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June 29, 2010
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Outfitting the Ranks 4

Journal Entry: Tue Jun 29, 2010, 12:01 PM
Hello everyone!
~FoilFaerie kindly requested that I feature the uniform of the Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident this month, so here we are. You get to see more of my unprofessional lineart skills, and clickable thumbnails. This outfit has some bizarre construction going on so this is my best approximation of how it’s put together.  
The screencaps I took from TrekCore are sitting in my LJ scrapbook so as not to clutter up the post more than it already is.
[link] But here's a full view for quick reference.
Livejournal
Firstly, a pattern. It’s best to find one with the standing collar already included, unless you know how to attach one without a guide. Any pattern of the same general appearance should be easily modified; the dress itself isn’t that complicated a shape. Most of the fit results from her tight belt rather than special shaping in the pattern, so you can even draft your own if you feel up to it. There appears to be a seam just off centre in the front, and horizontal bust darts. The sleeves are cut snugly, coming down to a loop around the thumbs.
Secondly, the fabric seems to be some sort of upholstery-weight. I’ve never encountered anything like it in my local fabric stores, nor online, but I’m sure a good approximation can be obtained. If anyone has found something similar please let me know! In any case, it’s very heavy, with enough stretch to be form fitting
What’s most confusing about this dress is the pink fabric. I present a possible method for constructing this part, with terrible drawings to accompany. I apologise profusely if these instructions are confusing and read like a vague 1860s pattern because that’s all I’ve been reading lately.
I believe that the base dress is completely made in gold, except for the pink sleeve, and the pink fabric is placed over this the same way that the corresponding blue fabric is placed over the shirts of the higher-ranked male Romulans. The pink fabric here happens to be sewn down from the collar to the waist (instead of hanging completely free from the shoulder) for a closer fit. At least, that’s my interpretation of it, and I think it’s easier to lay another piece of fabric over a completed bodice rather than cut different parts of the bodice in different fabrics.
Livejournal Livejournal Livejournal
Cut the entire dress in the gold fabric, except for the pink, right-hand sleeve. Cut the pink sleeve separately and set aside. The rest of the pink fabric is a sash that hangs loose from the top of the shoulder and below the belt. Take your pattern and mark a line from the right-hand start of the collar straight down to the hem. Cut this small section (roughly a third of the front) and make a horizontal bust dart.
On the back of the pattern, mark a line from the right-hand start of the collar diagonally to the waist seam. (I actually can’t tell just how much pink fabric is in the back, except that there’s some, so you can skip this part if you want and just have the pink down the front.) Cut this section in pink and join it to the front section of the bodice.
Lay the pink partial bodice over the gold bodice and sew it down the front and side from the shoulder seam to the waist. Let the rest of the bodice hang loose as a rectangular sash below the waist, and trim it with long fringe (on the commander, the fringe goes from the hem of her dress to the top of her boots, or a little longer than the length of her hand). Attach a plain rectangular pink sash to the shoulder seam so that this part of the sash hangs freely down the back, to the back hem.  
Finish with a thick black leather or matte vinyl belt, sheer hose and thigh-high vinyl boots. The commander also happens to be wearing black panties, and I think it’s ridiculous that you can see them at one point, but hey.
So, I'm sorry if that was terribly confusing but I can certainly attempt a clarification! ~FoilFaerie, I hope this helps :)

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:iconelgaladwen:
~Elgaladwen Jan 27, 2011  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
Soo. Making this for Emerald City ComiCon now, instead of Mirror Universe Uhura. (provided I can settle on fabric)
After scouring my local JoAnns and seeing nothing that would remotely work, (Yeah, Halloween would have been a good time to look...) I serched on eBay and came up with this for the main fabric: [link]
and this for the red: [link]
(Though my other idea for the red is to use a plain red fabric and iron/sew/whatever black triangles onto it.)
Neither are anywhere close to perfect, but my question is, do you still think they are close enough? I don't normally like 'close enough' but I know I am not going to find the perfect fabric, so as long as it gets the general idea across, I'll be happy.
Thanks for any input anyone has!

