Eternal Sailor Mars - Accessories and Decoration

This is the really fun part! There was some frustration, but on the whole I had a great time making all the bits and pieces that really make a costume great.

rest of the post is under the cut

Polymer Clay Pieces-

For the little decorations I used Sculpey. To start with, I decided to overthink things a bit and made a whole bunch of little clay samples of different mixtures of clay. For the red stars I ended up using two parts translucent to one part red pearl Sculpey III. For the large star, I traced out a star and then sort of layered folded tinfoil on top of it to give it bulk. I didn't think to take a picture until I was part way through, but you can kind of see what I was doing.

Then I layered rolled out pieces of Sculpey over top and smoothed them and smoothed them until it looked ok. I made the star for the tiara and the earring stars out of the same clay with a similar method, but without tinfoil. The gold stars were made with a plastic chocolate mold. I pressed the gold clay in and the gently pulled each piece out. Once they were completely baked and dry I gave them a few coats of gloss Sculpey Glaze. Of course I completely forgot to take a picture of all the pieces together after they were glazed, because that's just how I am.
The one little gold star not attached to anything in the picture goes on the waistband of the dress.

all the completed polymer clay pieces attatched

Earrings-

I already had the gold wire and ear wires, so making the earrings was a piece of cake. Just attached the wires of the stars to the ear wires and added little rubber earring stops just to be sure they won't fall off.





The Wig -

Not much to say about this. I didn't really have anything to do with it. Trinity picked out the wig, which is a Persephone in Purple Black Fusion from EpicCosplay Wigs. She bought it at Dreamer's Cosplay and Games, which is a wonderful store near the fabric shops I got the rest of the supplies from. (More on Dreamer's later.)

The Necklace -

This was pretty straightforward. I folded and stitched a strip of the red fabric, glued the gold star to it, and sewed on a snap. I swear it took about ten minutes.

The Tiara -

This was actually a delight, even though it didn't turn out quite the way I pictured it. I'd never worked with Worbla before, but my first foray into a new medium went really well thanks to Dreamer's Cosplay and Games! If you spend a certain amount of money (thirty dollars I think it was?) they let you use their crafting facilities. They even sat down with me and walked me through the steps of using the heat gun, knowing when the Worbla is hot enough, shaping it, rolling it, and everything.

 Once it was done a gave it a few coats of plain old wall primer (cause that's what I had) and then a bunch of layers of gold paint. The star was glued on, and then I glued an elastic to go around the back of the head under the wig.

The Sailor Collar-

This was one of the last things I made, so I barely took any pictures or notes. Basically, here's a picture of the pattern I made and that's all. Just, like . . . look up one of the many of the wonderful sailor collar patterns online and follow that. In the pictures at the bottom of the post you can kind of see how it works. It's made out of two layers of the red fabric and white ribbon trim. I attached it to the dress with snaps of one side of the neck and stitched it down on the other.


The Bows -

Looked up a bunch of different bow patterns, and none of them looked quite like I wanted, so I basically made my own pattern. Here's a tumblr post basically explaining what I did.

the backs of the finished bows

Each bow is attached to the dress with snaps so that they can be removed if the dress needs washing.
 The star is attached to the purple bow with E6000. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to see the bows on the dress!

The Gloves -

I basically used this tutorial. To start with I got a pair of plain white gloves from a costume store. They needed to be a bit shorter, so I chopped off a strip from the top. The tutorial has the band made as a separate piece that's just tacked to the glove, but I sewed it all the way around for added stability.

The Boots -

Trinity picked the boots out for herself. These are the base boots. They seem pretty sturdy, more so than I expected from the picture online. I cut strips of the same red fabric I used for everything else. Each got folded and ironed in half, and then I folded the edges under and sewed them.

 They got stuck to the boots with E6000, very carefully. I only realized halfway though that I was inhaling glue fumes due to having slowly got my face closer and closer to the boots to glue very precisely. Then I just glued on the gold stars, and done!

Everything really came together, I have to say. There were a lot of little pieces that needed to be stuck on, and there was a moment when I was worried I wouldn't be able to get them all done in time. Thankfully, it all turned out all right.















* A final note. I'm not being paid to shill for anyone. Every product is mentioned for the general edification of the public.