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 AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build

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AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« on: Mar 16, 2018, 10:20 PM »
So I didn't actually intend to do this costume until later in the year as I'm a full-time college student. However, I have a "bodysuit or shapewear" assignment due in 3 weeks and got approval from my instructor to make Ursa Wren's bodysuit. But Kelly (my actual name) how are you going to do a full bodysuit with no zippers? It's actually quite simple and genius: Snap tape up the shoulder seam and into the neckband. Since that seam is mostly hidden by armor you'll barely see it anyway.
So this pattern has no center front (CF) or center back (CB) seams. On the legs it also doesn't have any Outside Seams it does have a waist seam but you won't see it with the belt anyway.

The first part of any project is to think about it for a little bit, and I did, for about 12 hours. Wracked my brain on how to make this a bodysuit, not just a top and leggings, with no outside leg seams but no CF or CB seams. As I thought about that I patterned out the sleeve, ironically that was the easiest. In looking at references I could see that the lighter grey on the lower (kinda) part of the arm doesn't reach to the arm seam. So I lowered the darker grey "cap" down I want to say 1.5" In... but it could have been 2". I measured at the time but I'm writing this after sewing all day and so I don't wanna get up and measure. Besides the measurements that work for me and my bodysuit may not work for yours cause you really just have to scale that puppy down to your size.

Anyway, after a struggle, I patterned out the sleeve. Which actually got scrapped and redone cause I changed patterns. Yup, I'm that person.
For these next pics, I'm gonna apologize for bad lighting and cell phone pics.

I happen to have a stretch graded sloper for myself based on my measurements that I used for the top front and back. I've used it before and it fit great. I've used it several times for the base of other tops I've made and I haven't had any issues.

Y'all like my messy pattern table? Yeah, I do too. Anyway: Hard to see but it's a legging pattern that I also know fits, I took off 1/2" from each side of the inseam because I happen to know this one is a little bit big from the get go.
Now that the basics are all taken care of it's time for the fun part, or not so fun part... depending on if you enjoy patterning or not.

I lined my top pieces up with my modified legging pattern and drew a center line, the point where the leggings and top meet (drawn in green) will now be the waist seam.
In going through these photos I realised that I didn't take pictures of the process of marking out the lighter grey detail for the leg/hip. Woops. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of measuring on my body, on the pattern, a lot of staring at the references and then deciding where these should hit on my body (I'm shorter than Ursa by a couple inches, she looks about 5'6"-5'8" I'm 5'4") I know that from the lowest point I went up 4" to the next level. and then from there... I think it was 4" again because they appeared to be even or very close to it. Well anyway, when you're done (if you're actually following this to help you make this thing) My pattern looked like this:

yup lovely, it's orange and black, black being my cleaned up lines with my french curve and hip curve.
After that, it's pretty simple... cut it out.

Which actually makes the pieces themselves easier to see.

« Last Edit: Mar 27, 2018, 09:25 AM by Kadiith » Logged
Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #1 on: Mar 16, 2018, 10:49 PM »
Now it's time to cut the fabric and all that fun stuff. First off:

Those are the fabrics I'm using. The lighter one is a color called "shadow" and beyond that I can't tell you where I got it since it was donated to my school and we're allowed to go in and take fabric (I actually thought it'd be better for a different project) The other fabric is from Mood in LA, I was there in October and actually got a different fabric to be the darker one but in looking at it today I changed my mind.

Cutting out the lighter grey

Cutting out the darker grey.

I bet you're wondering what this is... well it's called "power mesh" sometimes called power net it's basically what they use for shapewear, and while it wasn't required I know that the tops of the front and back are gonna have to hold armor, and I'd rather give them another thing to really hook into in addition to the fabric. Same for the sleeve cap, that's gonna be a high-stress area from the opening. Same with the lighter grey leg detail, it's gonna have armor on it.
And that's all I got right now, I cut everything out. This will be an active thread and then quiet for a bit until around July-September when I have the time to really do the rest of this.

Fun fact, as I was cutting the sleeves, I swapped the colors... whoops I made the shoulder detail light and the sleeve dark, don't do that it's the other way around. It wasn't a big deal I just recut the fabric (correctly) and resewed it up. so yeah.
Anyway moving on, so I sewed my sleeve details first, this took a bit of time and I thought 'flatlining' the power mesh to the fabric would make things easier and it didn't because the flatlining was just a basting stitch and it didn't stretch and then messed me up, so I didn't do it on the edge that needed to get matched up.

Having said that this is what the sleeve looks like when it's all been serged together. I'm going to highly recommend you use a serger for this, with a zigzag you'll see it and it'll look really funky and puckery.

Flatlining the power mesh to the top of the shirt front and back.
Looking back I actually think some of the photos never actually took or maybe, I forgot to take them... either way, I'll try and explain this as clearly as possible.
So I believe I said earlier how I planned to get into the bodysuit without a zipper: snap tape at the shoulders through the neck. If you've sewn in a zipper (in pretty much anything) the process is very similar to put the snap tape in. You're going to want to put the wrong side of the snap tape on the right side of the fabric with the bulk of the snap tape going towards the bulk of the top. Stitch it down, then flip it under so you don't see it and the snaps are now facing correctly and then stitch down the other side. Do that 4 times and you ought to have something that will look like this:

