Quidditch robe VII

Yesterday, I headed out to Shepherd's Bush to pick up some cheap calico cotton to do some practice work/pattern making. I thought I'd head to other fabric shops to have a look, but in the end headed back to Universal Textile at 35 Goldhawk Road (020 8743 4154) to pick up 10 metres worth of the stuff at £2 per metre. I also picked up some faux leather for around £6.32 per metre (yeah, an odd price, I know. I only wanted one metre but there was an extra 90cm of it left on the roll, so they offered it to me at slightly discount rate) so I can put together my arm and shin pads after finishing my robe!

Having a studio replica robe was pretty handy as I could use/adapt the pattern they used in order to make my Quidditch robe. I totally underestimated how big the robe is when spread out and ended up using more fabric than I thought I would, but it's good I got about 10 metres' worth, as I still have plenty with which to play and experiment.

I started off by tracing the front and then the back of the robe. I can't really decide whether to do the back as one piece, or two, but am tempted to stick with two pieces for the back as that could help with the pleated bit at the back.

I then moved on to the smaller bits, tracing out the sleeves and the hood. The sleeves and the hood on the school uniform robes are longer than on the Quidditch robes, so I had to make some slight adjustments to the pattern, but kept the places where the seams should go the same, so it should fit together similarly to the uniform robe.

Now that I have the basic shapes of the various different sections, I'll be marking on my seam allowances before cutting them out!!! If you don't mark on your seam allowances, you'll end up making your robe (or whatever you're making for that matter) smaller than intended as you'll be sewing up your seams into the shape of the pieces.

The next stages will pretty much be double checking the patterns, and making sure the matching seam lines of the different sections are all the same length, adding the seam allowance, and cutting out the pattern.

I'm still undecided as to whether to find a cheap sewing machine to put this together, or whether to just hand sew the robe. I'll work that out at a later date, but if you guys have suggestions as to a first basic sewing machine, let me know in the comments please!!!

On a side note, the calico cotton is actually quite a nice thick fabric, and I might try and make some Jedi tunics, tabards and obi out of that stuff. But that's a story for a different day I guess.

Quidditch robe VI

Okay, so perhaps this is not technically anything to do with the making of the Quidditch robe, but it's relevant to the Quidditch cosplay! I was walking around Waterstones (yes, in the digital age, I still prefer a good ol' fashioned book sometimes!) and I found this little box.

For £5.99, what you get inside is a golden snitch prop, a stand for the snitch, as well as a mini sticker book. Although the prop is plastic, it looks okay for photos, and make a wonderful prop!

Certainly makes a good present for those budding seekers out there for them to get used to tracking this nightmare on the Quidditch pitch!

Quidditch robe V

You may remember from the Quidditch robe IV post that I potentially found a silver-lined Quidditch badge from eBay. What I did not mention though was that I also found more patches from a shop called Patch Palace, which I believe is based in North America (I cannot remember for the life of me whether it's Canada or America though). What's great about Patch Palace is that they do free standard international shipping too!

Don't be deceived by the simple site though, as there is a massive selection of Harry Potter patches available via the site, even a Ravenclaw house patch in the book colours with an eagle instead of a raven!

They both arrived today, so here they are laid out with the fabric for reference. I've put a £1 coin next to them so you can all see the size of the patches. The one on the left is the eBay one, and the one on the right is the Patch Palace one.

Looking at the patches, I think the eBay one is actually way too big, and there is something weird looking about the raven on the eBay patch. I much prefer the size of the Patch Palace one, and although the raven does not have details on it, it looks more like a raven. I also much prefer the colour of the ribbon underneath the shield and the font of the Patch Palace patch too.

Now that I have the patches sorted, time to move onto the next stage.

Making my wizard's / witch's wand

I've been asked by some people I met at MCM Birmingham and at the Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden when I went about my wand which I had for my Ravenclaw student cosplay. I was cosplaying an original character ("OC") generic Ravenclaw student, and so I couldn't realistic go around with a replica wand, as the replica wands are for individual characters (remember what Garrick Ollivander said, "The wand chooses the wizard."), and so I couldn't really go about being an OC with someone else's wand.

So...how did I make my own wand? Now some of you actually refused to believe me when I told you this, so I'm going to show you with some pictures too!

The core of the wand is just a long chopstick. (not the whole dragonheart string, phoenix feather, unicorn hair sadly). Wands in the Potter world are usually around 10 to 15 inches long, so I figured I needed quite a long one to begin with, and then I can simply file/saw it down to size. The chopstick I started with was around 18 inches long. You could technically use anything that can form a core, like a dowel, although it doesn't even have to be round. Sirius Black's wand, I believe, actually had a square cross section!

