Caspian Main

Okay, lots of work on this costume without finished products. Well, at least you can see the in-progress pictures. First, the pants. I found some mustard brown cotton at Hobby Lobby and made a simple pair of elastic waist long pants. Simple and straight. I had my brother try on the pants and then marked right above his knee for the lowest button to be. I then marked all the buttons (I'm used 6 on each side) two inches apart. Used gold paint to make the "embroidery" on the sides in between each button and further up the leg even past the buttons:

I had some buttons on hand but they weren't quite right. The far left is what they started out as, the middle is after I spray-painted them gold, and the right is the finished product with black marker in the cracks. I like them:

And here is the finished side of the pants. I'm pleased! My brother, however, said they were Aladdin pants and sang "A Whole New World" the entire time. *sigh*

Now the brigandine. *Huge sigh* Goodness, this is hard work. Okay, back to square one which was like three weeks ago. I'm using black fun foam to make overlapping rectangles to look like his.

First, cut the fun foam into strips that are 8 inches by 2.5 inches. Cut tons.

Then glue them together overlapping not quite half way.

I glued 8 strips together. I made red marks on my board so I would keep each set of strips the same measurements. You can faintly see them at 26 inches and about every 1.25 inches.

After that, I slathered everything with watered-down glue. I tried to get extra glue in the cracks so each new strip wouldn't show up that much. I also made sure the glue wasn't allowed to dry smooth. I stippled it after it had barely set to add texture. So here's the strip sets. The one in the bottom right has been spray-painted black and brown. I think when I do it for sure I'll only use black and midnight blue.

Now, these pieces are no where near finished. Sad but true. I then cut some of the pieces into 1.75 inch strips lengthwise. This will be for the chest part. I didn't cut all the pieces because the skirt pieces are almost triangular shaped. Anyway, the strips (these are cut before being glued all over- glue first!):

The theory is that once they are all assembled, I'll glue the strips to the fabric brigandine (below) and space then 1/8 inch apart. I'll put extra glue to fill in the cracks. Then I'll spray paint everything. Probably multiple times. Once I like the color, I'll put in millions of rivets (they are already the perfect color so I don't want to risk them getting sprayed by putting them on earlier). I tested a few strips with spraying and riveting and I think it works. I was going to get a picture, but for the life of me, I can't find that test piece. If I find it I'll get a picture.

The fabric brigandine. No pattern. I made my brother try on Peter's Brown Tunic for size. It was a little too big because I wanted the brigandine to fit fairly snug. So I cut a slightly smaller version out of this fake black vinyl leather. I had my brother come over yesterday and try it on. I adjusted it a little made some darts in the back (but no darts in the front). Today, I cut out the skirt part and he's coming over this afternoon to see if the skirt works. If it does, I'll start applying the fun foam tonight! Hooray! Oh, another note. I tried gluing the fun foam to the black vinyl side but the glue doesn't stick. So I'm turning the vest inside out and gluing the foam to the fabric-y/felt-y underside. That way the inside of the brigandine will look nice too! Here's the only picture of the vest so far:

Right now it looks like a sketchy biker vest. Ew. Well, at least I've made progress. Whew, this was a long post. I think I'll go calm myself by watching Pirates of Penzance for the millionth time.