TF:A Arcee 2.0



Third times the charm? Right? The plan was to just use my pattern from Arcee 1.0 and replace the broadcloth with jersey this go... But then I started staring at my worn pictures next to official art...



And I'm really not that happy with looks or how it wore. So my cookie cutter straight from a pattern has been sometimes already patterned and sometimes (read: mostly) I'm doing a new pattern from scratch. My time budget is now a month. I really need her done by the end of February so I still have a feasible amount of time for Knockout.

So here are the stats:

Start: Jan 30ish
End Goal: Feb 20th
Has to be done by: Feb 29th
Budget: $80
Fabric: 5 yards
Foam: 18 sheets

Costs/Materials:
Fabric: $40 (3 yrd pink, 2 yrd white)
Foam: $15 (12 pink and 6 white)
Hot Glue: $8 (x2 100 count bag)
Foamcore: $4? (x2 white)
Leggings: $6 (Considering it would take me longer to make the base black leggings, so worth it. I also like the thicker material.)
Shoes: $9
Twill Tape: $4 (x1 roll)
Hook and Loop: $2 (x1 black and x1 white though I have black and white on hand)
Hosiery: ___ (Need some light pink for the face, hoping it goes on sale...)
Leotard: Free (Same as Arcee 1.0 actually, just need to take it in)
Buckle: Free (left over from Drag Strip)
Blue Lame: Free (left over from Arcee 1.0)
Elastic: Free (on hand)
Papercard: Free (Upcycling from cracker boxes)

Total: $88 (Will actually do it to a cent when all done)

Mid Feb: Currently on budget as I just need 9 more sheets of craft foam so I should end at about $75. That even gives me $5 for two sheets of light blue foam and a half yard of more blue lame if I really want the buttpad/cockpit to be made out of that. Still haven't figured that out.

3/4: The shoes put me overbudget. But I needed more height and it'll be nice to not make the shoes removeable!

Planning

Helm and Mask: Done Enough.
28 Feb

Cut out the helm since I ran out of hot glue and was still waiting on my new debit card.



7 Mar



Sooo glad I kept this pattern. Got it all cut and glued together. :)

8 Mar



Covered the helm base...



And starting out building the mohawk thing. Lots of fitting and shaving off litle bits. 'Cept I still messed it all up.



The mohawk was way too prominant. Did a bit of surgery to fix it a bit but sadly not able to completely fix the issue. I'd just have to completely remake the thing and I'm not feeling that.



The seam still doesn't look that nice but GOOD ENOUGH.

9 Mar

I made the leia bun things and stuck them on. Forgot to take pics. Running low on time by this point honestly. But with the strap and leia buns the helm is done! Also glued in my mask from Arcee 1.0 'cause it works well enough.

Chestplate & Kibble: 95% Done

8 Feb



The front chest was one where the pattern idea was right, it just needed tweaking. So completely from scratch pattern but similar to what I had before.



The pink part narrows to the front and the front is also a little rounded/pointy where as the original was just a rounded rectangle.

IMAGE TO BE REPLACED LATER

Also made the white underbust a little wider which is what is displayed here.



And test run with all the velcro and the harness for the back kibble done. Also the end of my night (early at 11pm but I was tired). Sunglasses on because I didn't leave the house so I didn't put make-up on.

9 Feb



First thing done this morning: neck.



Here's what the back looks like before the kibble gets added. That black peeking through is the twill tape harness.



Figuring out what size I want the shoulders to be. The last ones were too big and I want them a little more rounded/with less seams.



And here is the pattern of the shoulders. Still an octagon sphere. Had to stop here for the day as I had work and I need more pink foam.

10 Feb

Starting on the kibble since I'm outta fabric. As I said in my tweet, this is a costume of many, but minor, changes.



14 Feb

And cutting out the kibble. It is both fun and terrifying (kind of have one shot at cutting it).



Noticed my nails were a lovely blood red... While stabbing my foamcore with a knife. lol.



And here is what it looks like after cutting but before trimming!



I finished cuting and trimming and glued it all together before bed (I think, mighta done it during the day on the 15th).

