#comc-conathomemasquerade

Comic Con Masquerade Contest: Moria Magre- Mines of Moria Cosplays

Costume Entry Title: Goodbye Beach City

Inspired by Steven Universe

Costume Description:So, this costume was around 400 hours of work. It was a behemoth of a costume. I genuinely don't know where to start in describing it, but I guess starting from head to toe.

WIG: So the wig is styled by me, the figure in the wig is a small little Malachite figure as in season 1 of Steven Universe Malachite pulled themselves into the sea, so the wig is styled to be like the ocean, much the same as the rest of the dress. Malachite is an old worn out sock of my partners that was stuffed and cut and painted. Wire is in the legs and arms to make them movable. Then every piece of the little figure is hand stitched with embroidery floss. The face itself is actually iron on applique (because I feel the face detail wouldn't have been able to show on such a small figure otherwise) The other side of the wig has seashells and such to stick with the ocean motif.

BODICE: The bodice part of the dress is an old 1960s pattern design I modified from an old pattern my grandma had. I took that pattern and laid it on paper and reworked it and had to do SEVERAL tests with old sheets to make the pieces work for me (her pattern wasn't designed for... plus sized girls). On the upper shoulders are hand woven beaded strings that are in the shape of the diamond authority with 2mm beads which are so dang tiny ;_; On the lower part of the bodice is hand stitched flower motifs. I made the flower appliques themselves out of salt packets (since the dress is based on a beach and beaches are salty, salt made sense! I want to transport you guys to beach city with this dress!!!) Salt packets are cut open, empties, Elmer’s glued together then sewn down together on a fabric sheet, then cut out and attached with iron on interfacing. Along each edge of the flower pieces are again 2mm beads patterned into a 3:1:3 pattern with transparent then opaque then shiny.

SHORT BEACH SKIRT:All the skirts in the piece are all patterned by me, no base pattern at all, I genuinely did trial and error for all the skirts from here on. The belt there is attached to the skirts with heavy duty embroidery floss as the two skirts combined weigh close to 30 lbs. Now the first thing from the white dress to this that you see is white smocking. The smocking was all patterned by me with a bunch of error. The idea is from basic Canadian smocking but finding a lot of patterns for smocking is hard and it’s easier to make your own. For the patterning of the smocking I made a wooden template. I made the squares (for this piece the squares are 1cm wide) on the piece of wood and then put holes where each line meets of the squares then traced the little dots on the fabric with water soluble ink. (its quicker than measuring them all out) There are 64 rows of smoking and they are about each row is 38 cm long. Each 2 rows take about 1.25 hours. (Smocking is so relaxing-- that is until you hit row 40. Then it’s just tiring. GOTTA PULL THROUGH THOUGH) After the smocking you then see the salt packet sheets, I described above. Same technique but this time sewn into larger sheets and used as a base for the beach and locations themselves. The salt packets are almost like interfacing with how much it stiffens everything. The salt is still inside for these pieces unlike the roses pieces above so if I hop around you can hear the salt moving (which is quite rhythmic). After the salt packets is the locations. Now these are where it gets intense. (yeah, I know HERE is where it gets intense-- HA!) But the locations-- the fry shack/fish stew pizza, the Mr. Universe van/Lion and the big donut are first done on bedsheets I stretch over canvas (Almost all of the fabric for this costume are bedsheets and curtains-- I gotta be cheap and economical, costume supplies do add up ;_; ) So then patterns are drawn on the canvas, I paint the designs on doing color blocking so when I stitch the fabric is a matching color. They are then hand stitched on the canvas. ( I actually made 2 more designs, one being the car-wash and the other being Mr. Smileys fun land but couldn't find a place to put them so they got scrapped) After they are sewn, I add double sided interfacing to the back to seal up the extra strings and make sure they are flat. I do iron it on to the salt packets and then hand-stitch them on again. On the back of the skirt is a diamond shape I did with my embroidery machine of the diamond authority with the parts of the giant robot they control (talk about a weird plot twist tbh) Under the locations is the sand which is attached via clear caulk and then sand is smooshed in. The beach water is underneath, so the beach water is actually rubber resin (it is a heavy duty type and isn't sold most places, its sortof uncommon) So, there were 3 trial and errors for the water, I first did it in regular resin but added less hardener and coated it in clear acrylic in order to make it still mildly malleable but not tacky. It was more malleable than normal but not as much as I needed. Moving on- I tried the first batch of rubber resin. If you don't buy the kind without the alumilite it will yellow (and this resin is sorta weird and acts strange because of it) and guess what, blue and yellow make green. And the water looked so YUCKY. Third try. So important clarification- this resin also hardens in oh idk maybe 15 minutes max on a good day. 8 minutes on a bad day. I had both. So, because of the short time I had my partner help me mix up the batches. I had to have light, dark, and white for mixing. I had the fabric shape drawn onto dollar tree clear curtains that were taped to my porch ground. I then poured the dark, then light, then white. With gloves on I mixed it to give that watery affect. (not enough time to treat it like an acrylic pour but man I wish) Once it dries it is then attached to the dress with clear caulk. On the edge of the skirt is a ribbon and then a handwoven bead string that is beaded like a braid. So, you have the main bead

bit in the center and then 3 other bead bits. I had 3 needles and braided it like that.

