Shiva cosplay, step by step

This is gonna be a long one ^^'



I'm describing the process of making my Shiva cosplay, trying to describe what and how I made the different components.

seams of the body suit

Bodysuit: I had never made a body suit before, so I just did what came easiest to me: making a shirt and a pair of leggings - then sow them together :D - I made the leggings so they only have a seam on the inside of the legs (as shown on drawing 1). I fitted it while wearing it inside out. I left the shoulder seam open because my zipper skilz weren't that good that I trusted myself with sowing a zipper intro lycra that was supposed to be stretched when worn. I basically chose that I would rather sow myself into the suit X)

"sky blue" body makeup
I used this for my face and hands

"royal blue" body makeup
I used this for my feet :)

The bodysuit got painted at the bottom of  the legs with the body paint I was using for my feet, this has a really nice effect and the transition from skin to suit became almost invisible unless you knew it was there. The patterns on the side of the thighs is painted with purple and silver acryllic paint while wearing the suit.

The beaded chest pieces are made separately. I used a scrap of blue linen fabric I had lying around, placed it at my boob, pinned it so i got "the right shape", and then i sewed the incisions, then I placed it on my chest again and drew the shape i wanted. After cutting away what I didn't need, I was left with the base for the chest piece which I completely covered in beads and sequence. I made the icy side in a star shape. The sequence and pearls for this side where in a silver/grey/white/light blue theme. The other side I made more regular and cup shaped mostly in darker blue colors and then I made the snowflake pattern in white sequence with no glitter to make it stand out properly. When the beading was done, I jumped in the suit and placed them where they where supposed to be, and then hand stitched them on. (close up coming soon)

(not me!)
the point is to show the really
cheap quality of the wig 

The wig is made from 3 wigs of this type (pic.).One to use as a wig, and the others I wanted to use as separate hairpieces after cutting them up. Because of lack of time I didn't trust e-bay to be quick enough with the shipping of a wig, so I had to do my best with what I had. I unpacked them and colored them by hand In a big pot on the stove ^^. I used Dylon hand color for textiles. I made sure that it was able to color nylon and other artificial materials, so I was going to get the right color. I predicted that the color wouldn't become to dark because of the light base, so I chose a darker blue than I was aiming for, and it turned out perfect. After dying the wigs, I hung them to dry. While they dried up I sew bases for the dreadlocks. I sowed these dreadlocks in different lengths and of different thicknesses. I made them from blue cheap velvet (direct translate from danish: nervous velvet?), and filled them with batting. I made about 12. 

batted dreadlock with ring

The rings in the end of the tentacles are made from aluminum foil which I shaped into rings of different size, and then covered it in paper clay. The foil core makes it really light weight. I painted the rings with silver acrylic paint. I left one end of the dread lock open so I could sow them on the wig,  the other end, I folded around a ring and sewed it (see pic.). I left 2 tentacles with out rings. I picked one wig to be the one I was wearing

wig being cut :P

I started cutting 2 of the wigs into smaller hairpieces. I cut'd the amount of hair I wanted, sewed several times back and forth and then glued it together with my glue gun (see pic.).

Now I'm left with  a lot of extensions, 1 wig (still with hair) an 12 dread locks.

 I wore the wig while attaching the open ends of the dreadlocks to the wig base with needles while making sure the hair on the wig didn't got stuck underneath. I wanted the right shape of the hair, and I haven't seen a shiva cosplay where it looked properly done and shaped. After all the dreads where attached with needles I sew what was possible on the machine, and hand sew the rest of it. 

(my mad paint skillz)
It is a wig with one dread sown on and
wrapped in hair.

Now the dreadlocks needed to be wrapped with hair and the brown linen (which was also a leftover from an  old Pocahontas costume :P ). I did it like I've tried to illustrate with my mad paint skillz since I didn't take any photos during the producing of this -_-' . I wrapped the hair still attached to the wig around the dreadlocks so almost none of the fabric underneath was showing, when I ran out of hair i used one of the extensions I made. Tucked it underneath the hair that was already wrapped and sealed it with some brown linen which I just wrapped around and tied in a knot. I did the same above the rings to make sure the hair stayed in place. 

To keep this 11 kg (24 lbs) wig on my head I sewed on a silver sequenced elastic hair band just above the bangs of the wig. And the wig is done!

The silver panties, are made from polyester, and blue elastic bands. They are placed so they cover up the connecting seam between the pans and the shirt of the body suit.

The flowing hip shale is made from yellow chiffon which I dip dyed to make the bottom blue. The rings in the bottom of it is made from paper clay that I panted gold with acrylic paint. the Wrist gloves I made from a red/purple, 2 colored satin. It's basically a triangle with a hole for the finger, attached to a cuff. I closed it with velcro. I sowed on some gold rope with gems I made from fimo as well. 

Go to my cosplay site for more photos of the finished cosplay.