Wednesday 4 June 2014

Custom Hoodies: Knight and Toothless!!!

I've been wanting to post about these for a while now but I'm terrible at remembering to document the whole creative process.

I have been inspired for a long time by the Canada Cosplay 'Toothless' hoodie (or 'Cute Dragon' as they like to call it to avoid copyright issues) and by various Assassins creed/Suit of Armour hoodies. So I went for it.

The Toothless Hoodie:

I am immensely proud of this and it's come out so well that actually I could adapt the pattern and use different coloured fleece and paint to make 'custom dragon' hoodies because the 'ears' could easily be replaced by 'horns'.

Having found THIS simplicity pattern all I needed to do was to add the various 'accents'. I designed my own wings, gloves and tail for the Toothless hoodie with a little help on the tail flukes from multiple DeviantArt 'make your own Toothless plushie' patterns - I think in the end I used them for reference when drawing out the flukes and scaling them:

Here's the pieces cut out - I eventually cut another two tail pieces because the tail was too small:


I also cut out 'ear' pieces and 'horn' pieces:


The Hoodie is made of Fleece with a thin T-shirt jersey full lining. I used Pebeo Setacolor Shimmer paint in Jet Black and a 'Giraffe Print' stencil for the 'scales' applied with make up sponges. The 'fingers' were large 'cone' shapes made of the Lining Fabric that was attached to Iron on interfacing for structure, folded in half right sides together, stitched at the edge, then sewn down the centre and turned inside out to make a cone where all the seams are on the inside. The ears, wings, horns etc have all got quilt batting sewn into them and the wings and flukes are all boned using plastiboning (the same stuff they use in prom dresses). The tail is stuffed with polyester soft toy filling. I'm still not sure I'm 100% happy with the way the tail hangs so if I come across a better solution I will reattach it.






















The Suit of Armour Hoodie:

This was always intended for my Fiancée as he has always wanted one. It went through several iterations with different shaped 'plates'. The arm plates have cotton string threaded around the edge seam to give them 'body'. I broke several sewing machine needles. As with the Toothless hoodie all the pieces are interfaced for stability. The face plate has a plastic liner made out of a cheap place mat - it works brilliantly. The main 'chest' plate is held onto the shoulder with poppers so it can be removed. The face plate is also held on with poppers so the hoodie can be 'scaled back' to be worn 'everyday'. If there is sufficient demand I'll write a proper guide and publish my pattern pieces: