Daenerys Targaryen - The Dragon is Done!

...and photographed.  I'll be uploading these all the Deviantart soon enough, but I thought I'd give my reader a first look:

Sometimes after photographing a cosplay I have sort of a disappointed feeling because none of the shots *really* came out as I had hoped...not so here.  We had great weather, great wind, it turned out just as I wanted.  Now I can't wait to wear this cosplay to another convention!

Now that the attention-grabber is over, I've got a couple process photos left to show for this cosplay.  Last time I think I left off pretty early on in the process.

At the beginning of this cosplay I did think about making the cloak-thing detachable so that I wouldn't have to worry about a train if I wore this dress for a purpose other than cosplay...needless to say, I did not do that.  And I don't think that's bad at all.  The dress needs the extra layer of fabric to add, oh, volume?  Dimension?

So I did end up wishing I'd gotten more fabric so the cloak could have been wider.  As it is I just added triangular panel extensions to the main rectangular pieces.  My wallet thanked me for that.  This fabric, it ain't cheap.

Now for the "metal" bits I chose to use leather because it has the strength and durability to exist in higher-stress areas of the garment.  This did not end up being as easy as I thought.  The idea is good, but there hardly exists a sharp instrument that's small enough to cut out all the little details.

But I didn't know that when I started.  I just got to work drawing everything out with permanent marker on the back of the leather:

And then it seems that I didn't remember to take photos, because I can't find anything on iPhoto.  Perhaps I was too frustrated?  I ended up cutting everything out with a combination of exacto knives and sewing shears.  The "belt" thing closes in the back with a strip of velcro.

I achieved the gradient look along the bottom of the skirt and cloak using a dilute dyebath and a little bit of luck.  Silk dyes really easily.  I had my hands full during the actual dyebath.  Here's the result right afterward:

Damn I wish I had a mannequin.  For this I chose to use "black" RIT dye, because it's really more of a blueish purple than any of the other dyes they sell.  Anyway, it came out really dark and that scared me a little.  Turned out fine in the end: the colour lightened dramatically as the fabric dried.

Last real step was to add in the vertical wrinkles.  Silk wrinkles easily, at least, so I just wet the fabric and bunched it up in a giant twist.

Unfortunately the wrinkle also falls out really easily.  Everytime before wearing this dress it needs to be redone.

So that's that!  I am looking at a new Daenerys cosplay, just be cause I can and because she has great fashion sense.  The current design is a combo of these two outfits (which may actually be the same outfit anyway):

It needs more planning before anything happens.

Jushiro is finished and photographed--next entry will probably be about him (or some other random crap because I don't have my stuff together).