Construction Notes: This project was worked on longer than any other project I've ever done - we began work on it in summer of 2006, and juuuuuust completed it in time for Dragoncon (if you notice, I don't have a sword. We didn't have time for that, so it'll be added later). Chase began sculpting the helmet out of clay - he took the measurements of my head and padded out a wig head (though it didn't need much, my head is apparently almost as small as a wig head... LOL) and sculpted the helmet around that. You can see various photos of it through the sculpting on the right. The sculpt survived his move from Nashville (I believe it rode in the front seat of one of our cars!), before being completed - Chase made a mold of the finished sculpt, and cast it in resin. He then cleaned up the cast, primered it, filled in where it needed it, primered it again, and finally painted it. The back feathers were made of lightweight (RC plane hobby grade) plastic, also painted and attached - same for the chin piece, which is removeable - it velcros on either side. The wings were made of foam - the dense sort you find at Home Depot, for housing insulation. Chase blew-up and re-drew an image of one of the wings and printed it, which we then cut apart and used as a pattern for cutting out the wings, and carving the feather patterns. They were each coated and sealed, then painted. They attached very much like my old Belldandy angel wings - I wear a harness under the bodice, which the wings slide onto. The shinguards Chase also sculpted and cast. They are the one thing I'd really like to rethink - they want to spin and twist as I walk, so we are thinking perhaps buying a pair of shinguards similar to my Mara Jade ones, gutting them, and putting my current shinguards over the interior as a shell. The bodice and skirt I made of a nice gold garment-weight leather. I used a pattern as a basis for the bodice -- I made a mockup first, and lengthened it, and created the neck/shoulder area (it was originally a strapless pattern), then used the mockup as a pattern for cutting out the real material. I used the mockup as the lining, put the boning and grommets in, forgot to get gold laces for the back until the last minute and ended up with green. LOL. The skirt I went through many, many stages of mockups before finally deciding what I wanted to do -- I used that final mockup as a pattern for cutting out the real stuff, again. The "WW" chest piece Chase made a pattern for, cut out, and then we opted to glue it to the bodice instead of sewing - the gold thread looked too different on top, and we didn't care for how it looked. The belt we lucked into - our local fabric store had belt material the same colour as my leather, the right size and everything, so all I had to do was put my buckle on, put some velcro on the back it was finished. (The buckle and round pieces holding the cape on were all bought at Tandy and painted gold.) Finally, the cape I made just by draping my fabric over the dressform, cutting and pinning and finally hemming. It velcros into the bodice - I was terrified if I sewed it on, someone would step on that cape, jerk me around and possible mess up my bodice, so I went with the easy-tear-away velcro LOL. The gauntlets were my regular Wonder Woman gauntlets, which need replaced badly LOL - and my sandals I bought on ebay. They also need replaced - they are almost a size too big! Very difficult to walk in, my feet kept sliding around. The spear Chase made of a pipe from Home Depot, some plumbing piece, I forgot what's called, and made the spear point out of foam, the same way the wings were made. The shield was a giant metal sled, with the holes filled in, armstraps attached on the back, and we had a vinyl decal printed of the shield design, and affixed that to the front. Is that it? LOL, man there was a lot to this costume!

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