15 Feb

In the evening I did the pink base of the shoulders, cutting foam, gluing it together and covering it. Covering it was a punk. Freaking spheres.



And guestimating the deco size...



After that I forgot to take pics. Aha whoops. Don't even remember when I finished 'em. This is why you should update your worklog more often than me, kids!

16 Feb

Look who is helping me cover the kibble! FE Prime Cliffjumper! He's from Japan.



Finished covering these guys in white and the black deco which just left the pink deco.

19 Feb

Patterned out the kibble's pink deco, its base is posterboard which I covered in the jersey. While cutting out the posterboard there was a hilariously well timed explosion in my kitchen which happened a beat after the lightning strike in the movie, you know the one right after Rochester proposes and which is clearly an omen of shit being about to hit the fan? Yeah. My glue gun died and in its glorious death took out all the sockets on my exterior walls. That was the explosion. So I was stuck without light in my kitchen after dark and an extension cord draped in a way that dared me not to trip until I figured out how to reset my breaker (four days later).

22 Feb

But I pushed on and got the deco done and glued on.



And so shoulders, kibble and chest are done except for gluing them all together... Not sure why I haven't done that yet. Maybe tonight.



I added an extra pink stripe of deco on the kibble to cover a seam I fudged and for a bit more visual appeal.

Guantlets: 100% done

1 Feb

Realized how crap my old pattern was, sketched out some redesigns and settled on one.

7 Feb



Here's the mock-up of the new pattern, no. 4.3 compared to no. 1 and dear Primus I'm having to no designs of this. *bangs head on wall* If I say I'm even thinking of doing another TF:A Arcee (or variant but not including humanformers) then please smack me.



Final pattern pieces. It is actually way fewer than no. 1 with 3 vs 10 for each gauntlet. I wanted few seams and more curves.



Cut out and starting to glue it together. For the side seams I basically sandwiched that fabric between the two pieces of foam then put more glue in the seam once it was all together.



See? Sammich'd.



Then I pulled the little wings around and glued them in place. Those kinda cover the sides of the hands.



THEN I put glue in the seam, held it flat then smoothed over it with an ice cube. That boths saves me from a few burns and also gives some of the smoothest hot glue you can get.



And here's a test wear. It pokes out a little bit more than I'd like but still better. The top is only taped in place for this.



And now starting the other one...



And tops and bottoms covered. Done for the night (it was 1am)

8 Feb



Doing fab backing of glue seams. If I were to redo this design ever I would now just have the tops overlap the bottoms. It would look a little cleaner in the end.



And done. Still a little pointy but not too bad. A definite improvement over mark 1.

Belt (Now with 100% more buttpad): 75% done
22 Jan:



Cut out and glued together the foam of the belt. Thought Arcee had the guantlet kibble like Drag Strip so that's the pink since I just use the smaller belt deco but she doesn't. So those are now just chilling.

23 Jan:



And covered all the belt stuff minus the buttpad. How detailed the buttpade is will depend on how much time I have. Waiting to glue the pocket things on til I have the leggings done so placement will be perfect.

7 Apr



Belt pockets glued on. Butt pad still needs to be made. Gah.

Calves: 100% YAY!

22 Feb

Figured out a new pattern for the calves. Old one sucked big time. Miraibaby's foot design for Breakdown was kind of a godsend as it solved one of my biggest issues on the foot shape. The calve having a proper shape was me just finally learning how those goddamn seams and pattern pieces needed to be to be a good tube. Only took me what, three years, two tries and a bazillion frustrated curses while doing repairs? Yeah. Somethings you just have to learn from experience. Frustrating, frustrating experience.

Also ended up cutting out the pattern pieces and gluing stuff together.



To get the seams smooth I laid the foam out close to each other but not quite touching, laid out some glue (what is the proper term for using a glue gun?) pushed them together really quick and then ran an ice cube down the seam to cool it quickly. I've saved 2/3 of the time I would normally be using holding stuff together and waiting for it to cool by doing that AND it makes nice flat seams to boot. Woot.

