This post is the second in the Creature Creation series. The first post was a quick rundown of my criteria and foundation for the designs, it also worked as an entry point to the series in which I will be creating a part of my final piece – the costume(-s). I still am unsure how many I should and will make so I’m keeping the number as vague as possible so as not to raise expectations for anyone, but more importantly, for myself because if you’ve been around, you know how I can get if I don’t meet my own expectations..
In this post, I will be talking about the second part of the creation process – making the undergarment for each and every one of the costumes. I figured it would make it so much easier if I had a single base and instead made the articles of clothing interchangeable.
The undergarment consists of: morph suit, DIY “corset” (it will make sense later on) and hip pads. It will also have a shoe, but I still have not gotten round to getting a pair, so for now, that’s all I’ll list down. Any updates will be marked down at the bottom of the post to make it easier for me to keep track of what I’ve done already and what is yet to be done.
I’ve already made quite a bit of the undergarment, the only thing remaining is editing it slightly to be more polished as well as getting the last bit – the shoes. I’ve also started a sketchbook to keep track of my progress and to take notes in, here are the pages that have been filled out already:
As you can probably tell – my expectations going in were quite unrealistic.. especially in regards of the corset. There was no way in hell that I would have gotten the desired shape having put on the corset for the first time in my lifetime, haha. But hey, breaking down expectations and coming up with compromises is all part of the process. That kind of mindset has allowed me to not really get disheartened by it not working out as well as I had expected and I’d go out of my way to say that it’s creative growth!
The making of the DIY corset was quite the faff, cost me a whole shirt and a half of a roll of duct tape. In the end, I feel quite satisfied with how it turned out, especially given how moderately cheap it was to make. The process was quite straightforward:
- I asked my housemate Becky to wrap my waist tightly using the duct tape while I was still wearing a shirt I was not too attached to.
- After I felt it was tight and durable enough, using a pair of scissors I cut into my shirt and went upwards with them in a straight line until I reached the collar part of the shirt. Not without cutting my torso a few times, though..
- After I freed myself from the constrictive embrace of beauty standards, I cut excess fabric off until I was left with just the bit that was covered duct tape.
- I secured the corners using more duct tape. They ended up coming undone after a bit so I will have to fix that using a hot glue gun or even super glue.
- I added a couple of extra flaps to where the corset was slit.
- On one flap I added a strip of fuzzy velcro, on the other I added a strip of rough velcro. That way it will be easier to put on and take off, which is exactly what I need.
The result:
It definitely requires some editing and “tailoring” as it looks a bit rough, but overall, this is probably the best I could’ve asked for, especially provided any kind of knowledge I used for the making of this came from binge watching Drag Race a few years ago.
After I had done the ductset, I knew it would not be enough so I got down to making the hip pads. I had previously gone to a local B&Q and picked up 5 slates of foam that I thought I would use for the costumes themselves but ended up using for the undergarment instead (there’s still a whole bunch of it left and I will definitely use it for this project).
I made each pad by folding and cutting a single slate of foam in half, drawing out a shape using the measurements of my thighs, cut it out and rounded off the edges until I was satisfied enough with the roundness of them. Little did I know..
That I would end up looking like I’m smuggling hams from a grocery store.. The good thing about this is that it’s actually done, all that is left to do for now is to smooth down the edges even further so that they don’t look as lumpy as they ended up looking. However, even then, that is not all that important. In my tutorial today, I was reassured that it’s really not that big of a deal if it does end up looking as lumpy as it does right now, especially given my subject of choice. (I.e. – realism is really subjective and the degree of it is fully up to me.)
The next few posts under the category “Creating my Creature” will cover the actual outfit making aspect of it all.
Robertas Tijusas 