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AOTC Concept Ventress WIP


CEGrant

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Greetings fellow costume Geeks. :)

 

I am beginning work on an AOTC concept art Asajj Ventress. This will be my first dark side costume.

 

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I got into this a couple of years ago, when my husband first saw a Chewbacca throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game. He’s 6’9”, so he thought “Wow, I could do that.” We started making a Chewbaca from scratch and finished it last spring.

 

We had a lot of fun working on it, and even more fun trooping with it. We met so many great people, from both Rebel Legion and 501st.

 

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My mom, fresh off her adventures sewing the mesh suit for the Chewbacca, graciously agreed to help me with a costume. I don’t know how to sew. :) So right now my Ceremonial Leia has been submitted for approval and I’m waiting to hear back on it.

 

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Which means of course it’s time to move on to the next adventure!

 

I pretty much fell in love with the AOTC concept Ventress at first look, but I was intimidated by the amount of work involved with the make-up, so I continued to explore other characters. In the end, I kept coming back to the Asajj.

 

She looks so bad (insert slang for posterior here).

 

So here I am, embarking on a process that will cost me thousands of dollars, take untold months and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

 

Thank you all for visiting my WIP thread, and thank you all for the advice and guidance I have no doubt I will receive. I’m so excited! :D

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Once I decided to do this, there we two main things I needed to accomplish. One was finding a seamstress willing to work with me on the costume. As I said earlier, I don’t sew. My mom, after making the Leia dress, came close to dropping her sewing machine off a cliff. She said there’s not enough wine in the world to make her try another costume. Fair enough.

 

Luckily, while shopping for accessories for that costume, I came into contact with a wonderful lady in Royal Oak, Michigan, which is only a couple hours from where I live. I hired her to do the final hem work on my costume. She did a lovely job, and just as importantly, she delivered on time and was in constant communication with me. I’ve been hanging out with costumers long enough now to realize that a competent seamstress who is reliable is worth her weight in gold.

 

Even better, Kate (the seamstress) was a 501st member when she lived in California. She understands the passion and work that people put into this. And, she knows how to work to meet CRL guidelines. ;)

 

If you’re interested you can check out her gallery here. She’s done some cool stuff.

http://www.tavarieldesign.com/portfolio.html

 

When I approached Kate about doing this, she got really excited about doing a new (for her) Star Wars costume. I love that she’s so enthusiastic about it. I think when someone is excited and cares about the project it shows in the work. She quoted me a price for the shirt, skirt, obi, collar, belt and arm wraps.

 

So with the seamstress angle taken care of, I began to consider the second aspect I was concerned about: the make-up. I wanted to make sure that I could achieve the desired look, and not hate wearing it, before I made the deposit on the costume.

 

I began with the biggest hurdle….the bald cap.

 

I have shoulder length hair. It’s curly, so if I go short it looks like Orphan Annie, and I’m not brave enough to shave my head. How to manage the long hair? Luckily, this costume has one feature that is my saving grace on this….

 

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The neck collar extends high enough in the back to cover the back side of the bald cap, which will allow me to slick back my hair and have the length exit the bald cap and be hidden under the collar. Phew.

 

Turns out there are several types of bald cap. I’m allergic to latex (gives me a rash), so I went with plastic. It’s more expensive, but as a plus, plastic caps allow you to use acetone to melt the edges, creating a nice transition between cap and skin.

 

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I ordered this from graftobian.com. I also ordered from them a large sea sponge, transluscent setting powder, spirit gum and spirt gum remover.

 

When it came to the make up, I found lots of good advice here! I also found a ton of information on a board dedicated to Twi’leks. Those ladies know their make up. I quickly realized that the best option was an alcohol based paint applied with an airbrush. I narrowed it down to two brands, Reel Creations and Temptu Dura Pro.

 

I decided to order the Reel Creations first, though I imagine later on I’ll experiment with the other. One suggestion I ran across on the Twi’lek site was to apply a darker pigment with a sponge, then airbrush a lighter color over top of it. This gives a natural depth. (As a bonus, I’m hoping the darker color will help disguise the difference in color between my skin and the bald cap). Since the CRL calls for a while or pale grey skin, I ordered the Reel Body Art and Airbrush Ink in Grey an White #8.

 

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I also purchased Reel developer (for thinning the inks):

 

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And Reel Body Art Remover Cream (so I don’t look like Uncle Fester after a troop):

 

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Hopefully, by next week the materials will arrive and I will try all this out. I know practice (and more and more and more practice) will make it better, and I don’t expect my first try to be anything other than hilarious. (Not to worry, I will post pics so you guys can have a good laugh. :) ) My main objective here is to make sure my skin can tolerate the make up.

