Caterina Sforza - Completion

...Aaaaaand it's a wrap!  Actually it was done about a month and a half ago, but who's keeping count?

This cosplay won first place in Master Division at Albuquerque Comic Expo!  And that's all after Anime Boston rejected it for their masquerade.  BURN.

So, yeah, now I do have some final photos and stuff about how I made this epically complicated-as-heck costume.

Last time I think I left off with the wig, which was a giant LIE if you read my last post (uhh...this post here).

I put blood and tears into the wig I bought specifically for Cat, but no matter what I did it ended up looking like shit glued together with gobs of white glue and hair mat things.  Oh, it was a rather clever process I came up with.

Remember Cat's tubular curls of death?

Yeah, those.  There is no POSSIBLE way to have that much hair unless you're a freak of nature or wear a ton of hair extensions!  I mean, how much  must that hairstyle weigh?  I'm guessing at least twenty pounds, bloody hell.  Unwilling to be defeated by an impossible hairstyle, I armed myself with white glue, a poster tube, and some saran wrap, and set off to make this sucker.

The theory was basically to saturate a section of hair with white glue, flatten it out, then wrap it around the poster tube and wait until it dried enough for me to peel it carefully off the saran wrap.

Hmmmmm....

The result after completing a few curls was quite interesting actually.

Yes, accurate and interesting, perhaps, but really impractical and the wrong kinda colour.  The "corkscrews" like to wind together into one giant curl of death, then cling to one another and the costume and stick out at odd angles.  I should have anticipated that given that I know white glue stiffens the fiber.  Meh.

So the wig was a casualty.  I mean, it's not ruined or anything.  I just have to soak the white glue out, but then what?  How am I going to use a piss-yellow pigtail wig that reaches past my butt?

In the end I went with a slight restyle of my Daenerys wig, which looked much better anyway.  I just took the handful of hair at the side fronts of the wig, twisted it a bit, then pinned it up in a sort of 'donut' shape using hair forks stabbed into the wig netting.

Photo by the amazing Ed Martinez (whose page you should visit...)

Last couple of things are really just side notes, not that interesting, but I thought I'd include them for those who may be interested.

I was kind of pissed off while working on the hat...which means I didn't take many photos.  The thing is built on base made of cardboard strips and masking tape.

Later on I fitted another piece of cardboard into the top to maintain the shape, then I covered it with flannel to even out bumps.  Final layer was stretchy black velvet.

Trim is pinned on before I attached it using hot glue:

I added two layers of decoration to the outer edge of the hat.  One is pleated black lace leftover from making the sleeves of my Raven Roth cosplay.

Underneath is a tightly gathered one yard length of black millinery netting, which I edged with seed beads and glass drops to help it lay flat.

My monocle needed secure attachments to keep it in place, for I cannot wear it without getting a headache.  These things are not meant for comfort in a modern age.  I added a little hook so it can hank from one of my pins, as well as a small ear cuff at the end of the chain.

The finishing touches of the costume were the same boots I used for my Drocell Cainz cosplay, and, for the photoshoot, a World War II-style airsoft pistol.

The final word?  This isn't my favourite cosplay ever.  But I'm glad to finally have been able to do justice to Caterina Sforza after all these years.  I feel like she gets so much flack for how she conflicts with Esther and Abel.  I feel she has every right to pursue a relationship with Abel, no matter how stuck-up Esther may act about it.  He's a grown man and Cat is a grown woman, and Esther needs to grow the hell up.  She's much cuter with Ion anyway.