Faye Lynn Cosplay: W.I.T.C.H. : How to, Walk through, Tutorial...

W.I.T.C.H.

Hay Lin

Irma

Why I chose these cosplays:
These were at the very bottom of my bucket list of to-do cosplays. But then I was approached to do a group with a Cornelia and Will. My sister were fans of this series since it first was available in the states. I loved the first comic book available from Scholastic but when they switched to those lame novels with a few comic pages in the middle I lost interest. However my sister continued to collect the books and watched the show as well. Needless to say we were both very excited to have the opportunity to do these cosplays.
Research:
We had to decided to go with the comic book versions of the characters. The main difference being the colors of costumes. I wanted to go with the comic because it was beautifully drawn and the animated show not so much. I wanted some solid reference and I liked the colors better (I was not about to make a magenta and sky blue costume! EH!)

You can see the difference here.

It was kind of hard to find pictures from the comic book but fortunately I still have my comic number one from middle school!
It took forever to find the right color fabrics. Really in the end I think I got lucky. I ordered one huge swatch order from SpandexWorld.com and got nothing close enough. Then on my second order on the first page, right next to each were the perfect fabrics. So lucky! The dark teal was especially hard to find.
I tried to find the exactly right colors for the tights as well but it was hard to tell ordering online, as you can't order swatches of tights.

Construction:
I started with drafting patterns from my sister's and my duct tape doubles. Easy enough!
When I got the fabric I cut it out and got sewing. I attempted to use my rolled hem foot which just did not work. What I really need was a walking foot. I ended up hand folding, pinning and hemming the all the edges with dis-solvable stabilizer. Which was a total pain in the ass. But they were done! The easy part of the costume!

Materials + Reference

Hay Lin's Panties which I foolishly forgot to put elastic in the leg holes

Hay Lin's top, with had silly pointy bits that had to be tapped down

Irma's top, with it's stupid swirly bits

Then it was on to the wings!
I made a pattern up and transferred the pattern to worbla...8 times. My hand hurt so much from cutting it all out. But first I spent many many hours making the colored parts of the wings. I used colored tissue paper and cut out and glued the two colors together. Then I put all 16 pieces into my lamenting machine. And then cut those all out too. Then I began the slow process of piecing the worbla lament sandwich together. I started by heating the worbla up to adhere the worbla together. Then I heated it again to bevel and round edges. Finally I heated it put a overall curve in the wing.
I put several layers of wood glue on all of it. Then I put more layers of paint and clear coat.
The harnesses were made from wire hangers shaped into a square U and cover with worbla. I looped through some clear straps on the U and it all goes on under the shirts and sticks out two small holes in the shirts. I had embedded wifi antennas in the bases of the wings. The antennas rotate and click into position and I was hoping to have adjust adjustable wings. However the ones I bought were just too wimpy to support the weight of the wings. The original one I had was much beefer and survived.

But these things were round, so with some help I had to drill holes through the socket and wing base.So that I could insert a pin to keep them from spinning around.

Laminating

Worbla sandwich

Painted with mounting hardware installed

The most nerve racking part of the costume! The tights! I bought two pairs of tights from we love fine.com. I tired on pair on, marked the lines then took them off and evened the lines. I cut both tights in strips or rings. I began sewing rings together alternating colors obviously. Now the problem was that the my extra stretchy stitch didn't stretch as much as the tights. OMG can you say Michelin man? Fortunately I wasn't I tried it on as I went and I realized this problem. I pre-stretched the rings and pulled on them as stitched. Didn't pull on them quite enough, so when I put them on my sister I pulled on them until a stitches broke. Which wasn't too bad because of tricot is a triple lock stitch so it didn't unravel.

Cuts to pieces lol

The begging

Hay Lin's socks, tights

Wigs! Irma's was pretty much just go with the motions. I cut it into layered side bangs then I set the edges in curlers. I gave it a hot water bath and let it dry naturally. I then worked some volume it into with some hairspray and a dryer.

Irma's wig drying after hot water

Irma's wig fluffed

Hay Lin's wig was another matter....
I ordered a super duper expensive wig with an extra pack of long wefts from Arda. This was just before arda added widows peak wigs to their lineup. Not that that would have helped me because Hay Lin has a unique hairline. So I set about ventilating her peak and side burns in. I did this for at least 3 three hour long classes plus several hours a day everyday for a week. When that was done I began to separate the wefts for the two pig tails in the back. This was when the headache started. The wefts just didn't want to separate and tangled ridiculously. My 25 dollar ebay wig for Starfire didn't tangle like this when it was new! SO I pined the weft to my wall and very slowly combed it all out so I could work with it. I wrapped it around the short pig tails I had gathered on my base wig. I pinned and wrapped on the pony tails super carefully so I could easily take it take it off if I need to re-style the base wig. I went to put some hairnets on the pony tails so that they would stay in one piece and hopefully not tangle as much. BUT they wouldn't even stay neat while I very very delicately sewed on hairnets over them. I was so frustrated. I was really disappointed with my first Arda purchase.For the hair ties I just made some out of the matching material and slipped them on.

Hay Lin's wig with custom ventilated lacefront hairline

The boot covers I just made some quick patterns with tape and saran wrap. I cut the matching material. Sewed them up and hot glued them to the base shoes we got from the Goodwill.