This costume was unfortunately delayed due to a life event, and I didn't manage to finish the first dress on time for either my 30th Cosplay Anniversary, nor the Cosplay Photoshoot. I've been marathoning so much on this one, I didn't even had the time to make posts about it.
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| the wig waiting for it's debut |
I knew I wanted to make a helmet wig, but my experience in wig styling, except for cutting them - I've been cutting my own hair for ages, so it's a technique I'm comfortable with, has not been the most pleasant. In the last few years I watched many, many, many tutorials, from many cosplayers like Kuukii-san, Kinpatsu Cosplay, Sarah Spaceman or, more recently, the Portuguese Shuu, Maribluk, and also talked to Merle at Amadora BD, about products and tools to use. So I finally bought a decent tail comb, UHU Pen water soluble glue, hair styling clips, and large rolls for Candy's large curls.
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| new wig styling tools: large hair rolls, UHU Pen glue, tail comb, spray bottle, hair clips, and a small funnel and doser |
THE BASE WIG
After hand sewing the felt cap, and trimming it where needed, I was planning on making it stiff with wood glue, but then I saw a WIP by Portuguese cosplayer Maribluk, where she used a metal tape, a construction material, to build a structure on a soft cap. I'm now glad I followed her idea, wood glue would make an already hot wig cap non-breathable, including the possibility of it melting with my sweat, as wood glue is water soluble.
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| the structural metal headband |
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| sewn into place with thick polyester thread |
Using thick polyester thread, I cut a piece of the perforated metal ribbon, and sewed it on top of the cap, much like a headband. I left a few holes unsewn, to add wire loops to hang the twin tails in them, but I didn't need it in the end. I adjusted the metal ribbon to fit snugly on my head, and shifted to the base wig.
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| the base wig, minus 4 wefts |
I harvested four weft rows from the back of the base wig, and started sewing it to the felt cap. Two things I should have done differently at this stage:
- Harvest the wefts from the twin tails, as they are very thick, and harvest at least 6;
- Cut the wig elastics and the label before sewing it to the cap.
Lesson learned!
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| the inside front hairline |
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| wig sewn to felt wig cap |
Then I started sewing on the wefts to the cap, first the bottom side ones, on the inside, facing down, to create a hairline, and then the parting ones, facing outwards, to create the parting.
Using the steamer, and diluted UHU Pen glue (watersoluble glue for paper and cardboard), I started styling the wig to create the parting and twin tails, which I temporarily secured with elastics.
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| just the wig's hair, up in twintails |
This is where I realised the hair I had sewn to the cap wasn't enough to fill the back of her head. So, after trimming the twin tails, I created a bunch of small wefts, by glueing them, with the undiluted UHU Pen glue, to a plastic board, and then, with universal UHU glue, glued them to the back of the head, between the sewn on wefts, and on top of the base wig wefts. After the glue dried, I styled them towards the twin tails, with the steamer, and secured them with the elastic.
The final step was to style the sewn on wefts. With the steamer, and my Clover Mini Iron, I bent and styled the hairline wefts towards the twin tails, and secured them. Then I bent the parting wefts toward the opposite direction they were sewn on. With the help of the comb tail, I started the thatching process, by intertwining thin strands of hair from each weft, the left to the right, and the right to the left. Not happy with how the back of the wig was filled, I glued more leftover twin tails hair to the cap, and, after the glue dried, I styled all the hair into twin tails, and glued it with diluted UHU Pen glue.
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| making wefts of the leftover hair |
The initial plan was to glue the base wig twin tails together and then cut them, but I realised they would add volume to the detachable twin tails, so, instead of gluing them, I tied them and sewed them tightly to the base wig, and left them as is.
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| filled back of the head |
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| styling the fringe |
Then I started with the front. First I separated the sideburns from the fringe, and cut the fringe to Candy's short length. Then, with the steamer, rolls and hair clips, I first folded the hairline hairs up, and then curled them in. I set everythin first with diluted UHU Pen glue, but then with Got2b Glued hairspray. I was very happy with the result but then realised I made Usagi, from Sailormoon, fringe, and not Candy's. Recently I read somewhere that Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailormoon, was inspired by Candy for Usagi's hair design, so I guess I was close, tried to pull them down a bit, and let them become a hybrid Candy-Usagi fringe. But the sides weren't that symmetrical, and looked a bit wonky, so I curled up her ahoge, which created a diversion.
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| styled fringe with ahoge |
Lastly, I trimmed and curled the sideburns to the front, mostly using the steamer, but didn't do much else, as they will be mostly hidden by the twin tails.
THE TWIN TAILS
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| curling the twin tails, 1st try |
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| wavy twin tails - they need to be curlier |
The twin tails were a bit curly, but not enough, so I curled them with hot water. First I did it with the larger rolls I got on purpose for Candy, but they only straightened the hair to a soft wave. So I repeated the process with the smaller rolls I already got, and it worked very well.
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| big hair, don't care |
This is where I realised the twin tails have too much hair, but the base wig was already almost done, so I didn't harvest any more wefts from the twin tails. Instead I made a first length cut, and used the hair to fill the base wig gaps. It also works, but it's not ideal, I'd rather sew most of it. I let the twin tails be for a few weeks, while I started sewing the dresses, to finish them later, nearer the event, but I sprayed them with silicone spray, to keep them from tangling too much.
On the eve of the event, I attached the twin tails to the base wig and cut them to shoulder length, and tried to recurl them with the hair curler, but it didn't do much, so I went back to the smaller rolls and the steamer, which has proven to be the best wig styling tool, and let them dry pinned to the head.
While I was styling the wig, I occasionally pinned the bows to the hair, but realised the clips attached to the back of the bows wouldn't work, as, the bows would lay down almost horizontally, and I wanted them vertical. So I took off the hair clips, passed doubled thick yellow thread through the knot loops, and tied them to the twin tail clips.
The final step was to sew a few wig clips on the inside, for safety, but I ended up not adding them, and realising while wearing the wig that I didn't need them that much. The wig is VERY COMFORTABLE, but a bit hot, and VERY STABLE, so, my next gravity defying wigs will all be helmet wigs for sure.
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| curling the twin tails, 2nd try |
I still wasn't completely happy with the curls, so I curled the twin tails again, this time using the medium and the smaller rolls.
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| curly twin tails: before (L) and after (R) |
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| hair elastics work the best for Candy's hair bows |
+ I managed to style a more difficult wig and I'm very happy with the results! Granted, Candy's hair doesn't need to be very neat, so this was a good beginner helmet wig. I have two more planned for the future, but those will have to be very neat.
- I made a few rookie mistakes while making the wig, but that was expectable. The only one I wish I could go back was the weft harvesting from the twin tails instead of the base wig, but I managed to solve the problem and learned from it.
THE CUNNING PLAN
Make both dresses!
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