::scarlet costuming :: helga v. volgerlride / eis hexe ::

i heart trinity blood. seriously, this series has the greatest costumes ever. i'm not such a big fan of the anime in terms of costumes, but it's a rockin' show. eventually it'll become popular in the US but right now it's sort of obscure.

helga's a bad lady...with cool gear. i picked her not only for that, but also the sheer girth of stuff i had on hand to make this with.

::the wig::

this was fun. yeah, i swear. hah! as much as i love the original version in the Thores artbooks, i had no hope of finding and/or styling a wig to be that cool. i do, however, make dreadfalls from time to time, and already had a small pile of blue dreads lying around, along with a plentitude of blue wefted hair and loose hair from Dollar Tree finds. at halloween i picked up a crappy blue wig, yanked out the wefts and rebuilt it as the base wig from scratch. loads of fun. the dread buns are sewn together and onto a headband and are very easy to wear, although i think i put them too far up on the band, but that's easily fixed.

::the hat::

did i make it? you bet. from scratch. i can't remember the ins and outs now, but i used a wiremesh base, fun foam, the matching fabric and white trimming. it has little toupee clips in the front and back to keep it in place.

::pins, armband, collar::

with the exception of the two bronzed pins (made of Hearty clay), the rest are handmade with metal charms that were close correlations to the actual ones, if, you know, manga were real. heh.

the armband's double lined, trimmed in black and white ribbon, and handpainted. the collar snaps in front and has wired edges so it's adjustable. the tie is a kid's tie that i picked up at a thrift store...and then subsequently mangled and never could get tied back the way i wanted. i have no clue as to how to tie ties. yep.

::tights, skirt, and jacket::

i had the tights, the jacket was the lovechild of about three different patterns and alot of tweaking, and ditto on the skirt. it's made of a slightly stretchy matte medium weight rayon spandex blend, and the white trim is a rayon. i like how it all turned out, although the placement of the white buttons is a bit perplexing and embarassing in retrospect.

::the corset::

the undercorset is fully boned and backlacing, made of a destroyed old lightweight pleather skirt, and lined in black satin. the overcorset, which is more like helga's, is made of a pleathery snakeskin background with heavy interfacing. the two back panels lace up and the sides are connected by two pvc vinyl belts, a la big lots kids department. if i ever find more i'll put the liast buckle in on each side to make it accurate. the meta parts arent' metal, but actually metal contact paper, adhered well and then painted to show a slight pattern. i heart how this turned out, although in future wears, i will avoid putting on the undercorset for comfort purposes.

::boots, jewelry, and wand::

the boots i had, and thankfully, her costume calls for corset-lacing on the back...which made me happy as i'd already done that to mine to get them to fit my fat calves.

i had most of the jewelry, except for the earrings, which proved to be a nuisance to wear. i picked up clear plastic crystals from the bead department on serious clearance, wired them together with tigertail and clamps, and then painted them. they turned out well, but they're just heavy, and extremely long...but they do look 100 percent like hers, which rules. the giant ice crystal ring was a pureluck find in the $1 bin at target. it's a bridal shower shotglass....on a ring. weird, eh? i stuffed the blue shiny paper in it. rock on.

the wand was loads of fun, and also took a while to make. all i remember is that it's Model Magic, a paper mache egg, a wooden dowel, and some highly reflective blue gift paper and ALOT of paint. and some pearls. i absoluely love how it turned out, despite the fact that it's not accurate. it also fits perfectly into the ballchain hanging off of the corset.