Dragoncon 2015: Costume recap

In (sort-of) order of wearing!

1. Peggy Carter
I did some updates to Peggy – I took it up a bit through the waist and removed the shoulder pads, and fixed up the wig. It made a HUGE difference! The jacket fit much better and the wig looked way better, too. I just wish I could have had time to take up the sleeves – they are still huge – but I’ll put that on my list for later.

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I only wore this on Thursday afternoon – it was just too hot to deal with it again, and my feet screamed if I even looked at those shoes. Chase took some nice photos on the patio so I’ll have something better than a mirror selfie.

2. Captain Marvel
I only had a couple of issues with Captain Marvel – first is that both of my two new bodysuit costumes (this one and Leia) seem to be sitting a little low. I don’t know if I messed up the pattern or what but it’s not something I’m going to attempt to fix anytime soon – maybe next year. On my Captain Marvel suit I split a seam! I don’t think it was due to stress (it was not at a stress point) I think I just missed back-stitching there and it came undone. I stitched it up in the room and it held the rest of the weekend.

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Which was good because I practically lived in this! It was the most comfortable costume I brought, comfy shoes, it wasn’t too hot. When I put this on on friday to go to the dealer’s room, I decided to put my wig up in a hair clip (like I’d done for Supergirl in 2013) just to keep the wig hair off my neck and try to keep cooler. I liked how it looked so much I wore it like that the rest of the weekend, with Chase’s Bert Macklin sunglasses for added effect.
Back on the repaire side… the fabric at the toe of one of the boots was coming up by the end of the weekend and some of the paint on the heel got scratched off. Simple fixes but just listing them here so I don’t forget.

3. Trillian
Had one issue with the costume – one of the side decorative seams had come undone. It’s to be expected with this terry cloth. I sewed it back up while I had it on and it was fine the rest of the weekend.

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I wore it quite a bit late at night because, outside of being a little toasty, it’s very comfy. By Saturday night I’d left the wig off in an attempt to make it even more comfortable. Looking at pics afterwards I missed a Zaphod and a Marvin running around. Poo.

4. Donna Noble – Unicorn & the Wasp
Absolutely no technical issues with this costume except the aforementioned issue getting my hair up friday morning. And the shoes killed me! I don’t know WHY they were so uncomfortable but Lord they hurt after a while.

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But it was so cool and comfy otherwise and I was super happy with how it turned out. I need a giant wasp to accompany me next time I wear it.

5. Janet Snakehole
Sooooooo apparently I made the slit in the dress a LITTLE too high. Haha. Like seriously it was right at my butt. Chase said it wasn’t noticeable at all, and I made him watch me walk around and prance and what have you while in the room to be sure LOL. So it wasn’t a major issue it just made me paranoid while wearing it. I’m going to go back and make it a little lower.

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Chase’s Bert Macklin ended up being REALLY hot (windbreaker!) but we had so much fun in these. We picked up Andy & April badges in the dealer’s room and wore them with the costumes too, so that was fun.

6. Pink Dream Dress
Oh my gosh, where do I start with the technical issues. First off, I REALLY need to make new panniers. Even though I went through and fixed them about a month ago, by con time they were looking droopy and sad again. It’s time to just make a new pair and stop trying to make these work. They don’t look right anymore.
Second I mentioned the fit issue at the shoulder before the con, which I may or may not fix. I dunno.
Lastly I made the mistake of not wearing the felt underskirt. I was hoping to make it cooler. But without it the underskirt didn’t have the proper support and didn’t hold the outer skirt in place correctly. I went back to the room and threw it on for a few photos in the hallway, but I was so frustrated by then (and sweaty) the pics don’t really look great.

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I’m pretty disappointed. Chase said we can go out and take some nice pics in a couple of weeks when it cools down. I won’t have time to make new panniers by then but maybe I can make stuff work so I can have some decent pictures.

7. Donna Noble – Fires of Pompeii
The updates to this (shortening the hem, new trim, fixed a seam issue) look so much better! This costume is so comfortable!

Unfortunately most people don’t even really it’s a costume. It just looks like a weird maxi dress, haha. I only wore it for a bit when we went through the walk of fame once, and didn’t take any pics of it. I need to do a white backdrop shoot with it soon now that it’s fixed.

8. Princess Leia – Comic book suit
No technical issues to report with this except I still want to ventilate the front of the wig (ran out of time) and the belt rubbed dye off on on the suit (haven’t tried to wash it out yet so may not be an issue).

My Princess Leia costume based on the recent mini-series. I made this for Dragoncon 2015.Construction info is up at my website: kelldar.com

I really didn’t like how it looked at first, but now I’ve seen Chase’s photos of it from our shoot on saturday and my mind has been changed! I really like how it turned out! It was boiling hot to wear though. The suit itself is 3 layers of fabric, with an undersuit, then a cape with a cowl and a wig? It was pretty miserable. It’ll be great for MCFC tho.

9. Queen Aelsa
So after I wore this at MCE I told myself, make some padding for the ears because they start to hurt after a bit. Did I? Of course not. After an hour of being in this, the elf ears were pressing against my (super sensitive) ears and temple, and I could feel a migraine coming on. So I didn’t get to wear it terribly long.

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But it was a LOT of fun to wear at the marvel shoot because it was so windy. Thankfully so because I couldn’t wipe the sweat off my face because of the white makeup, so standing in the breeze kept me cool and kept my skirts and sleeves flying around… fun šŸ™‚

That’s all she wrote… Yep. That’s right. I only wore 9 costumes this year. That’s the lowest year I’ve had since 2005. Why is that? Because…

10. Anne Boleyn
15+ years of going to cons and I have NEVER forgotten a major costume piece at home. NEVER! Until now šŸ™ I went to put Anne on and discovered my gold underskirt did not get packed. I had assumed it was in the garment bag with the dress but it was apparently on its own hanger elsewhere in my closet. So after spending an entire day making that new hood (while in agony over my thumb – that was the day it happened!) I didn’t even get to wear it. POOOOOOOOOOP.

11 & 12. Johanna and Alyss
It was TOO HOT and TOO CROWDED for both of these. I could not work myself up to get into either of them. I really should have done one or both of these early Thursday (when it was less crowded) instead of Peggy and Capt Marvel, but I did not plan right. šŸ™

13. Donna Noble – Journey’s End
I don’t really even know if this one counts LOL. I always bring it in my bin but just never dug it out this year. I had trillian, janet, and capt marvel as downtime costumes so I never had a need for this one.

So anyway. I’ll have some more thoughts and photos soon. Haven’t gone through Chase’s stuff yet!