And the cut out pieces of the foot. Arranged like a horseshoe crab since I'm silly.



And the foot assembled.



Calves and feet together, with a test of the white deco pattern.



And white deco base also cut out.



I covered the foot and began the black foot deco before calling it a night.



25 Feb

The knees took foreeeever to pattern. Blarg. Work better than the original pattern so I guess that's a plus.





Held off on cutting anything til the next day to sleep on it.

27 Feb

Cut and glued the knee pieces, kinda covered. Decided to finish covering the calves first. But it was work time so I had to skedaddle.



28 Feb

Starting on covering those calves. I drape and pin then yank it off, sew it up and pull it back on. I like the sewn seam so much, so nice and staright and neat.



Everthing sewn and prelim gluing done. The left knee bottom is just chilling on there, the right one is glued down.



And here I've prepped the left calf for the application of the knee bottom.



And only after gluing the knees together all the way did I realize I'd made a rather large error. I should have glued the cap to the bottom and then covered it. Fuuu- Decided to just live and let live on that.



2 Mar

Yes I completely missed my deadline. I'm close, should only be a week off and it is partially not my fault. Sans debit card I was unable to buy more hot glue and lost a full weekend of work. So yeah. Thanks TFCC! But I got the shoes I'll be using this day and wore them around to start breaking them in. They are hideous. But they were only $9, a good height and I have no qualms never seeing them outside costuming again.



3 Mar

Finished the black deco on the feet and did most of the velcro which attaches the feet to the calves. I wanted access to the inside so the feet can be taken off though there's a ton of velcro to keep them on otherwise. I was 3" short of white velcro so when I do my next Joann run for hot glue I'll pick up more to finish it.

Did the knee decos. In this pic from front to back: 1) Cut foam 2) side glued to bottom 3) side glued together 4) top glued on and 5) covered.



Left is covered in two layers of jersey and the right is once layer. I'm running low on white jersey but it had to be covered in two layers.



Now I just have to glue the decos to the sides of the knees, do the knee band and get the shoes situated in the feet. And finish the velcro on the feet. So maybe a solid more day of work? Not too too bad.

7 Mar


Done!

Fabric Only Stuff (leggings, leotard, gloves): 100% YAY!

7 Apr


Starting on the fabric bits! Cutting out the chaps bits.



All sewn together! I used a premade black leotard and leggings then added the pink on top. I can take the pink off and reuse them once this Arcee dies if I want. And yes I made those into stirrup leggings b/c I'd be stupid not to. :)

I'm using a pair of white leather gloves for Arcee since I own them and they're easier to do things in.

Accessories

Currently planned: Swords and maybe a copy of Teaching Unit's Pet magazine or something. I dunno.

Progress/ETC



After 4 days of work.



Was driving me crazy how hard it was to find things/having to move a ton of stuff to have a clear area to work.



So I kinda organized it. The little ren phone box tin holds all my implements, there's one box for pink foam and black velcro, one box for white foam and white velcro and a third box for fab scraps. The small Disney bag was where the left over glue sticks from Drag Strip were hanging out.

And this is how my organized/cleaning up at the end of EVERY night is working out so far. Pretty well.

Finished



Now what I have left:
-Fix the shoulder velcro
-Reposition the kibble
-FIND PICS

Oh god yay!! :D

Thought the first one was great but this redesign is looking much better. :)

Wow, this is looking great! I didn't think this costume could get any better, yet you're proving me wrong! I can't wait to see more!

Thanks for the kind words, guys! :D

Updates:
Shoulders and Kibble are done! (Just need to be attached to the chest now)
Calves are mostly done!
Helm is cut out!

This leaves:
Leotard and leggings
Helm
And the Mask left!

So I'm prob at 75% now. Yay. The new mask will be put on hold until after KnockOut is done since my current one is servicable.

Holy crap, kick ASS!

Awesome! 8D

She's gonna look 50x's better at botcon this year. :]

Updates:

Calves
Helm
Fabric Bits
Finished

Now just a few minor fix things and the butt pad and accessories and I'll be finito!