Dress Rehearsal

Supanova is on this weekend, so after finishing my uni assignment (one of them :S) I decided I needed to do a full dress rehearsal. So here is a little taste of my dressing process.




Ensuring there is no mascara or makeup to get in the way and sting (!!!) I eventually managed to put my black contacts in (getting better everytime!) These are a must for this costume, as it is such a subtle change that just puts the finishing touch on the outfit


I then put on the basic blue stage makeup, later realising that the lipstick doesn't work, so I had to remove (just with baby wipes) the makeup from my lips. Learnt the technique that worked best, and also realised I had to take my uniform off to do my neck without wrecking my costume



Excuse the way the makeup looks, i'm blaming generally bad lighting and self-photography. While the makeup was done to 90% satisfaction, it was pretty smooth looking (although my vision may have been blurred because of the contacts :) ) This photo has the blue eyeliner, blue mascara, blue lipstick and white/blue eyebrows. I realised I don't have much eyebrow hair so it didn't really work out 'colouring them in' but I was happy with the general idea, since the wig covers them a bit
Here we are with the wig (antennaes are hidden in the photo)

This is my 'angry andorian' pose that I may use instead of smiling at the convention. I never have the guts to take it to the next level and act the character, but that's what makes a cosplay good isn't it? So I'm working on it

This is using the motorised antennae (the wig needs a brush!), which uses the 'tricorder' bag to contain the motor. (The cables run down my neck, hidden by the wig, inside the dress and across to my shoulder and come out where the strap sits on my shoulder). I could only find one boot in my room (alot of uni stress atm).

Stay tuned for Supanova photos (including my friend as a pokeball, her boyfriend as Sepherin from FF, and my dad as a TOS captain)!!!

Parts of an Andorian Costume: The Face

Wig: White Cosplay wig bought off eBay.
Skin: Paradise Makeup AQ Professional Size 40gm Lt-Blue. It's Perfect! I initially just purchased smaller refills, but once I knew it was the correct colour I purchased the larger size. This was from the wonderful www.stagemakeup.com.au

Lips: I purchased a light blue StarGazer lipstick off eBay, and then also decided to get a white lipstick for a base, and then LipCote lipstick sealer from eBay to 'seal' the lipstick

Eyes/Cheeks: I simply went to my local chemist and bought three shades of blue eyeshadow, a blue eyeliner and blue mascara (although I think I will be using black on the day). I also bought some Blue pigment (MAC) from eBay as this can be made into almost anything. This will allow me to shade and lighten areas of my face, rather than a matte colour.

Hands: This should be in the body, but I forgot. I realised that gloves don't give you nails. So I went and bought one of those 'DIY Acrylic Nails" sets and painted them dark blue with polish bought from the chemist. I will then stick them on, and you have nails!

Eyeballs This costume has simply kept evolving as I think of new minute details that I could do. I walked past a stand selling contact lenses (the ones where you can change your eye colour or even put patterns on your eye). I couldn't remember what colour Andorians are so I rang my dad. We thought white or sky blue, turns out closer to black. So I bought Black contacts, which will make me look like I have no pupil and my entire eye is black. This can look very freaky when your dressed normally, but I have a feeling this might just be the final icing on the cake to make me look truly alien.

And for your viewing pleasure (remembering I woke up suprised to find my facemakup, and only put the face makeup, none of the other shades or parts, and even then it was patchy) Here is a photo to give you an idea.
Stay tuned for my final dress rehearsal! Convention is at the beginning of April and all I need is a makeup brush, contact solution and my dad to put the computer stuff inside the tricorder bag.

I'm not proud of this picture as it doesn't show how awesome it really can be.

Parts of an Andorian Costume: The Body

My Andorian is a Starfleet Original Series Andorian. These are the costume pieces I used

Shoes: Knee High Boots that are basically shaped and appropriate
Dress: Custom-made Starfleet Red Mini-Dress from eBay cosplaying is the username I think. Definitely recommend them, as their materials are quality. I think they do two types, so you need to make sure you get the right one. The other dress is pretty crap and is this thin silky synthetic material, whereas the good one is thick cotton style, with the accurate neckline.


How to get blue skin?

The consideration of blue skin is what to use, and how do I keep my thighs and hands (the parts that will be touching stuff) from rubbing off when I sit down. After much consideration and searching, I found www.welovecolors.com . This website is insane. The idea is that I would get the proper coloured stockings for Andorian skin, and the site is the only one that allows you to get matching coloured gloves. Perfect. For the stockings, which must be completely opaque, I used "Nylon/Lycra MicroFiber Solid Color Tights" in Sky Blue. The site offers around 50 shades so it is perfect for finding the colour you need for your cosplay.

The gloves:
The gloves were a bit trickier. The first pair I bought from the site were way too loose on my hands, very obvious they were gloves and they looked really bad. (I will upload a photo later). These were "Solid Color Nylon Gloves" in S/M.

So next I tried "Solid Color Nylon Kids Gloves" but they cut off circulation, even being the large kid size. With this order I also purchased another set of stockings, in preperation for 'oh no I have a hole' during the convention.


The final order was two different types of gloves. "Shoulder Gloves" and "Solid Color Wrist Gloves" in the onesizefitsall. They are both very acceptable. However, the wrist gloves were slightly loose around the wrist, while because the opera length didn't finish until my elbow, they were very skin-tight when I moved my hand.



