Disney Cosplay: Ursula from The Little Mermaid - Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 of this costume are done - onto the finishing touches now.

Step 4 - the Bling

Ursula wears a gold shell around her neck, the one she uses to capture Ariel's voice. She also has purple shell earrings.
I started with two snail shells that I picked up in the bush. Not sea shells, but I had looked and had no luck finding an intact shell of a good size to use. I could have made one from scratch, but I haven't dabbled much in clay or foam so this was a good option. I did two so that I had a test one, wanting the big one to be the final one.

I filled the holes in with multipurpose filler, taking care not to stuff too much in as I was worried that it might expand.

After a week set aside to dry, I started painting. It was very pale at first, and patchy, so I knew that I would have to layer the paint.

After a number of layers they look more like this! They really shine under the light, too.

I did try adding a varnish over the top to seal the colour in, but all of my tests came out lumpy. It was like it was reacting with the paint. We even tried my husband's spray-on varnish, but it was way too blobby. So I left the shells as they were and hoped that I wouldn't encounter any water that might wash the colour off!
I glued loops of wire on the back to hang the shells off and was very happy with the finished results:

Onto the earrings.
Same process as the gold shells: found matching shells on the beach, filled the holes, and painted layers of bright purple on. Because the colour was less transparent, it took half as many coats for these.

I went and found earring attachments after some puzzling about how to connect them, needing the shaped pieces to glue on to hold the shells to the ear hooks. 

It was the simplest and most attractive way of doing it.

With the bling done, it was just the final touches left!

Step 5 - hair and makeup

I found out that Ursula was based on a real life drag queen - that explains a lot!

The makeup was achieved with a trip to a costume shop in town, because I needed thick colour to put on. I used a brush for my face below, but a sponge should give a smoother colour.
At some point in the future I would like to figure out how to airbrush colour on so that I could be all-over purple for this outfit.

I have to decide whether to just do my face (which would be a lot cooler up here) or my whole upper body - everything that shows above the dress. I'll probably go with just the face, because I'll be doing it all myself on the day and it will be hard to reach my back.

I did try a wig, but decided that I like white hairspray instead. It will be thicker on the day than what I did above!
There are some props that I could carry as Ursula:

• The contract that Ariel signs
• the sea witch's lipstick and mirror
• The two eels, Flotsam and Jetsam 
• Triton's crown and trident

But I decided that I was fine as-is. Now to wait until the day to put it all together... photos to come!
#lovelypennypatterns

Disney Cosplay: Ursula from The Little Mermaid - Part 2

Continuing some costuming! Turning myself into Ursula from The Little Mermaid for a geek convention in town later in the year.

Step 3 - Over dress

I believe this dress was $1, and it has already had a cosplay life as part of my steampunk costume.

Plenty of fabric to work with in the skirt.

Hmm, it needed more bulk. Oh yes, my wedding dress skirt is still in the cupboard!

That's a lot of underskirt! But it will sit nicely.

Step 4 - the tentacles

I cut the tentacles out of the over skirt. Sealing the edge was going to be the hardest part, particularly with the curves.

 But look at it working over the purple underskirt - very exciting!

What I ended up doing was cutting the underskirt through as well and tucking the edges of both layers in. This had the added benefit of giving the tentacles some bulk, rather than them being flat.

It took an awful lot of pinning...

I was happy with the shapes that I managed though.

 It really does look like the right shape!

Now to sew it all.....

Disney Cosplay: Ursula from The Little Mermaid - Part 1

I think I'm attracted to villain costumes because they are more practical to make and wear than a lot of the heroine costumes (this is particularly true in games and anime, where they often don't wear much).
My next one: a cosplay of Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

I started with the hardest part: the underskirt.

Now that people around know that I sew, I often get surprise donations! A colleague gave me a whole box of long lengths of fabric that her sister was getting rid of. And what should be in there but purple cotton that I can use for this project!

There's enough to work with, too!

I wanted to make a skirt that can sit between the planned layers (over the white, under the black), and fabric print it with octopus suckers.

Step 1 - make the underskirt.

This was a relatively quick sew. I cut a panel of the darker purple and added it to the top of the pale purple, because there wasn't quite enough length in that panel.

I put a very narrow hem on the bottom, as I wanted it to be neat and not very obvious. Any length that needed to be removed could be taken from the top.

I put a tube on the top so that I could thread elastic through. 

This will be a completely separate skirt from the rest of the costume.

It came together very nicely.

Step 2 - print the octopus suckers on.

What could I use to print and how big should they be? 
The bottom of a glass bottle worked quite well.

Then I just needed white fabric paint and an idea of what spacing I needed for the sucker marks. I added a white dot in the middle of all of them as well, to make them look more like suckers.

Here it is, fully printed and drying on the line. I did a heavier concentration of circles on the bottom to see how it looks. Pretty happy!

Watch this space for the rest of it!