DARK ELF
Lineage 2
Photographer
Why I chose to make this costume:
I have had this costume planned for a few years—and been collecting the fabrics and materials for about 2 or 3 years now. I remember just stashing the gold quilted silk taffeta for years waiting to use it on this project. Often the reason I wait for years to finally make a costume is either time, an appropriate con to wear the costume to, or a technique I need to still master.
How I made this costume:
Finally for Dragoncon 2012 I asked Riddle to make elf costumes with me—I would make this Dark Elf and she would make a regular Elf and we would help each other with portions of the costumes that were our expertise. I sewed for about 3 days on Riddle's elf costume since I was a fast seamstress, and she made molds for my torso pieces while I was at a convention in Singapore.
I started sketching the designs on the torso and refining them into lineart, then transferring them onto foam. I made the top. thigh highs and sleeves between working on the scale maille for a few days. I got the supplies from The Ring Lord, and learned the technique by watching YouTube videos and cursing a lot. And messing up. I really loved learning a new technique for this costume though!
During my trip to Singapore I took the scale maille with me to continue working on it. Riddle molded the filigree pieces for the torso, and cast a pair of shoulder armor which I designed and prototyped. Sadly the shoulders were too rigid and heavy and I decided to not use them since I wanted to be able to move my arms. I made entirely new lightweight shoulder pieces with Wonderflex and foam and used the same technique to make the elbow guards and ankle guards. It took a good day to make and paint those pieces. I did a lot of hand sewing on the sleeves and gold top, attaching ornate trim onto it and also sewing the finished scale maille sleeves onto the fabric.
The wig was sponsored by Epic Cosplay and I used a hair razor to cut it. The elf ears were from my line of cosplay accessories and I dyed them grey to match my skintone. The filigree designs were made of urethane rubber and I attached them to a corset I already owned with special glue made just for urethane. I spent the two days leading up to Dragoncon finishing up this costume, making sure to create all the details such as the leather briefs, chain adornments, hair accessory, embroidered leg details, attaching all the armor pieces etc. I used Mehron cream based makeup for the grey skintone, and Final Seal to seal it.
Thoughts on this costume:
All in all I took on this costume in too short of a time lol. Riddle sadly didn't finish her Elf, and I really had to push to finish mine. For future wear I want to tweak some things on this for sure but it was nice to get super obsessed with a costume project and pull all-nighters to finish it. Creativity achieved!