--
Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place.
Reply
:iconmae-chan:
I'm not keen on shopping at Joann's (although I do on occasion), but I promise I've never seen anything of the like at Hancock's either! Those fabrics are horridly difficult to find. However, since the two you found were upholstery weight I think that will add a lot to the overall effect of the dress. Indeed, neither are perfect, but if you can't find something else within the time you have, by all means go with these, because I definitely wouldn't be able to find anything more suitable and they're really not bad. You could make your own red fabric as you suggested but that seems hellish :) (If you did, probably sew the black down.)
If you have any construction questions as you go along, please let me know. My explanations weren't the most coherent, I know! I'd love to see this finished.
Reply
:iconelgaladwen:
~Elgaladwen Jan 29, 2011  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
I had never heard of Hancock's, but apparently there is one 45 miles away, so I'll have to keep that in mind for future projects if I am ever around there. To bad it doesn't have fabric like that! (And thanks for saving me the trip.)
I found this forum thread: [link]
While it doesn't help much with the gold fabric,(Though the whole discussion is worth reading) she comes up with a method for the red/pink fabric that seems to work well: [link] She takes a crocheted looking black fabric that already has little triangles, and uses it to make bigger ones, and has the red fabric underneath. She ends up not using that method, but it definitely looks better than what I had in mind with sewing triangles on. (And the same thing could be done with the opposite colors.) Now the trick is just finding a crocheted fabric like that in the first place. (And it looks stiffer than if you used something afghan-like, plus that would unravel if you cut it.) Now, I can crochet and knit, and I could very well make it with some sort of stiff/thin cord or yarn, but the convention is in just over a month. Which is enough time for me to get fabric and sew something if I do it fairly quickly, but not to crochet anything of worth. (I decided on the costume change sort-of last minute... >_>) I'm also working on three costumes for another convention after it, or I probably would try to crochet something.
So all that rambling aside, I'll see if I can find anything like that, then that could at least work for the red part.
On that thread, they do post the link for the store that originally supplied the fabric for that costume: [link]
Even if they do have that fabric still, or anything like it, I don't even want to think of how much it probably costs. Nor do the sell directly from their website.
Someone also mentioned highlighting black fabric with gold, which could be a good idea if I could find some really textured black upholstery type fabric. Depending on how porous it is, I could lightly spray it with gold Krylon. It could be a total disaster, but it could actually work.

So I think what I will do on Tuesday, (my next day off) is scour Goodwill and Value Village and anywhere else I can think of that might have weird clothes or blankets or random stuff that could possibly work, and if I can't find anything, I will just go ahead and order the fabric from ebay.
Thank you for your help, and sorry for the long post!

--
Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place.
Reply
:iconmae-chan:
Oh, Hancock Fabrics to be precise. It's one of the two general fabric stores in town here (I mean there are tons of quilt shops and a few upholstery places but those aren't helpful) so I take what I can get! Oh yeah 45 miles off is kind of far. You're welcome :P

Oy vey thank you for that forum link! I didn't even consider knitting at all but it's ingenious. Looking at one of the high res photos of the Shat's pants the fabric almost, almost looks felted but I'm not sure (I've never felted anything anyway). I can knit as well, but as you said there's definitely not enough time to do this, which is a pity. (I'm up to my eyeballs in Ren Faire and steampunk con costumes at the moment too, nevermind school...)

I stopped perusing ISW when I realised they don't actually sell anything online- I can't just hop on over to LA for a look! Pity. And yes I'd imagine that'd be horrendously expensive.
The red fabric (which is more pinky-magenta; gosh I haven't looked at this thing in a while!) shouldn't be that difficult to find; as for the black, yes, scouring thrift stores for more delicate afghans or the like should yield something. But don't stress too much about it!

No problem, I can get very rambly :) And thank you very much for the watch.
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:iconelgaladwen:
~Elgaladwen Feb 23, 2011  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
Sorry for not replying forever! I decided to just go ahead and make the dress with that gold upholstery fabric from eBay after I had looked everywhere I could think of, and couldn't find anything better. I ended up using a large-print red and black fabric for the 'red' part. (And yeah, I know it isn't actually red, but I never could find anything that would work for a black overlay, and I didn't feel like I had the time or patience to carefully cut a million triangles out of something, and then I couldn't find anything that remotely worked in magenta, so I went with red. Hopefully it'll be ok. >_<)
So I have a couple small things to do, but I am done for the most part:
Front of dress: [link] Back of Dress: [link]
So, it is definitely not exactly like her dress, by any means, but I am excited to wear it anyway, and I think Star Trek fans at the convention will (hopefully) know who I am. And if they call me on the color, I will totally deserve it. ;)
I also made a way-too-long blog entry about it, [link] but I pretty much summed it up here. (Though there is a picture of a couple different types of 'Spock ears' I got near the bottom, if anyone cares. Getting the correct ones turned out to be almost as hard as finding fabric, but that's another story.)

--
Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place.
Reply
:iconmae-chan:
No problem! Holy shiznit (professional term, I know), that looks fantastic. Really really good. And honestly, unless I look back at the episode frequently, I don't remember that it's not actually houndstooth (or red). It looks great, so no worries. Really, if anyone calls you on that in person, I'd find that a bit rude :) It's impossible to find the fabric anyway, so.
I think she's quite recognisable for a one-episode character and it'll be refreshing in comparison to all the standard TOS skants (myself included, haha) and all the jumpsuits (not my thing).

