Padme Amidala Handmaiden Costumes

Oh dear! That's sad.

 

Thanks for all the resources, everyone!

I have two more weeks of 11-hour days, then I hope to get actually started on constructing this. Because of the costs of the fabrics, I'm really scared about the actual sewing...I may be back to ask for a lot of help and suggestions!

I wonder how they finished the edges on that bottom hem? I zoomed in on as close as I could, and I can't tell...

 

*Squees at the Flame Handmaiden gowns especially, but also at all the others so far* Beautiful! I'm about 70% done with my Flame gown; I'm making it for GenCon Indy. I'll post pictures once it's done.

So far, I have to say that the Flame gown is both really easy and really difficult in different ways. It's difficult because it's so many pieces,and because the sleeves are so complicated (at least they are the way I did it; I still didn't get them exactly right...) and really easy because there's a lot of room for mistakes.

So far, I've used about 9 yards (it doesn't SEEM like that much, but I'm nearly out of the 10 yard roll I bought...) of white crushed velvet (I'm dying it later) for the gown, and I estimate I'll use 3 yards or so of cherry red fabric (I think what I bought was cotton; I wanted satin, but I ran into a few problems) by the time the undershirt, underhood, and sash are done.

I have some beautiful light wine colored satin I intend to use for the underdress/lining og my next costume: The Handmaiden Battle Gown.

I'll post pics as soon as my Flame gown is done; it looks ridiculous all white right now.

 

Can't wait to see it! And actually, feel free to post any "construction" pics, too. They're always neat to see.

 

Just saw this from SDCC Preview night and Windlass Studios:

http://flickr.com/photos/starwarsblog/2697602250/in/set-72157606337314876/

It is the TPM Battle outfit. Not sure on the details but from these pics, the velvet looks cheap to me.

 

Oh, my!

Ever since I heard they were doing this, I was wondering how it would actually be done...

Granted, we can't know much, but from that pic:
1. The pile/shine on the pants looks different from that of the coat.
2. The sleeves on the coat look out of proportion with the rest of the outfit. (Much too short.)
3. Can't tell for certain, but the belt buckle doesn't look impressive.
4. The gold trim on the coat doesn't meet! It simply seems to end on the waist and then you see the double trim down the sides of the coat.
5. Gathers on the front of the coat at the waist rather than just the "pinned back" look.

It's difficult to tell, color-wise and as far as the quality of materials go.

I have to say I don't have the world's best costume, so it's not like I can be snooty or anything, but at first glance, it's not an immediate "wow" for me.

 

I agree, the gathers look terrible and really ruin the effect. Maybe they need the gathers for the "one size fits all" aspect? The Padme costumes they've chosen to present at CC aren't the most difficult costumes to make and produce compared to dresses like Lake, Picnic and Senatorial gowns. Still, I must give them some credit- they already look better than Rubies!

*edit- no offense to Rubies- their version of ATOC Battle Padme was the first costume I purchased and it enjoyed many parties and halloweens. I just hated the "booties".

 

Yeah but Cressie, beating a Rubies costume isn't that hard. Even a bad cosplay costume from eBay can beat most of them

And GentleBant, I saw that the jacket velvet and pant velvet don't match. The belt placement is WRONG(should be over the coat not under) and the buckle looks like it lacks the embellishments. The only thing is the trim appears to be the original(just from the bad pics I have seen). Too bad they made this stuff when they had access to the archives Very disappointing.

 

Looks like the gold zig-zags where it should go under the arm. And the sleve is actually sewn to the side of the boddice. I'm baffeled. The pants material is poor and missing the gold trim. At least the under shirt looks fairly decent. I wonder if they will sell pieces seperately. I wouldn't mind getting the shirt. I could easily pass on the rest.

 

More photos from Rebelscum

http://www.rebelscum.com/SDCC08/MuseumReplicas/


Anyhow, is it just me or this Windless Studios is actually Museum Replica? It had been pointed out a few months ago that MR is gonna do some SW Costumes so I was baffled when I read Windlass Studios producing it.

Btw, somehow the gold trim on the Maroon Battle Dress looks like something I can easily picked up from my local Trims (mostly Indian ones) store for a dollar (or less) per yard? Without checking back, I thot the Gold trim looked similar to what I used on my John Howe's Galadriel Dress collar.
http://www.rebelscum.com/SDCC08/MuseumReplicas/image34.asp

 

Windlass Studios and Museum Replicas are one in the same. Since we had a MR(aka MASTERS Replica) already, the abbreviation MR is sort of confusing so WS is much easier to designate the difference. And yes, it was reported that Masters Replica was going to do costumes and even produced a ROTS Anakin prototype but that was before they went belly up

 

No, I was refering to Museum Replica when I said MR.

Dun think Master Replica will produce costumes.

 

I chatted with the Museum Replica guys for a while. They KNOW the costumes aren't correct, and the KNOW stuff needs to be fixed. These were the first run prototypes so they could see what needed to be changed about it. They sat and listened to many costumers who pointed out what needed to be changed and acknowledged that most of it just wasn't finished in time for Comic Con.

For the Maroon battle gown, they know about the belt (wasn't finished in time), and they know that the top needs to be fixed (it doesn't come all the way down to the pants at all). They also know that the boots need to be changed.


So don't judge too hard just yet.

