#critical costumes

Photo  by @yenra

So I said I was going to start doing more of these breakdowns and I finally feel these costumes are at a point where I’m comfortable with sharing. Seeing peoples in progress work with costumes is one of my favorite things in the cosplay community. This is just a little insight into how I chose to approach these characters! 

(Image Heavy Under the Cut)

One of the most fun things about Cosplaying from Dungeons and Dragons campaigns is there is no official art for the characters! Which means you have a lot of creativity to play with designs! You have brief descriptions from the DM or the player characters but otherwise the world is yours! Both my Girlfriend and I designed our respective costumes for these characters and making them look like they go together and match Matt’s description of them was so much fun! 

Design

Matt Describes Delilah when Vox Machina first meet her as:

“A beautiful woman with dark auburn hair, pulled up into a tight braided bun. With gloves on her feminine hands, she wore a blue and black gown that had a long, billowing skirt that tapered up to be form-fitting, wrapping up her neck nearly to her jaw.”

I wanted to incorporate the Victorian style Percy is often depicted as wearing into my design to give off a “Lady of Whitestone” feel. I ended up referencing a lot of 1870′s and 1880′s women’s fashion as well as imagery of Necromancer’s in pre-existing fantasy. While I altered my design as I made it, here’s the base I came up with:  

Meanwhile@phoskios worked up a design for Sylas for me to work from. 

Matt describes him wearing:

“Predominantly blue and black with gold and red trim. He wore a strip of gray fur cresting over one shoulder and framing his torso.”

I know she referenced a lot of Historic Russian attire, giving her outfit a more “Wildemount” feel. Here’s what she gave me to work with:

Construction

If there’s two things I really love about creating my own costumes its pretty fabric and garment understructure! Oh yeah should probably make that three because small details!

I started off Delilah by making her Lobster Cage or Grand Bustle. (Yay understructure!) I had never made one before so I used Truly Victorian’s pattern. It was much more straight forward than anticipated and would highly recommend it! 

I was so excited with how it came out I immediately started draping the blue skirt. It’s made out of a blue silk dupioni. I nixed the gradient in my design for this fabric because I adored the way it shifted colors in the light!

Then it was back to understructure. I drafted and made a spiral boned corset to support and distribute the weight of the skirts. So even though you don’t really see it in the final product it’s doing it’s job under all the layers. Keeping the skirt from bruising my hips (yes this has happened in other ball gowns i’ve made. Heavy skirts are no joke.)

I apparently didn’t take as many pictures of this process, sorry about that. Same with the shirt, which is what I tackled next. It has a false front so it lays nicely and closes in the back so that I can get in and out of it easily. and it makes this costume finally look like it’s coming together!

At this point I needed to start on Sylas. So I decided to tackle both jackets at once. I’m not as comfortable with jacket construction as I’d like to be, so instead of drafting my own patterns for them I used a base and altered them in mock up form. For Sylas I used Simplicity 5386 (The Neo Jacket) and for Delilah McCall’s 7071. Sylas looks awfully silly in pink.

At this point I traveled to Philly and had her try everything on. We went to the fashion district to get fabric for Sylas and I made alterations to the mock up. Cut everything out and started piecing it together.

I also cut out her cape and fur while I was there to make sure length was accurate. The cape is made of velvet and is fully lined. I just used a basic circle skirt for the pattern. The fur is a base of batting that is covered and hand sewn in place. 

Unfortunately here is where Christmas and the MAGFest con crunch hits and I neglect to take progress pictures. Sylas’ belt for that con was an old table runner found in my house. His Jacket gets lined with the same blue fabric I used for my Delilah. Delilah’s Jacket sleeves get velvet details that are satin stiched on and both Jackets get hand sewn velvet bias tape. Sylas’ closures are painted. My poor girlfriend cuts appliques in the car on the way to the con, and I pull an almost all nighter hand sewing them to her jacket. Both wigs are styled in the hotel room. 

After almost 3 months of working on them they’re not done, but wearable for MAG.

Photo by @strikerthetacosplay

We also do a graveyard location shoot post MAG.

Photo by Marz.mac

Improvements

With MAGFest over we planned to put these away until Dragon*con and make Fjord and Jester for Colossal since it’s a warmer convention. We planned that but ended up deciding to re-wear these instead of making something new. Which means time to get to things I didn’t have a chance to touch before. 

Delilah’s only improvement for the con was her velvet overskirt. 

Sylas however got a new belt as well as some more appliques and closures. And while his jacket still isn’t quiet finished (It will be for Dragon*con, I promise) these costumes finally feel like they’ve come together for me. 

Photos by @yenra

The Briarwoods truly are my favorite villains from campaign one and I adore wearing these costumes. As always if you have any questions my door is always open. 

My handsome Sylas and all prop work done by @phoskios

Individual photosets of these costumes can be found here.