my work rather than trying to recall what I did through postdated photos….just saying.
What contest, you may ask?
To celebrate the 20th broadcast anniversary of One Piece, World Cosplay Summit or WCS is recruiting 20 One Piece cosplayers from around the world to compete in this challenge. Of the selected 20, they will be flown to Japan where the King of Cosplay will be crowned!
In other words – an online popularity contest! And I SERIOUSLY question my chances and sanity at this. But…what the hell. ITS ONE PIECE. And I love this series!
SO! On to the main event – Mock Up #1
I spend so much time in mock-ups. But I figure its best to screw up when the fabric is cheap and easily accessible. And while I was taught to use muslin for my mock-ups back in school, I have found that muslin is WAY too expensive. Sometimes its 1/2 of the price of my fashion fabric and since it’s going to be tossed, I’ve stopped getting the stuff. Instead, I employ Walmart cottons. Not only are they $3 or less a yard, they come in a generous selection of colours and its a win, win situation. I save money AND I can see it in colour.
For this look, I want the proportions bigger than life. One Piece is infamous for blown out of proportion body types. To achieve this look, I decided to start this cosplay mock-up with an exaggerated hourglass bodice.
Pieces, Pieces…. 
…7 pieces for this bodice!
I purposely made this two sizes too big so that I had the ability to tailor and pin it within an inch of its life. You can kind of see my progress on the right picture. You can see where I’ve pinned and then chalked what needed to come in.
Why this method and the 7 panel crazy, you may ask? Because I wanted defined boobs. All of the boobs. That and I wanted to be able to tailor the waist as small as I could without having to make it into a legit corset. Now, whether that stays like that, I don’t know.
Still a bit on the fence about making it as a bodice or corset. But if, by some crazy chance, I was chosen, I don’t want to be in Japan’s 95 degree, 100% humidity summer in a blasted, boned corset. No thank you.
Tonight’s journey blended a bit into last night’s as I am combining posts and talking about the ruffles I did tonight.
‘Dem ruffles.
After quite a bit of staring at this, I’ve decided to just start with the first tier of fluffies and then work my way down. Or up. Not sure yet on that one.
The first layer is easy, since its just a basic peplum attached to the bodice. But I had to even out my drop waist and then I spent the last few hours, cutting and recutting circles.
Originally, I took a basic peplum pattern and tried that. Aaaaaaand it was too flat for my tastes. I needed and wanted crazy.
So I recut in a tighter diameter and went from two panels to three. ….Still wasn’t overly thrilled with the result.
At this point, I’m eating cereal and brooding.
Three panels is helping, but it isn’t as drastic of a S curve up and down. I’ve adjusted the length…and then I realized that length had nothing to do with it! The tighter the top curve, the swishier the bottom curls. And it needs to be small…smaller…like the size of a….cereal bowl diameter. :3
I cleared that bowl so fast it was ridiculous and traced out the bowl, measured the length and bam!
Fullish curls 
Cereal bowl curls AND adjusted dressform!
And so! Bored eating saved the day! As did putting my dressform to the right measurements. Holy crap, that is a huge difference. Its super cute on so far, but I wont torture you with THOSE photos.
And with that, I’m calling it a night!
Chao chao my lovelies!
2 Responses
Edna darling, simply enthralling to climb inside your head for a space of time. Good luck!
So I have no idea who this is, but when I saw the final two photos, the color scheme reminded me a lot of Star Trek Voyager . . . that is until I realized that the red was actually the mannequin or the styling mold . . . what ever it is called. Anyways I think what you have here is cute. Can’t wait to see how much progress you have made.