Saturday, July 9, 2011

Cardassian Civilian, Finished! (Except the wig.)

I've been having a marathon sewing spree these past couple of days. I worked all through the night on Friday, finally stopping noon Saturday, when I passed out for a few hours. Okay, so it wasn't all sewing. I had gone into the beginning of the marathon with the intention of finishing the dress for my Cardassian civilian outfit. But, since my car was finally out of the shop and working again, I had gone into town and bought everything I needed to do my makeup tests and to make my wig. I didn't mean to work on the wig all night...it just sort of turned out that way.

So, first thing was to completely deconstruct the wig I had bought. I wish I had taken a before picture of the wig, but it slipped my mind. It wasn't that it was a bad wig, as much as the hairline just wasn't right for what I wanted to do. So, I completely removed all the wefts, and then set about putting them back on in a different order.



The original wig had a centre part, which turned out to be a very long, thick piece of loose hair that had been sewn down the middle into a weft. (First picture below, kinda hard to make it out.) I attached this piece to the front hairline again, this time horizontally along the hairline instead of vertically.



Once I had finished adding the rest of the wefts, and the hair was brushed back away from the face, it gave me the hairline I was looking for.



Then I remembered that Cardassians have higher hairlines than humans, so I got out a Cardassian forehead piece that a friend on TrekSpace had sent me some time ago, and I used it to approximate the correct position of the hairline. I pulled the hair up into a topknot at this point, and then I set the main wig aside.

The hairstyle that I had decided on for my civilian look is actually out of (gasp) Star Wars! I know, I know, it's blasphemous. It was one of Padme's Senate looks from the second prequel movie, and the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. You can see the hair and the accompanying costume on Padawan's Guide.

Anyway, ignoring the sacrilegious Sci-Fi cross pollination, I really, really, really love that hair. The Cardassians sport some pretty elaborate hair in the series, so I thought it was a good enough excuse to wear my favourite sci-fi movie hair with my civilian outfit.

Why tell you all that? Well, because now you know what I'm shooting for when I show you these funny looking pictures.
After I finished the main part of the wig, I started on the 'wings' in the back. I cut out a piece of plastic canvas in this basic wing shape, and glued some thick aluminium wire down along the outer edge so I would be able to shape it. I then covered the whole thing with a thin layer of quilt batting, and covered that with some black felt. The hair was then applied to the felt-covered wing.



I ran out of hair at that point, so I had to stop before I could make the second wing. Right now the whole wig is in somewhat rough shape, but I'm going to clean it up and smooth it out in the next day or so. The only change I've made to the original hairstyle is the ponytail at the back, since I like the ponytail that the character Iliana Ghemor had with her hairstyle. :D



Once the wig was at a stopping point, I went on to work on my uniform, to which I added the painted sleeves (and didn't snap a pic), and my civilian dress. My phone had died sometime during the night and I hadn't bothered to recharge it, so you just get finished shots of the dress. I'm extremely pleased with how it's turned out, I think it's pretty! I can't wait to wear the entire outfit at the convention.


2 comments:

  1. The fabric choices are too perfect. Love the fussy cut back pieces so that they line up expertly. And the neckline!

    I'm picturing you on the Promenade...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aww, thank you! I wish the ST: Experience was still in Vegas, I would totally have gotten a shot on the Promenade. :D

    ReplyDelete

Flickr