Mock up time!

So, now is the time to commence with the mock up, now that you have your to size patterns done.

What fabric do you use for a mockup? I use old sheets. Not ones in your current possession. Go to a thrift store, like a Good Will or Value Village and find some reasonably clean sheets for just a couple dollars. When you get home, WASH THEM. Who knows what mung might still be on them. I got a white fitted for $3.00 USD at Good Will. I bleached it, and once the cycle was done I washed it in regular detergent. Now thats a clean sheet!

To work with a fitted sheet, you have to make it lie flat. So what I do is I find the corners where it is stitched together, and I cut along the seam. Do this for all four corners. Now, locate the elastic around the edges. Some sheets have this all the way around, some only have it on the corners, and some have it along two sides. Cut the elastic off, closely. We don't want to lose too much fabric, but we don't want the elastic causing bunches.

So once you have your sheet spread out, find something to hold down the corners. I used canned goods. Why? They are easily on hand, and you don't have to go out and buy unnecessary crap! With many budgets these days being tight, the less you have to spend overall the better, and canned goods are helpful, even if you use them as weights. =)

So, assuming that you have cut out your patters for front and back, arrange them on the sheet with the grain as best you can. I don't want to mess up my patterns by punching holes in them with pins, so out come more canned goods as weights! Tuna and kippers are good fore more than just eating, they make plentiful - don't forget tasty- and inexpensive weights.

Now, take a pen or marker of some kind and carefully outline as close as you can to the pattern. Use something that won't bleed through onto whatever surface you are working on.

Next, cut the sheet to a more manageable size, and then cut out your patterns. I left approximately 1/2 inch around each piece to have room for letting out during the fitting if necessary. Better to guesstimate on the big side and take in as you go, than to not have enough fabric and be wasteful by losing a whole pattern.

This is only half of your pattern though, so you need to repeat the process for the other half!*

Mmmmmm...kippers. I may have one for lunch!

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*You can use the same patterns, just when it comes time to pin them together, remember to flip one piece or the other. =)

Drafting the Second Pattern

Here comes the tricky part, scaling up the pattern you devised if you made a thumbnail first.

I found some old blank newsprint and taped it together - using my scale, triangles and tape measure, I transferred the thumbnail to its actual dimensions on the paper. (after taping the paper together, trying to keep the edges in line as I possibly could.)

This part, in my opinion, is easier than devising the proportions of the first pattern. Its just transferring and scaling your thumbnails for the front and back of the under-tunic.

Note that I don't have any patterns for sleeves yet. Those are something where I'm going to try and wing-it, and I'll post the process as I go.

These are images of the process I used. If you look closely, you can even see the places I throughly screwed up.

Oh, and for the back pattern, since the bottom edge of the white comes to the bottom edge of the black of the front part, don't forget to do the front panel first.

Drafting the First Pattern - or trying to- Part 1

Step 2) Materials: Measuring Tape, Butcher Paper/newspaper/patterning paper, Pen/Pencil

Time to take measurements! Locate your 'Cosplay Victim' and then proceed to take the following measurements, jotting them down as you go.

Spine from waist to the Cervical vertibrae (the big bulge at the base of the neck), Natural Waist, Width of shoulders, chest around the largest point, waist to armpit (or wherever you want the bottom of the arm-hole to land), the height of the shoulder-slope where it connects to the neck, and how far away from the spine it is.

Here is a pretty generic thumbnail to illustrate the idea.

The above doodle is roughly how your image is going to look. I drew mine out in thumbnail, recording the measurements as I went - those are the blurry things you can't see all that well. The waist will be divided by four, same with the chest around the largest point (usually around the nipples). The shoulder width will be divided by half. I find that drawing in miniature first helps to practice the concept, then going for the full-size is less daunting.

Before we move on to full scale, we are going to need to determine the lengths for the various layers of the robes. The bottom layer is the longest and the front panels -which are longer than the back by just a smidgen - appear to fall to right about ankle level at the point. I located my 'Cosplay Victim' and measured from the high-point of the shoulder to the ankle. (remember to write these down!) Then, since the seam of the robes on the side of the body is at a higher level - right about on parallel with the bottom of the kneecap - you will need to measure up from the ankle and minus this from the total length.

Why measure up? Because its a bit more forgiving for a novice like myself. I'm not certain if it's against any rules, but it's a shortcut that works.

For the back panels, the longest points appear to terminate at about the same line of the white trim on the front panels. How large are these white trim pieces? Well, thats dependent on your height or the height of your 'Cosplay Victim' and to me, comes down to aesthetics. The white trim on mine will be about 4.5-5". I'll decide when I actually do the front panel patterns. (I'll be doing them first.)

More details to come in 'Drafting the First Pattern - or trying to- Part 2'.

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* Resources I used to learn how to do this - The Renaissance Tailor and The Good Housekeeping New Complete Book of Needlecraft (mine is from 1971). You can probably find newer versions if you look, but mine is a hand-me-down from my grandma, so I won't be replacing it. Though I may someday supplement it.

Introduction to the Project

The project in mind is an ambitious one, being the Armor of Altaïr from Assassins Creed II. It's a bit daunting, but hopefully I can record the process accurately and provide a decent reference for those of you that desire to undertake this costume (or one like it). This will be spread out over several months, so please bear with me as I go.

Step 1) Identifying the Construction

For a place to begin I looked up plenty of reference photos, and took a few of my own, to get a general idea of how the costume was constructed, focusing primarily on the fabric portions of the costume. The chest-plate, belt and bracers can come later. To supplement these photos, I did a few searches online to see how other people were constructing similar garments and see if any strategies they used would work for me.

I managed to identify one common way to construct the A.C. costumes in general, which is to do it in two main parts - a top part with the shirt and hood, and a separate bottom part; almost like a skirt or kilt where the coattails and bottom part of the robes are attached. While this method is more efficient, and does look nice, I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment at times and decided to actually do full layers. *

I know I wanted something that would look really nice when done, have a decent drape, and move similar to the fabric of the costume in game. The way I saw to achieve this was to try and construct a garment similar to how it would have probably been constructed in the renaissance. This to me means that those neat- floppy bits of fabric are layers of longer garments.

Time to doodle!



(please pardon how faint they are, I tend to draw lightly, and my camera isn't that good)

So now I have an idea of what each layer is to look like, what parts it will contain and what order they go in. Now I need to take the measurements of the person this costume is for, and develop a pattern to make a mock up which can be used for fitting.

Time to assemble materials for Step 2, this will be covered in a later post, so stay tuned!

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*If you would like to pursue this method of construction there are several really good blogs and threads on how to do it. Even if you don't pursue it, its a really good idea to check them out anyways, knowing how others approach problems can offer insight into how to tackle your own projects!

Assassins Costume: tutorials and reviews