 

Finally I did research on contacts. I don’t wear corrective lenses anymore (yay laser surgery!), but I wore them for years once upon a time. I visited an optometrist recently to get a prescription so I could order brown lenses for my Leia costume, and I can use the same script to order specialty white contacts. I wanted to be sure to get a pair that were FDA approved. I found a brand called Gothika. They used to make a wonderfully white lens, which has since been discontinued. It was replaced with a less opaque version modeled after the zombie eyes from the Walking Dead.

 

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While I don’t like them as much as the opaque version, I suppose it’ll be easier to see with these. It’s hard to look like a lightsaber-wielding force of nature when you’re walking into walls.

 

I’ll post an update with pics as soon as I get to try out the make-up. Thanks for reading my novel!

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Welcome to the Flagship forum, and good luck with your costume build journey! Don't hesitate to post up here with your questions - we'll do our best to help :)

 

And your Ceremonial Leia looks lovely. :D

 

 

Thank you! I see you have an AOTC concept Ventress in your signature. May I ask how you handled the bald head issue?

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For the bald head I use a bald cap. I've used both latex and plastic (Glatzan) and preferred the plastic.

 

I ran across the glatzan in my research. They have premade ones but some people advocate making a head cast and the you can order the liquid glatzan and make your own. As a bonus they'd be sized just right. I'm not sure how difficult the technique is though. Any thoughts?

 

Welcome Charlotte long time no see. :)

 

No kidding. :) I'll see you Saturday though :P

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My supplies have finally arrived! I'm starting with a couple of patches of Reel Creations Body ink on my forearm, which I will leave in place for 24 hours to see if any allergy develops. I wanted to start experimenting with color, so I applied two patches. One is a few coats of the White. The other is one coat of grey, covered with four coats of white:

 

wQNOtU.jpg

 

The CRL calls for a skin tone of "white or very pale grey." I like the idea of having some grey in it, to add depth and help cover the difference between the bald cap and my skin. Also, it would take quite a few coats of white to get decent coverage.

 

If anyone has any opinions about this, I'd love to hear them!

 

I also got an estimate for a pair of custom curved sabers. They will have detachable super LED blades, sound, in hilt Li-ion batteries. They will even hook together if the occasion calls for it. The makers at Vader's Vault seem intrigued by the idea and I think having their input would be amazing. So off goes my 20% deposit, so that I may dream, despair and curse the days until I can see my lovelies for the first time

 

 

I put down the deposit with the tailor and she has already ordered the leather. She's very excited. She's currently scouring Home Depots for items to be used for the belt buckle, which I explore the avenue of 3d printing. The whole "found object" mystique argues for finding the item whole and out in the normal world.

 

But if that doesn't work, when in doubt, 3d printer to the rescue!

 

I'll be trying the bald cap tomorrow night. Pics to follow....It ought to be funny, horrifying, sad uplighting all at once. Note, the uplifting part will be the hairs that get crazily yanked out at the end.

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Well there's nothing quite like trying a bald cap and airbrushed make-up for the first time. I definitely learned quite a bit! And because you all deserve a good laugh (and please, do... I won't be offended!), here are the pictures I promised.

 

Me, before anything, wearing my favorite old ratty t-shirt.

 

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So here's me in the bald cap, and my first lesson. The cap I got was a plastic graftobian cap. While I appreciated it's resistance to tearing, It was rather thick, and I think this came back to haunt me a bit later when I blended the edges:

 

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So after trimming, gluing with spirit gum and blending the edges with acetone, I ended up here...(using the scarf to mimic the collar):

 

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From the back:

 

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The saving grace on this costume is the high collar, which allows me to have my hair exit the cap below the collar line. That being said, here you see mistake number two-not stretching the sides taut enough to completely eliminate wrinkling at the nape.

 

From the sides, you can see the mistakes I made trimming around the ears. I need to be more generous covering my shaggy sideburns and getting good adhesion below the ear:

 

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For the first layer of make-up I mixed half and half, Reel Creations Grey and White #8, and then daubed it on with a sea sponge. This was my base layer:

 

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Happily, the wrinkles are somewhat more disguised at this point:

 

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My very game husband air-brushed me with two coats of the white. Several mistakes here as well. His first few spots were "spots", till he got the hang of starting and stopping strokes. Also, we put it on too thick. I think it would be better to do more, thinner coats. We applied a layer of translucent setting powder between each coat.

