San Diego Comic Con!

I emerged from my solitary bubble of pins and thread after countless hours of costume making on the other side of the world - at the San Diego Comic Con! 

I really didn't quite know what to expect when I went but found myself with an hour or so to hang around before I could enter the convention centre. The atmosphere was buzzing with all sorts of folk eager to get in there and soak up the geekery. As Geek In Training (GIT) I dutifully wore my Cereal:Geek t-shirt to advertise the magazine and within the first couple of hours had a couple of people ask about it. For me, the preview night helped me gauge which day I was to be my alter-ego Jem and which day to transform into Sweet Bee of She-Ra fame. 

GIT

Jem was to come first. Mainly because I couldn't wait to be a bright pink 80's rocker, but a little bit to do with having a huge meal the evening before and feeling a bit like a whale the next morning. There's no space for feeling bloated in that Sweet Bee costume! 

The evening before, I sprayed my shoes from tasteful beige 4 inch heels into er, 'tasteful' sparkly pink rock star heels with some spray paint I'd bought at Michael's in LA. We did this in the dark in the car park of the Motel 6 with baited breath - if it didn't work then, well, I'd have mismatched shoes. And we can't have that can we. 

Discovering that the journey from the Motel 6 in El Cajon to the convention centre was much longer than we'd first thought and that I'm no morning person by any measure, I decided to take the Jem costume along with me and get ready when I got there. I felt like sticking on Blondie's 'Call me' a la Tiffany's makeover scene in The Bride of Chucky. Not that I was feeling at all murderous...

Apparently, if you dress up for a day at SDCC you become some kind of celebrity, especially if you are Jem. I was so surprised not to see a flock other fellow Jem's considering there is a movie coming up though social media tells me there was at least 2 others, one of which I only met on the last day of the convention.

It was great fun being Jem and I received many compliments on my costume including one from a woman who said I was everything the 7 year old her wanted to be and one saying it was the best Jem costume she'd ever seen. Win win! There were also comments from 70 year old men such as 'I should get my wife to wear that outfit...' - not so win win. 

It certainly did make taking a quick trip to the pretzel stand into a half hour trek though. Every 30 seconds or so I would be stopped for a photo or have someone excitedly shout 'Jem!' - which by the end of the week I began to automatically answer to. 

I met some other awesomely dressed people on the way too. Some of my favourites included the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lichtenstein characters, Indiana Jones, Edward Scissorhands and the Joker. I was however surprised and slightly disappointed to see a lack of Rocky Horror fans, though I did meet a Columbia who looked damn awesome! 

Day 2 was my Sweet Bee day. After wriggling into my yellow Lycra bee warrior skin I fluffed up my hair, stuck on my antenna's and went off for a wander to check out the Sweet Bee figure at the Mattel booth. Not so many seemed to recognise Sweet Bee though when I wandered through the booth one of the men working there who was rushing off somewhere stopped me to excitedly point out that I should enter the Princess of Power costume competition. So I did. I'd thought this was reserved just for She-ra's but apparently not! So here I am, contestant number 19...

After wearing this costume for 9 hours I was super pleased to find that it stayed up and didn't embarrass me AND that I didn't break any of the seams. My wings stayed in tact too, which was impressive since they were created at 4.30am the night before the flight! I've decided if I wear the costume again I'm going to make the wings much bigger - due to suitcase restrictions they had to be quite small!

Overall I had a superb time dressing up at SDCC, it was a great experience and I'm so pleased Mr. Eatock gave me the opportunity to join the adventure! I met some great people and a particular highlight for me was seeing the vast selection of art on display. Especially, Zero Friends and J.Scott Campbell - who I got to meet and sign the print I'd bought of Tinkerbell sitting on a cotton reel surrounded by sewing and craft paraphernalia! He even agreed with James that I resembled the style of drawing he produces in the eyebrows and nose! Score!

One thing I will take away from this experience is that I officially look more like a cartoon than a person! My only regrets are not going to the costume parade because I was too tired one evening and not hounding Hulk Hogan and Breckin Meyer for photographs!

Here's me... Meeting me

To make a Sweet Bee...

In making Sweet Bee's outfit, I wanted to stay true as much as possible to her animated self. Tricky since I'm a human and she is a 2D bee person animation. Using the below picture as a guide I employed bold colours as close to the shades she wears as possible.

The outfit began as a rather convincing 1950s style bathing suit. As tempting as it was to leave it this way and don my 'new-old' bathing suit on Venice Beach I continued with cutting a circular skirt (or as close as I could get given my fabric limitations) and stitching it to the waist line.

 I utilised wire in the construction of the lower half of the dress to thread through the binding on the hem to make it kick out and come to life in 3D form.

 

The top half was doubled up to save embarrassment and boning was added between the two layers to avoid mortification. This boning not only helped the upper half stay up but also helped shape the neckline in the points.

The joys of costume making for oneself without the use of a mannequin are stabbing and on occasion actually pinning yourself to the fabric when having to shimmy in and out of the costume numerous times to make alterations. I should really get a mannequin... I was finally happy that the waist line sat in the right place and that the seams were sturdy enough but nonetheless, this costume wasn't one to wear after your typical American portion size. I was going to have to fast before putting this one on!

Now for the emblem... I used the same fabric that was used to make her antennae and backed it with interfacing to help it keep it's shape and avoid fraying so easily. It seemed to work but after wriggling in and out of the costume about 10 times already and the fact it was 5.30am I tacked it gingerly to the costume and went to bed. This emblem was stitched on securely by hand at the Cereal:Geek booth on day 3 of the San Diego Comic Con so that I knew exactly how much the yellow Lycra would stretch when worn so that the emblem would lie flat.

Stay tuned to see the end result of both Jem and Sweet Bee and to hear more about San Diego Comic Con 2014!

Peace out x

Back to the 80s!

A few weeks ago I went on an adventure to find the fabric that would make a costume for Jem and Sweet Bee. After trawling fabric shops, fancy dress shops and markets in Camden and Soho, I stumbled upon a fabric shop on Berwick Street which was like an Aladdin's Cave of colours and textures. After scrutinizing lots of shades of pink for Jem, a roll seemed to appear from another world, glowing from it's place on the rack on the back wall. It was perfect and exactly what I'd imagined. The shop keeper then took us up to another floor when I told him what I was looking for to create Sweet Bee. On entering the room it was like another private realm of rolls and reams, that's where I found the fabric that would construct the otherworldly Bee warrior's canary yellow outfit.

Back in my east London studio (aka my house), I managed to take over the kitchen and successfully made a huge pink mess (much to the joy of my housemates, I'm sure).

As a lover of all things 80s I had lots of fun putting this costume together especially with the help of an awesome playlist with the top hits, movie and TV soundtracks from the 80's to put me in the mood. We had a little party in there that night with all manner of tunes from Prince and Bowie and of course the soundtracks from Dirty Dancing, Back to the Future Ghostbusters and way more!

At first there was a shaky moment where the dress resembled a very OTT Dame Edna-esque dressing gown but after more sewing it shaped nicely into a very sassy and truly outrageous wrap dress - one that I definitely would/will wear in a night out!

For the belt I used silver leatherette as the base and covered it with a more shimmering silver to make it stand out while the tassels were formed straight from the leatherette. This part was way more time consuming than I'd anticipated! The blue detail on the belt was added in the same stretchy fabric as the dress itself which in hindsight I would have hand stitched to help it keep its shape though I was still pretty pleased with the outcome.

Maybe with the remaining fabric there might be some Jem/80s themed skinny bow ties... Watch this space!