Shinku - Part One

I started some preliminary work on my Shinku cosplay today.

On the weekend, I went fabric shopping and got some cotton velvet for the dress and wool stuff for the hat and capelet. I'm very excited about the velvet, it is very luxurious. I'm hoping it's at least a little less nightmarish to work with than the polyester velveteen stuff I worked with a couple months ago. Shudder. The wool is very nice. One of the colours is not quite right, but I think it'll work well once it's all put together. After fabric shopping I went to a costume store and found all the accessories for the costume too. Amazing. Her cane (she carries a cane) needs to be primed and painted pink, which I may start on next weekend if the weather is nice. Nicer...

My wig came in as well and I'm very excited about it. It's so bouncy and fun and full. It needs a little work still. The curls are a little too dense, so I need to straighten them out a little bit. And the bangs go down to my chin (and are so thick!) so they need to be trimmed down quite a bit.

Today I copied out and altered a pattern for the hat that a friend lent to me. I also drew up a pattern for the capelet and made a quick mock-up (except for the collar). I'm going to get an opinion on the shape of the capelet and then after that I'll draft up a quick collar and start working on the real one!