Tricorder: This is the part that holds the motherboard and batteries for the moving antennae. The wire is threaded down the strap from the back of your head, and all the stuff is inside the tricorder. We are getting the Diamond Select new tricorder thats coming out soon, however this is not in time for the convention. My mother has a handbag that is so close to looking like a tricorder carrybag, we used that. But not after some drama of having to search through the household bin to find it, after she chucked it out because it broke. The night before the garbage truck came. So lucky! I will upload photos of this later too. The advantage of this, is my dad is going to case the computerchip and power inside a tupperware container or something, so I can use the rest of the space for the 'extras' like money, touch up makeup etc.

My dad was initially going to program a basic few step and loop program by building a computer chip. His ability to build a program using circuits was enough to amaze me, you don't get taught that in the Bachelor of IT!

However after talking to me about what I wanted, he realised I wanted something a bit more complex. I.e. turn a bit on one antennae, the other one another bit, at the same time sometimes, different directions and different distances in one movement and different speeds.

So online (maybe eBay again) he found a programmable computer chip, where you simple created a program and it was uploaded to the chip.

The movement pattern is up to you and how obvious/subtle you want the movement to be. Suprisingly once you start walking around, movement you thought once was much to obvious now appears quite a bit more subtle. You also need to consider how many movements are in each loop.

Additionally, it is important to ensure through how far you make the antennae move one way or the other, that in each loop the movement one way is cancelled out by the other way, so that the antennae remain centred.

The board/chip we bought came with a few buttons, so dad programmed it to be able to move each antennae when each button was pressed, so if after a few hours the antennae are not centered, they can be manually alligned.

Wearing the Antennae

Attach the antennae to a headband using wire and silicon or similar glue. Then simply cut holes in the wig where you need the antennae to go, and sew the headband to the wig.

Not only are your antennae bases hidden beneath the wig, but your wig is affixed to your head through the headband.

You will see photos of this in later posts.

Colouring the Antennae

Using Shran as a guide, we painted the antennae's pink tip.

We used red and white colouring to dye latex and painted it on. This is a matter for personal interpretation, but it is important to note the tip should be darker in the middle fading to white and blue.

Disguising the joins of the Three Parts

After completing the basic antennae shape and thirds, there was still a gap between the moving top third and the middle. This gap was necessary as the top moves more than just a few millimetres, which would cause the latex to tear. So after much brainstorming and coming back over various days, we stumbled upon the idea of using electrical wire (the coloured types that are thin) to insert in the join. In the previous post you can see the blue lines between each thirds- this is the wire.

The benefits of this is that by this point of the antennae we had forgotten that Shran's (we were using him as a model) antennae had distinct joins. The wires solved two problems- covering the gap while allowing the top third to be seperate from the bottom section, while creating a definitive join.

We then simply inserted wires into the latex where necessary. I do believe that we had to redo the overall latex body of the antennae to imbed the wires. I am unsure.

Covering the Middle Section

This was a case of trial and error. We wanted to be able to deconstruct the antennae so that if it broke at the convention we would be able to do repairs. So how to cover the middle, but allow access?


We created a ring of latex texturised like the bottom third, by buying a variety of whiteboard and permanent markers to get the right width (the standard size was perfect, which made it very easy). This can then be put over the top and placed on the middle.




I'm glossing over a lot of this as this was my Dad's speciality, being incredibly skilled in creating things and having the ability to even build a computer chip with the program to move the antennae. If you need clarification, just email me. I may try and fill in the gaps later

Motorised Antennae

We bought small motors of eBay (I forget the details of them now), but it is important to consider the size of them. We bought the smallest round shaped motor possible, and this formed the base third of the antennae.

The photo can give you an idea of how the antennae is structured. The base third is the motor, with a metal rod attached which is built into the top third (which is solid latex)

Once you have your motor, obviously check that it works and fashion the attachment (your version of our metal rod in the middle) that will make the top move.

To cover the motor base you can simply paint the latex on. The latex is coloured using light blue dye for latex (all purchased online). It's hard to get the latex smooth, but it is beneficial to even add more stripes and texture.

Obviously the top part is made by filling the top third of the mould made in the previous step.

Making Basic Antennae

I will just focus on making a basic latex antennae shape, non-motorised. You'll find that using solid latex, it is rubbery, flexible and bouncy, so will move quite nicely with the jerky movements of walking.

First you need to create the antennae shape, using plasticine or similar.

This is the general shape we were going for, however this is actually one of the finished motorised antennae.

After you have made the plasticine shape, you need to make the reverse mould, by using Plaster of Paris. However you need to do half of the mould at each time.

In an ice-cream container, fill to a decent level (just under halfway or another appropriate level, you only really need it to be deep enough to capture the mould shape), and press the mould into it, so half of it is cast, you will also probably need to use a straw or something to make a 'hole' that will allow you to pour the latex into the mould later. Leave to set.

Repeat for the other side. You now have moulds for both of them

It's now easy to make a solid latex antennae, it is important to consider how you are attaching the antennae (we used a headband built into a wig), as you will need to build in connectors to the mould.

Welcome

When I decided to create an Andorian costume for a convention, I found a significant lack of resources on how to do this, and even limited photo evidence of people dressing up as andorians. This blog aims to help people understand potential pieces that need to go into such a costume.

However my version of an Andorian stems from the fact I own an original series red mini-dress and I wanted to go more extreme in the costume department.

I joked to my father that he should make me moving Andorian antennae like on Enterprise. After a few more jokes over a few months, it became more of a reality and possibility.

Eventually on eBay I found some latex antennae casted from moulds used on Enterprise, and we bid on it. We lost it, but Dad got the idea that he could make his own, and once my dad gets an idea in his head, he stews and stews and makes it work.

And that was the beginning.....