 

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Adding some black make-up....again, this is something I will definitely need practice with:

 

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So, obviously much work to be done, but I accomplished my goal. I learned so much, I feel like I will do better next time, and best of all, I got it all off at the end. :))

 

Please feel free to offer any wisdom, tips or advice you guys have. i really appreciate all the help.

 

EDIT: That awkward moment when you realize you're allergic to spirit gum...

 

Pro25P.jpg

 

I know there are some medical grade adhesives available. Anyone have any suggestions?

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Wow, what a great first try/practice run! I think you did very well and I know you learned lots!

 

The trickiest part I've found is around the ears, but be careful not to trim away too much. It's also the area that tends to tear because of the curves so watch for that. To keep little bits of hair out of the way, I use a bit of hair gel or hair spray to keep those suckers in place.

 

I think you did a great job blending the edges, they are very difficult to see in your pics :)

 

For the adhesive, I prefer to use pros-aide (www.pros-aide.com). The other benefit to having pros-aide is you can make pax with it - pros-aide mixed with artists acrylic - and stipple it onto the cap as your first layer which will give you a bit of texture and help add opaque coverage.

 

The black makeup just takes practice ;)

 

Great job so far! :D

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Wow, what a great first try/practice run! I think you did very well and I know you learned lots!

 

The trickiest part I've found is around the ears, but be careful not to trim away too much. It's also the area that tends to tear because of the curves so watch for that. To keep little bits of hair out of the way, I use a bit of hair gel or hair spray to keep those suckers in place.

 

I think you did a great job blending the edges, they are very difficult to see in your pics :)

 

For the adhesive, I prefer to use pros-aide (http://www.pros-aide.com). The other benefit to having pros-aide is you can make pax with it - pros-aide mixed with artists acrylic - and stipple it onto the cap as your first layer which will give you a bit of texture and help add opaque coverage.

 

The black makeup just takes practice ;)

 

Great job so far! :D

 

Awesome tips! I was thinking of pros-aide, but I didn't know you could do that with the acrylic. That's great, thanks! And yeah, I did exactly what you said, I trimmed too much around the ears.

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Thanks Lauren. :)

 

A couple of minor updates this weekend.

 

Kate (the seamstress) found a couple of options for the grey fabric of the shirt. The first option, the one of the left, has a subtle woven texture in it, and is thick enough to hold the shapes of the shirt well. The second option is thinner, but doesn't have the texture. It could be used, but she would have to double layer it.

 

u7TJH8.jpg

 

Of the two, Kate and I like the one on the left. The texture gives it a superhero suit kind of vibe and we think that fits the costume look. The CRL merely states a knit grey fabric, so we think this will work. Does anyone have any concerns about this?

 

Also, I (maybe) lucked out on the boots today! We stopped in at DSW (my favorite shoe shop), and found these in the clearance section for $60.

 

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They are real leather, and the zipper is confined to a small section of the inner leg. The CRL specifies black or grey leather riding style boots, but doesn't make any reference to zipper or no zipper. Also, the CRL says "knee high". These are slightly taller than that:

 

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I kind of like the longer look of these; I plan on adding the optional leather straps with buckles around the leg. I could also shorten the length if need be, though the more I look at these as they are the more they grow on me.

 

BtZuIz.jpg

 

Again, anyone have any thoughts or concerns on these?

 

Finally, I put in an order to Kryolan for the black parts of the make-up (eyeshadow, lipstick, brow pencil, fixing spray, etc). I also got a glatzan bald cap to try, as these are thinner and about half the price of the graftobian option.

 

vBCcn5.png

 

And, in order to help prevent me from looking like I was attacked by a swarm of amorous leeches, I ordered barrier foam. It claims to help protect your skin from the irritation of using adhesives and other professional make-ups.

 

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I'll be putting in an order for pros-aide, as kathgruben suggested, tomorrow. I also need to order more Reel Creations body ink.

 

I probably won't try for another bald-cap application until we get closer to finishing the outfit. Sadly, neither bald caps nor body ink come cheap. I plan to do one run through with the new cap and adhesive in about a month. Assuming it goes well, the third attempt will hopefully be for approval pictures. Although I did make some mistakes on the trimming, the feedback I've received on the application of the paint and the blending of the cap edges has been pretty positive. I'm getting the hang of this. :)

 

So, I welcome any thoughts on the suitability of the fabric and boots! Thanks in advance again.

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I think those boots should be fine.