I'll read the blog in a minute, but as for the ears, I'm afraid I can't be of much use there. It does, however, remind me of my LOTR days when much time was spent combing alleycatscratch in an effort to research getting the perfect elf ears (not that I ever did dress up as an elf. Maybe one day if I get back into that). :) Thanks for the plug at the end; I know I should've stayed on top of the blogs, but I got reobsessed with anime and thusly distracted (plus, the only blogs nowadays seem to be tourney-related, amirite?).
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:iconelgaladwen:
~Elgaladwen Feb 23, 2011  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
Shiznit; I like it! (And thank you so so much! :D) I just watched the episode again last night, so I think I have the differences more clearly in my mind.
The convention I'm wearing this to is a general comic/pop-culture convention, so I like seeing all of the Trek uniforms so I know who my fellow Trekkies are! (And I mean, we have to beat out all the Darth Vaders, Storm Troopers and Slave Princess Leias!) But in all seriousness, I think your TOS uniforms are awesome, and it's really nice to see ones that aren't just the commercially-made ones from the 2009 movie. TNG is my favorite series, but yeah... I just have no desire to wear one of those jumpsuits. (Or any from the other shows.)

Seriously don't worry about reading the blog, it's mostly a long-winded version of me talking about how I couldn't find the fabric. As for the ears, I mostly just had trouble with places actually sending the ones that were pictured. After much annoyance, I am going with the licensed Spock ears from the 2009 movie that go over the entire ear. (Think all those ones you probably see around Halloween) the look rather fake, but they stay on alright, and I think they will look fine if I style my hair to be covering everything but the tips.
Oh man, that'd be awesome if you ever did an Elven costume! I was soooo obsessed with elves from LoTR for a long time, and I still definitely love them, and LoTR as a whole.
I definitely don't keep on top of blogs, I actually just made that one, because I never updated my website, and I thought I might actually want to if it was mainly about cosplay, and I could just write things as I thought about them. So I made a subdomain, installed Wordpress, and there you have it. So I am going to actually try to keep it up to date with convention reports and stuff. We shall see how that goes.
I feel you on the anime thing, I get easily distracted following series I like and I do the same with video games. >_<

--
Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place.
Reply
:iconmae-chan:
You're welcome! :D
I fairly recently rediscovered my love for Star Wars (er, specifically that would be The Phantom Menace- yeah, I know exactly how bad it is- and KOTOR, which is my great love) so poor Star Trek gets a back seat again. I mean, I would definitely do a Star Wars outfit before a Trek one again. But for Trek... idk, something more interesting than a skant. Anyway, thank you! I didn't really care for the 2009 outfits and I'm, er, a little biased against buying costumes nowadays. Oh, those jumpsuits are terribly unattractive.

Pfft I just read all of it. Which is fine, I found it interesting. :) And I was gonna say that you should cover part of it with your hair, so we're on the same page.
I started a Chronicles of Narnia costume (you know the coronation outfits at the end of the first movie?) which of course is still waiting to be finished like two or three years later, but I can pick it up again. It's pretty related to LOTR if simplified so maybe that'll get me in the mood for LOTR again- I've been meaning to rewatch my favourite parts.

I'll definitely keep an eye on your blog. I occasionally do writeups on my livejournal (it's certain friends only for the daily nonsense, but finished costumes get public posts I think... it's been a while since the last one) but I mostly just throw a pic up on dA and leave it at that.

I'm surprised I haven't actually cosplayed yet. I'm entertaining the idea of being Kotoko from Chobits (and my friend would be Sumomo) but- can you imagine how much money I would have to get together to buy a floor length wig? Christ. :P Anyway the closest I'm gonna get to cosplaying anytime soon is hopefully buying a new kimono (or at least an under kimono for the old lady one I have) this weekend. I'm so broke right now.
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(1 Reply)
:iconelgaladwen:
~Elgaladwen Jan 29, 2011  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
[link] <-- This thread is good, too; they linked it from that first thread I posted. One guy in it made the male version of the uniform, and while I don't think the gold part of his costume looks right, he used a red and black large hounds-tooth pattern for the red, and though I normally wouldn't go for that, I think it actually looks decent. So that's another idea.
They also talk more about the original fabric from the show in this thread.

--
Three roses laid upon the bower,
A scythe for he who cuts the flower,
A crown, a dove, most noble race!
Thy bones make sacred this dread place.
Reply
:iconcherry-soup:
~Cherry-Soup Oct 7, 2010  Hobbyist Traditional Artist
Do you have any suggestions on patterns? I'd really like to have a go at making this. :D

--
KirkxBones=OTP. :heart:
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