The end was nicely tapered and so I decided to have the tapered end as the working end of the wand. If I remember correctly, I chose the core to be around 11 to 12 inches, although feel free to go crazy with what length you want your wand to be.

Once you have the core length, it's time to create the handle. There are various ways you can create the handle, such as wrapping it in twine or string, but if you do that, I'd recommend using some adhesive along with it so it is secure.

Another way which I have seen and which I kinda liked is the hot glue handle. It's easy to do and not very time consuming at all. I've seen some people hold the core point down, and simply drip glue onto the core to form the handle. If hot enough, the glue will just run down and start solidifying. I tried this and wasn't too keen on this as I found the glue tended to clump up at the very end of the handle due to the viscosity and it's unwillingness (at least for me) to run.

I instead held my core by the point near horizontal, and started at the end of the handle, putting hot glue onto the core and rotating it, as I moved the glue gun towards the point, stopping when I got the right handle length.

The sheer amount of glue you're putting on should mean that heat is not dissipated very efficiently, which is great as it gives you time to work the shape. I used the hot end of the glue gun to keep it fluid to continue working it. Let it set when you're happy with the shape.

Mine ended up having a bit of a ergonomic handle with contours of the handle just right for where the fingers should be when holding the wand. It was actually a happy accident, so don't ask how I managed it!

So when the hot glue is set, you'll end up with something which looks a bit like this. It looks really weird at the moment, and yes, the texture of the handle will be really odd, but don't worry. This is where the real magic begins!

I used some acrylic paint mixed with some water and started painting it onto the wand (acrylic paint is touch dry pretty quickly, so you should be able to cover the wand quite quickly). You'll have to give it a few layers depending on the opacity of the paint. For the handle, you want a bit of a coarse haired brush so that the acrylic paint will show the marks of the paint brush, and you'll want to paint straight down the handle in parallel strokes all around. This will eventually give you a texture like the grain of the wood.

Once you put enough layers of relatively viscous but still workable acrylics onto the wand (on the handle especially), the texture of the whole thing should be pretty similar, if not the same, and so you won't even have to worry about the odd hot glue rubbery texture any more.

From there, you can then add any other design you wish, or even clear varnish it to give it a glossy / matte sheen if you want. Be aware though that some varnishes can leave the wand feeling clammy / sticky, so it may be best to experiment with different varnishes before coating your wand.

Alternatively, if you don't like it, simply paint over with another few layers of paint.

The whole wand took me maybe about an hour and a half to make and paint. Not quite an Ollivander's wand, but it'll have to do!

Quidditch robe IV

Just a really quick update in that I've managed to actually find a patch for the Quiddicth robe which has the silver / grey lining around the edges on eBay! It's a listing from the USA, and I'll show you all photos of it after it has arrived! Here's the link for it at the moment though.

The shape looks pretty good when matched with the shape of the patch on the Gryffindor and Slytherin robes from Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Just one thing I wasn't necessarily too sure about was the design of the actual raven on the shield, but it looks good enough with the details on it.

Looking forward to getting this and seeing how it works out!

Quidditch robe III

The style of Quidditch robe which I am planning on making is the one featured in the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets, which only featured Gryffindor vs Slytherin Quidditch matches, so I don't have any direct references for what a Ravenclaw robe might look like in terms of colours or the house crest.

I know I mentioned in the Quidditch Robe I post that I already bought one from eBay, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't really looked at how the house crest badges were from the first two Harry Potter films. All I remember was that the house crest was on the left breast section of the robe!

Back to those films then! In this screen grab from Philosopher's Stone, it shows the Gryffindor team about to take to the field in their match against Slytherin.

It helpfully shows the house badge quite nicely (and also in terms of shape to the eBay badge - phew), as well as yellow colouring of the edging of the house badge. I had a look at the Slytherin robe as well, and saw that their house badge has a silver edging.

Looking at how the colours of the edging of the house crest badges on the Gryffindor and Slytherin robes, I'd say the edging in the case of Ravenclaw would either bronze if you wanted book colours, or silver for film colours (just make sure that your edging matches the lining of the robe). If you wanted a Hufflepuff robe (yellow with black lining), you'd probably have a black background badge with black lining.

The online shop for the Leavesden Warner Bros Studio Tour sells a licensed embroided Ravenclaw badge but it's not really the right shape, and the edging is bright yellow, which really doesn't look too great for Quidditch robes in my opinion.