 

As for the fabric, I can't seem to find where the CRL states the shirt needs to be a knit fabric? But it does say the fabric should be matte and stretchy so that the shirt is form fitting. I think the key thing about the textured fabric you're leaning towards is to ensure it doesn't show up as patterned in pics, since the grey should look solid and not patterned. ;)

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I think those boots should be fine.

 

As for the fabric, I can't seem to find where the CRL states the shirt needs to be a knit fabric? But it does say the fabric should be matte and stretchy so that the shirt is form fitting. I think the key thing about the textured fabric you're leaning towards is to ensure it doesn't show up as patterned in pics, since the grey should look solid and not patterned. ;)

 

You're absolutely right. It says matte and stretchy. I think my mind just assumed that meant a knit. Here's a photo taken of the two fabrics from a distance. I can't really see the pattern:

 

tRTcxL.jpg

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The key is that it can fit you without being baggy.

 

I'll see if I can get Brita to share some information on a couple of your questions (She's the model for the concept Ventress). She's made or helped make it for a couple ladies in the Legion.

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First I'd just like to say that your first go with the makeup is worlds better than mine was.

 

I think the boots should be fine with a descrete zipper. I agree adding buckles will look good.

 

As to the fabric for the lighter area for the top: it doesn't nessicarily need to be knit though mine happens to be. I used a horizontal striped light gray knit.

 

As to a prosthetic adhesive, I used Ben Nye before I became more aerodynamic .

 

If you would like to see how I made various parts of my coutum, you could check out my build thread at:

 

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1188

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Wow. I have spent the last few months scrutinizing your photos Lady B. I feel like I just met someone famous. :)

 

Thanks so much for weighing in on this and providing a link to your build!

 

I'm not brave enough to go bald. That and the way the winters in Michigan have been going, my brain might turn into a Popsicle. I should be able to find an adhesive I can live with. :)

 

Thanks again for the info!

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Sounds good. (Side note, she didn't plan to be bald either...long story). But the profile images in all the Ventress CRL's are her beautifully bald head.

 

Medical grade prosthetic adhesive is the way to go just make sure your skin is dry, and no make-up on it yet.

 

She'll watch this more closely. Do tell if we can help on it.

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Cool, thanks!

 

Kate received the leather and the striped fabric today, so here's what we have so far.

 

5JkLFl.jpg

 

Meanwhile a fellow 501st member who does a prop business on the side is working up a belt buckle plan for me. And I got my Kryolan order today! Woot. I may order the pros-aide Monday. Apparently I have to be a little cautious on the timing since if it gets too cold it solidifies and becomes useless. But Michigan is supposed to warm up here soon, so hopefully next week it'll be safe to order. Ill do overnight or two day shipping to be safe.

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Oh thank heavens, spring seems to be here. Highs in the 50s this week, so I'm ordering the pros-aide tonight.

 

I was sick this weekend, stupid cold, so I didn't get as much done as I would've liked. I had hoped to get a preliminary design for the belt straps/buckles done, but that didn't happen. I did however get a duct tape collar made.

 

Thanks to Lady B's WIP thread, I decided to adopt the brilliant suggestion of making a duct tape mock-up of the leather neck piece. This is really useful, since Kate (seamstress) and I aren't in the same place. Also, this piece has no stretch to it, so proper fit is essential.

 

I took an old shirt, some saran wrap and a willing husband and went nuts.

 

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In related news, RIP epic purple shirt from BlizzCon 2011. Your sacrifice will live on. :boom:

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I think that your choice for the striped fabric looks really good. Hopefully it's a little stretchy as that makes fitting easier. One thing I would do is make the striped shirt first then build the lighter gray on top of it. Also I used a thick round shoelace to give the edges of the light gray thickness.

 

Concerning the leather, I need to ask: Do you intend on using it for the belt or for the neck armor? If for the neck, I suggest that you not have the edge of the armor drape over the shoulder as it would be hard to move in and difficult to do. For mine, I used spandex with a leather like surface. I still have most of a bolt of it left if you're interested.

 

Concerning makeup. I think what you've done looks good, but since you menchened the oil based stuff being quite pricey, I thought I'd share what I used.

 

Ben Nye color cake foundation a combination of the colors PC-022 Geisha and PC-2 Porcelain

 

I apply them with a natural sponge and plenty of water applied in thin layers. Then use baby powder to set it. The difference in using the translucent setting powder is that it won't dull the makup color, but with the white there is no color to dull, so I save the more expensive setting powder for the black tattoos. If baby powder bothers you, corn starch could be used instead.

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