Need help with ANH belt and hair for Leia

Hi everyone! I need some advice on how to make an authentic-looking belt and hairstyle for Leia's white gown in ANH. I made the gown a few years ago and it came out great, but was never able to make a satisfactory belt. And for the "cinnamon bun" hairstyle, I got those fake hair lengths, fashioned them into two buns with lots of hairpins, and then attached them to the side buns of my real hair, but I was never satisfied with their shape, or their "staying power." Any suggestions will be greatly apreciated!

 

Go here for great tips on making the belt:

Leia tips at Obi-Wan's Jedi Academy

And go here to ask on hairstyle tips (I would love to help, but my hair is past my waist, so my experience with fake hair is very limited):

Female Hairstyles

And for any other Classic Leia ANH gown tips, this thread is very helpful:

Leia ANH First Gown

Hope that helps!

 

if u want it to look the same, u outta remember that leia's hair in that shot is not cinnamon buns, but a bun made up of braided hair on the back of her head and w/ some more braids and hair hanging down her back.

 

I have pics of my belt and hair on my website too.

 

Sorry ya'll....(slapping myself on my forehead...) I should have mentioned which white dress..... I meant the white dress with the hood....not the ceremony dress. I have long hair ( I can sit on it) but it is not thick enough to get that BIG cinnamon bun on each side...so I "padded" it with the fake hair last year....but it didn't look quite the way I wanted it, so I was hoping for any advice/suggestions ya'll could give me. Thanks again!

 

Mirax! You are soooooooo talented! I wish I could do all that with costumes. I also wish that you lived in SC so that I could be your Padawan! ~sigh~ ...if wishes were horses, right? But seriously, you don't happen to make any of that for sell, do you? hint, hint...lol. And that Obi-Wan website that was posted by (sorry, I can't remember who it was...) was great also, thank you. Is there an easier way to make the belt maybe with out metal working? Would sculpty bond to the leather with any type of glue/bond? Also, how do you use sculpty? I've never seen it before, but I have seen people talk about using it to make some of their items.

 

http://www26.brinkster.com/leiacost/ceremonial/belt.html

I really need to finish this page, adding the pictures I took of the process and measurements of my belt plates. Sometime in the next week or two I'm remaking my ANH Leia belts, and I'll post progress about what I'm doing (trying it a different way). I don't like the gap between the plates and the belt caused by the velcro, and I'm going to put snaps on as the fastener. To keep the plates on the belt, I think I'm going to use Bondo. I'm skipping the "drill a slit for the button shank to go through" bit because I haven't found that type of covered buttons in a while. (The first ones I used, the shank was attached to the button cap, not the metal piece that keeps the fabric in place.) I'll be using hot glue and possibly more Bondo to attach the caps to the metal plates.

You can find small sheets of tin at Hobby Lobby (the 5x7 size was plenty for me), and it can be cut with the right kind of scissors.

 

Thanks very much! The belt pieces attach via velcro. And actually, I made another one for someone using the craft foam pieces from walmart and cut the shapes out, put the silver lame over it and velcroed to the belt- worked great! It helps to make templates out of posterboard and try them out for size and proportions. The hair is tough. I used fake hair from Sally and used reference pics. I twisted the hair and then wrapped it around. It takes practice to get it to look right and lots of bobby pins too. I would just play with it until you get it right- it is tricky to not make the buns too small or too large too. Practice makes sorta perfect on that one.