Astrid's Fur Hood

Monday, July 13, 2015





My cosplay is starting to take shape and I'm really excited...and sad because I've been having so much fun making it but it's almost done.  All I have left to do is make the boot covers and wrist warmers.  Oh, and I need to make Astrid's ax.  I was at Home Depot today and I picked up a wooden dowel for under five dollars. I already had a little too much fun swinging it around and pretending is was already Astrid's ax. I didn't break anything but I may have annoyed my siblings a tad bit.

Anyway, I have tackled what I thought was going to be the hardest part of Astrid's outfit - her cape/hood.  First, I used one of those rings that scarves are hung on and painted it like metal.  A big thanks to my awesome friend who just happened to have a scarf ring for me!    




After examining Astrid's outfit I saw that she doesn't just have a hood but she has a short cape underneath the hood.  My sister has a lot of leftover fur from her projects and she let me use some of her dark brown fur.  It worked great and cost me nothing.  From some paper that was lying around I made myself a pattern.



I don't know how I would have been able to make this cosplay without a manikin dress form. It is so nice to be able to see how my costume is forming without actually having to put it on myself.





I used hot glue and leather strips to attach the cape and hood to the ring.  When I had sewed the lining onto the cape I left an opening so I could stick the leather strips into the seam and then secured it with hot glue.
           

The hood was the part I've been dreading.  I only had a limited amount of fur, so I didn't want to mess up. I used the Simplicity cape pattern that I had as a base and changed it to make it work for what I wanted.  I played around with scrap fabric until I had a design that I was happy with before cutting up my expensive fur.



After I used the pattern to make the fur hood, I folded the raw edges over and secured them with hot glue.  Hot glue works for pretty much everything - it's the best! I didn't give the hood an outside lining because the fur already had a nice leather backing and I really liked the look.


And yeah, if you haven't noticed yet, the craft room is the messiest room in our house.  We can clean the room but it only stays clean for a few days until my sister and I make it messy again.  I'm just glad we have a craft room.


I made the hood detachable by sewing snaps onto the leather strips instead of hot gluing it. That way it can be taken off of the ring. The skulls are attached by the wires I embedded into them when I molded them.  I plan on using Velcro to securely attach the shoulder pads to the brown cape.




Oh, and I ordered a blonde wig for my cosplay.  I spent more on it than I had initially planned.  I just really don't want a wig that obviously looks fake. I can't wait until it gets here and I can try my hand at styling it.

By the way,  you may have noticed that my blog design has changed.  I lost my background and for some strange reason I could not access the website where my original background came from. I'm not sure if I'll go back to my old background or keep the background I have up now.  To be honest, the background I have now is starting to grow on me.

9 comments :

  1. Thanks for posting this tutorial. It's really helpful for making my own Astrid costume.

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  2. thanks so much for posting this wonderful tutorial! I wish I had found it earlier!!

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  3. Sydney- You are very talented and creative. Your costume is wonderful and you look great in it! I'm making my own version, less complicated. It is for someone younger (age 14) and shorter (5' 2.5") and smaller (smallest waist 28.5", belly button- where she wears her pants- 1" lower and 30", hips 33") than you are. She's not here and I'm struggling with dimensions? What are the dimensions of your leather skirt panels--the length, width at the top, and width at the bottom? How many panels did you use? If you don't mind please, how tall are you and what is your waist measurement? Thank you very much.

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    1. Hi Anne, How exciting! I hope my tutorial was able to help you. I'm 5'8" and my waist measurement is 32". The leather skirt panels are each 16" long. The top width is 3" and the bottom width is 4". I used 10 Panels for the skirt.
      I hope this helps. If you have any more questions feel free to ask ;)
      ~Sydney

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  4. Hello again, Sidney. I wrote to you this time last year (see above). I hope you had a good year. Thank you very much! Your tutorial was extremely helpful and so was your response. The Astrid costume worked out well. This year, my young friend wants to wear the costume again, but she expects more refinement. May I ask you a few more questions, please? You attached the first layer cape and the second layer hood to the (scarf) ring on your chest. The whole assembly is quite heavy. How did you keep it in place? Mine pulls down in back, up in front, and lands tightly against the neck in front? It is truly a choker ;-) . My other difficulty is with the shoulder armor. Would you consider posting your pattern pieces online? Of course, I can imagine you have moved on to many other exciting projects and may not want to revisit this one. Thank you again for your generous assistance.

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    2. Hi Anne,
      Thank you, I had a great year. I'm so glad you are still finding my tutorial useful and I'm excited to hear that your costume turned out well! Yes, I attached the first and second layer of the capes both to the ring. It is heavy and it does pull down and want to choke me, haha. what I have been doing is simply tacking the ring down to my shirt with some thread whenever I wear it. This keeps it from sliding up. For the shoulder pads I afraid I didn't save my pattern. On the first post for my astrid costume I did post a picture of the pattern I made for the shoulder pads on that post. When I was making my costume I found this blog post really helpful - http://liv-is-alive.blogspot.com/2014/06/astrid-how-to-train-your-dragon-2.html I hope this helps. Feel free to ask me any more questions if you have any ;)

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