LONG BEACH SKIRT: So, the second skirt is built very similar to the original. The pieces on the skirt are more symbolic of the show. The villain of the first episode is Centipeedle and then the villain of the last episode (SPOILER SORRY) is Monster Steven then on the back is the giant Obsidian temple. The obsidian temple came first and took the longest racking in a whopping 60 hours. I will say these jumbo designs are a little different from the smaller counterparts because these were the ones I started when the pandemic started and TAKE A GUESS WHAT HOBBY EVERYONE TOOK UP?! Yeah needlepoint, or it seemed like it and every hobby store was SOLD OUT of almost all embroidery floss. So, all the floss is hand dyed and colored because I LITERALLY COULDN'T GET MATERIALS (IMSTILLMADABOUTIT) Which took so many hours to get the colors I needed. Especially the grey. The grey for Obsidian and Monster Steven is yarn and not floss because I could not get any more floss). The mountain underneath Obsidian is a textile manipulation piece, so multiple fabric pieces are roughly sewn down to get the texture and coloring you need. I used mostly denims and cottons to get the rough texture to match a mountainside. The little lighthouse is embroidered on my embroidery machine from a file I made.

UNDERNEATH LONG BEACH SKIRT: Underneath the big skirt is a whole other world to immerse yourself in Steven universe. So once again-Smocking. The white as we call "frosting" smocking technique is 1.25-inch squares compared to the 1 cm ones of before. I made a second wood board with the 1in squares since the smocking underneath is literally like 6 yards of fabric (I know it doesn't look like it but man does smocking go through fabric) On the underside in the photos you can really see the blue braid woven beads I mentioned in "short beach skirt". Along with that bead line you can also see little bubbles hand-sewn to the dress! the bubbles there are literal Christmas ornaments cut in half and alcohol dyed. (I used sharpies, alcohol and a spray bottle) They are then clear coated with clear spray-paint to ensure they stay colored and the color doesn't rub off. Inside the bubbles are clay gems, painted and coated with resin to ensure stability. I sanded the bottoms and used hot glue to attach them as heavy-duty adhesives tend to yellow or bleed through and since the fabric (where there isn't salt) is pretty thin and I didn't want to take the chance. Each gem is one we have seen in the show, so we have our main characters, then we have corrupted gems and then the gems with Lars on homeworld like Rutile and all them! Both sides have between 8-10 gems each. (try and guess the gems! <3)

PINK UNDERSKIRT PANELS: Once again for these pink panels I used smocking, you can see it on the outermost side. I used 1in squares for this one so I made a third board for smocking (3 boards in total- S, M, L) This part of the skirt on both sides kinda represented Stevens Pink Diamond abilities like portal making (is that even what it would be considered???) any who, since these panels are hidden until shown it seemed fitting so I put the inside of Lions's Mane on one side and Lion on the other. For Lion I once again did the textile painting technique like I did with the mountain and textured him with dozens of different pink fabrics, string and paper. (yes, I sewed through paper to get some of the pink textures). I did a bit of paint for the eyes to make them pop a bit better. The other side is an applique I did with spray adhesive for the tree base and branches, then they are hand stitched on top of to make it pop. I also machine stitched on top to ensure all pieces are well attached. For the small parts of the design like the t-shirt, and the treasure chest I used my embroidery machine to make the pieces.

MAIN WHITE SKIRT TRIM: The last part is the center white skirt! So, for starters, I can’t read sheet music. I never took music classes as a kid since I always took art (believe me, I regret it now) So I kinda had to teach myself music stuff in order to read the sheet music. So, the music notes on the bottom are from the Steven Universe intro song "we are the crystal gems!" I sewed down 5 different strings about the same distance apart to be the bars (I think that’s what they are called) then drew on the music notes with water soluble ink and started stitchin! My friend taught me what the notes meant and what parts were important on a sheet music sheet to include (like the pauses and stuff) and I can mostly understand it! (I love the music of SU and it’s such an integral part I HAD to include it) So the whole song wraps around the bottom of the white skirt. If I were to take off the over skirt I could twirl in a circle and you could read the whole thing (theoretically)

THAT WAS SO MANY WORDS AND IF YOU STUCK IT OUT TO READ TILL THE END YOU ARE THE REAL MVP. TBH I AM ALWAYS SHOCKED WHEN I MAKE SOMETHING AT THE END. I'M LIKE WOAH DUDE I MADE THAT NO WAY. SHOCK. I DONT FULLY KNOW WHY I WENT SO HARDCORE ON THIS PIECE BUT IT IS AWESOME SO OH WELL. (Tbh it may have been a coping mechanism for this whole pandemic business but haha that's just the way it is guess)

Bio: So, this dress was made originally for the HER Universe fashion show this year. I got declined before they saw the full piece. (I'm not salty, you're salty!) but I designed the dress because I wanted to say goodbye to beach city, as the show's finale was last year. The dress was going to go to San Diego comic con and be my way of ushering the show out. Showing the whole world how much I loved it. Steven Universe meant a lot in different ways to different people but for me it was a lot about pure friendship. I got to watch the show with my best friends and cosplay with them for years. The original Steven universe was just our show and was for us and I will always love it for that

But Steven Universe future was different, it was for me. I saw myself in Steven in so many heartbreaking ways. As a caretaker I saw how much Steven sacrificed and when he stopped taking care of the world, he felt he had no purpose. And I cried after so many episodes because no one talks about what happens to the hero after they hand up the cape, after they settle down. And I saw it. I saw me and it meant so much to just see myself. I love Steven universe for that reason alone, if not for the 500 amazing reasons too :))

Photo Credit:My husband Victor! :) (Photo location: Lake Hardy, Indiana)

Video Credit:My best man Lucy (she is one of those folks I mentioned above that watched this show with me from the start and I’m happy to have done this little shoot with her and man I just love her ok)

GOODBYE BEACH CITY THANKS FOR BEING MY HOME FOR ALL THESE YEARS!