 

For those of you who have made the maroon battle dress... What kind of gold trim did you use, and where did you get it? I found some at Joann's but it just didn't look quite right. Also, I see that the trim is on the shoulders of the coat and down the side of the pants. But is there also a bit of gold trim on the side of the coat and if I'm not mistaken there's some on the inside of the coat too?

 

If you ever got the 12" padme doll that came out in 1999, it is pretty good for finding out where the gold goes.
There is gold trim down the side of the pants:
http://padawansguide.com/amidala/battle/battle3.jpg
And the gold is on the coat around the sleeves and down the coat.
http://padawansguide.com/amidala/battle/chronicles1.jpg
There is also gold trim on the inside of the coat lining.
http://padawansguide.com/lecourtisane/expo21.jpg
As for the trim itself, I didn't go with an exact trim. I used the gold one you mentioned at JoAnn's but it is a bit too shiney.
Check out the detail on this shot:
http://padawansguide.com/sonnet/b9.jpg
Happy sewing! This is a wonderful costume to do!

 

What kind of velvet would be best for this?
I got a few samples from Denver Fabrics.
Would stretch velvet be a better choice than velveteen?

 

I wouldn't go with the stretch! It has a tendancy to stretch in places where you won't want it to and with the gold ribbon attached after a couple of wears you may find that it isn't sitting right. If you decide on going with stretch, store it folded not hanging from a hanger!

Ribbon...I have been looking for a while for a nice gold ribbon!

 

Yes, don't go with the stretch if you can help it. It will cause the dress to hang off of you and will make the ribbon pull and ripple.
Although, I can't really talk. I sort of cheated. I used an old 1980's poly bathrobe type material that mimicked velvet. It had no stretch to it and wasn't very bathrobe like at all to be honest. It looks and acts like velvet but cost much cheeper as my grandmother just happened to have 6 yards of it laying around! One of these days I'll remake it with velvet!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/starwarsblog/513624853/in/set-72157600264422193/

 

I went with stretch because it was less expensive, and because I seem to be in the phase of life where I've been either pregnant, nursing, or recovering from all that for the past five years, and needed something that was fairly forgiving. The disadvantages to going that way were weight, the difficulty in attaching the lining, the trim, and the way it hangs. Plus, I'm just not a very good seamstress. :~)

Thanks for the updates, Miana; I certainly didn't want to sound overly critical or alarmist, and am glad they're listening to feedback!

From some of the pics out there, it looks like they figured out the trim needs to meet to go down the sides of the coat, but didn't quite place it right and just put a little jog of trim in to fix it.

For my costume, I also used the shiny gold trim from Joann's...most of whatever else I've seen is either wired (which has it's own issues), too wide, too thin, or too sheer. I certainly keep my eyes open, though, for anything better. I'm currently on a quest for the belt buckle, and am getting quotes back from various sources.

 

I just finished assembling my flame handmaiden gown and am hoping to dye it within the next day or two... Cutting close to GenCon on the 14th, but that's okay. Anyway, I'm going to do dying with four seperate colors to create the gradient effect (wish me luck! ) and hopefully it will look okay.

I totally forgot about shoes to go with it, but I'm probably just going to wear my mom's champagne ballet flats. Not an exact color match, but they'll be okay. I might be able to get my hands on some little gold flats in a hurry.

In total, gown took about 36 hours if I combine time spent on it, and used 10 yards of white crushed velvet, and about 3 yards of cherry red cotton (I wanted satin, but had a color mixup and couldn't afford to order a second time. Probably for the best, as I want to redo the red parts later. ) I am only about 5'2", so expect to use more if you're taller than me.

Main issues were the underhood, and the oversleeves. The underhood on mine is wrong, but I'm not going to bother fixing it; too much time and I'm not sure how to achieve what I want, but I doubt anyone will notice anyway. The oversleeves I think I've done correctly, but I mention them because they're hard! I'll definately spend a lot of time explaining them when I write up my tutorial.

Anyway, I hope to have pictures for everyone once I've finished dying it! I just wanted to post with my triumph.

 

That's awesome! I can't wait to see what you've done.

I'm redoing mine, as well...though it's certainly on the backburner right now. After seeing the colors used and the lining chosen, as well as more of the construction details, I want my next version to be more accurate.

I have battle maiden questions:
What would most people say the size of the battle handmaiden belt buckle is (TPM)? And the correct belt width?

I've been getting by with my belt cover that is 2" x 3", and the belt I've used is 1.5" wide.

 

The belt width sounds dead on to me, not sure about the buckle but as long as it looks to scale, you are probably fine

 

Hm. I have hit an unforseen snag, and that is that it seems the fabric I've used won't take the dye. As far as I knew, crushed velvet was an easily dyable material, but I suppose they've lied to me.

It's quite possible the RIT dye I was using isn't strong enough, though I made it at double strength. Does anyone have suggestions? I won't be able to get a hold of dye and finish the gown before GenCon, but I'd love to finish it at SOME point.

Kinda' not cool that I can't get the handmaiden gown done in time, but ah well, at least I have my Jedi robes for the convention, right?

...

Pics of the white version will probably be up eventually though, in case they're of help with the sewing construction for anyone else. And at least it's over and done with (or on indefinate hold)! Now I get to move onto a new project!