Another trawl through the internet, and invariably eBay, shows quite a few listings of the same/similar style as I already ordered from eBay. There just doesn't seem to be any house credt badges around with the edging like on the film robes sadly. The one from eBay seem the best bet as at least it is of a decent size (could be bigger, but hey......) and a similar shape to the film ones. Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

I did a test shot with the eBay badge and fabric and it actually looked quite good. At the moment I'm toying with the idea of trying to see if I can get the silver lining on to the badge, or continue my internet trawls. But seeing how well the badge I have looks against the fabric, I don't think I'll be fussed if I can't find a badge with a silver lining, or hack the eBay one to give it a silver lining.

Quidditch robe II

It's the 18th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts today, and we remember the fallen. I also thought it'd be apt to do some HP related things, so here I am doing more planning for my Quidditch robe.

I figured would need some good references in order to plan this properly. And so I started watching the Quidditch matches in Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets (yes, I'm going for the nicer old style years 1 and 2 Quidditch robes).

From the Philosopher's Stone, we have this scene where Harry shows off the snitch after he's caught it:

We can see the arm is sewn on separately (see the seam on the shoulder), plus the hood lining has a seam running in the middle inside of the hood. There seems to be a back seam along the centre back, with a pleat towards the bottom half of the robe too. You can also just about make out seams on top of the shoulders and also the side too.

The pattern needed for the back pleat looks clearer in this screen grab from Philosopher's Stone.

From the Chamber of Secrets, I got the following reference screen grabs:

These two show quite nicely the seam on the outside centre of the hood too, as well as more of the back pleat, although the pattern is very clearly shown in the screen grab from Philsopher's Stone.

The overall shape of the robe looks pretty similar to the school uniform robes from Prisoner of Azkaban onwards. I actually have one of the official studio replicas of the uniform robe, and noticed that the real difference between the years 1 and 2 Quidditch robes and the school uniform robes are that the hood and sleeves of the Quidditch robes are shorter, and there's the added back pleating for the Quidditch robes, so what I'm going to probably do is to trace out the pattern of the replica uniform robe, and make slight adjustments in the pattern to allow for the shorter sleeves and hood, and the pleating at the back.

I'll sketch out a rough pattern in my sketch book to see what it might be like before moving on to tracing the actual robe.

18th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts

It's the 18th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts today, and we remember the fallen: Tonks, Remus, Fred, Snape, and the countless others who fell fighting against evil and tyranny. Let us remember their brave deeds and take up the fight against evil, tyranny, and intolerance in our world too!

We could all take a leaf out of Hufflepuff's book and be more tolerant and accepting of people, regardless of their background, gender, sexuality, race, creed etc.

Quidditch robe I

I've recently been doing a cosplay as a Ravenclaw student in Hogwarts uniform with replica items of uniform, and then thought I wanted to also have a Quidditch kit. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find anywhere which does the replica Quidditch kit (apart from the jumper), and so not satisfied with having to pay taxes for cosplay from China and America, I stupidly decided to embark on the "let's make my own cosplay" adventure/disaster.

I know that usually the first step is to plan a pattern and work out what materials you'd need to make anything. but when I was in London yesterday, I happened to come across some fabric shops in Shepherd's Bush, and so thought I might as well grab what I think I'll need now, and play things by ear as I go along.

The most difficult thing about fabric shopping is trying to find something with a suitable texture and the right colours. I settled on getting my fabrics from Universal Textiles, 35 Goldhawk Road (020 8743 4154) after seeing their blue cotton drill and grey poly cotton. Although the cotton drill felt a bit light, I felt that with it lined with the grey poly cotton, the whole robe should hang quite well. 3 metres of each came to £18.00.

Yes, I know Ravenclaws are meant to be blue/bronze, but I'm making this for a cosplay trip to the Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden (https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/) on 3 December 2016 (There are quite a few of us that have booked - come join us at midday on 3 December 2016 in your Harry Potter cosplays! https://www.facebook.com/events/849443301850887/), therefore I'm going with the blue/silver film colours - would look pretty weird on the green screen photos with Ravenclaw Quidditch tower in blue/silver, and there I am in blue/bronze.

I also picked up some 8mm metal eyelets as well as ordered my Ravenclaw house crest embroidery badge from eBay!

Next step: finding/planning the pattern!

Heeeeeeere's Howie!

Hey guys! I deleted my blog a while back as I was really bad at updating it, but thought that I'd try and revive it, especially since I'm currently in the process of planning/making my first item of cosplay clothing, and wanted to share with you guys the adventure/disaster that's about to unfold!

So here's hopefully to more cosplay, art, and general geeky posts, more regularly!