You can see it from both the underside and the top side. You can barely see it at all pretty cool right?! If you're someone who doesn't have my build and you're very convinced you won't be able to put a full bodysuit on like I did alternative method is snap tape or hook and eye tape at the waist seam, it just all needs to be nice and tight or else it'll move, bunch, pucker, and just look off.
Next step is to sew in the sleeve, you have to do the snap tape before the sleeve because you need to have a shoulder seam to sew into. I sew my sleeves in the open. Meaning my side seam is open, honestly most if not all knit garments are sewn like this or really should be. When you attach the sleeve seam to the body it'll look like this:

And then you simply sew up the sleeve underarm seam and the side seam all in one happy go and then you'll get this:



Congrats there is now half a body suit happening. Rejoice, take a deep breath and prepare yourself for the nightmare that is the legs. You are strong enough to do this (I did it and I'm alive).
Leg step one:
attach the bottom edge of your lighter grey to the darker grey that makes up the lower calf section of the suit (I wish there was a photo but there isn't and for that again, I'm very sorry).
Leg step two:
Attach your front dark grey crotch pieces and back dark crotch pieces where they need to go.
Leg step three:
Make yourself some tea, or whatever warm beverage calms your happy heart and get out your pins cause it's time to sew the whole thing up. First: Start by sewing up your front crotch pieces and back crotch pieces and this time, I have a photo!

Now, this is where the fun begins. You're going to take the right side of your bottoms and match it to the right side of your top, all the way around, pinning is important here. For this, I put the top in the bottoms and then pinned it all around. Eventually, you'll end up with something that looks about like this:

If you're not confident that you'll get the serging right the first time, go ahead and baste it together with just a regular straight stitch, just remember if you did that and go through and pop all your stitches when you're done or you may (probably will) panic when you put it on and hear stitches pop. Serge up that seam make sure there are no puckers or issues and then go ahead and close up the legs, really easy, start from one end and go all the way to the other. Check your seams again, and then try it on.
I'll be taking photos tomorrow 3/26 and I'll probably upload them as well either tomorrow or later in the week.

« Last Edit: Mar 27, 2018, 09:15 AM by Kadiith » Logged

GoldenCat


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #2 on: Mar 26, 2018, 06:03 AM »
Awesome progress! Looking forward to see this when it's ready. Sewing is my nightmare and Ursa's suit is not the easiest one - and that's why I admire all the work. Good luck!

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Xundor Wrex


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #3 on: Mar 29, 2018, 02:51 PM »
Super excited to see the progress on this one!

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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #4 on: Mar 29, 2018, 06:14 PM »
Yup, it's done, Sorry for the maybe weirdness of the photos I might retake them later. It was crazy hot in that room, with no air movement, in a full body suit, nope not fun.

Side

Front

« Last Edit: Jun 11, 2018, 05:20 AM by AhsokaFreakingTano » Logged

Havelock


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #5 on: Mar 29, 2018, 07:34 PM »
Wow.  Really amazing work!

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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #6 on: Mar 29, 2018, 07:37 PM »
Really cool!
Looking forward to the rest of this build.

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GoldenCat


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #7 on: Mar 30, 2018, 02:44 AM »
 :o incredible

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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #8 on: Apr 02, 2018, 11:45 PM »
Impressive! (Also nice socks, I have the same ones!)

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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #9 on: Jun 26, 2018, 06:27 PM »
Get ready for some pics.

Hand plate

Knee Plate

Back collar

Front collar

Shoulder Plate

Front little detail thing.
Oh and I recently just changed phones, and because of that some of the other armor photos (chest plates and back plate) and how I made them are on that phone. But I did manage to take a group shot of them at some point.

So there's that at least.
Now the thigh plate, I think it's been a bother for several people. Is it 2 pieces? Is it 3 pieces? Well... I mean you look at the concept and you see this.

Sooo it could be 2 or... well fun fact. It's 1... I was looking through Instagram one night looking to see if I could find anyone else that did this and happened to find this photo.

That happens to be the Instagram account of the character designer for Ursa Wren. So I took a chance and asked him about it... wasn't expecting much since it was a year old... but...

Right from the maker's mouth! The thigh plate is 1 piece.

So I came up with that. Pretty good.

Test fit time:

Please just ignore that face.
I shortened the front collar a lot since when I patterned it out. I also took in and up the chest plate again for my final.


Thigh and knee fit test, nothing to really change.

I took in the back plate and shortened it a little for my final.

So I then took all these pieces, cut them in half and scanned them into my computer with my printer, and then opened them in Adobe Illustrator. What did I do after that? Well I used the happy pen tool and retraced all of the pieces, reflected them and tweaked them as needed (making sure the sizes were the same thank god for smart grids)

Did a lot of this, making sure my spacing would be right and then. you may be asking as to why? Well, I have access to a laser cutter. Yeah, I know, fancy. Well, the cutter has a program where one line color is cut and one line color is etch. Well, my cut lines are blue and etch lines are yellow, it's a super subtle etch you won't see once I paint it.
So While I'm not going to show the entire process, because then I'd be writing a novel, I'll show some little parts.
For example on my chest plate, I went in did my top little triangle curvy thing (it lines up with the ridge on the collar plates) and then did my center detailing, from there I did the largest side portion

the two lines are my guidelines, that intersect is where I want my point to be.

from there I messed about until I got this shape, I then changed the shape of my chest piece slightly, and tried the shape again since I wasn't super happy with it.

Finally got a shape I was happy with.
Now you may wonder 'why 2 etch lines' well they make a really nice guideline. The outer most line is that lighter yellow that's around everything, the white between it is that darker grey line and the inner line marks where the yellow starts.
I did that on all my pieces, I'll take pics of the cut plates, and maybe a video of them being cut, we'll see.
Oh important note: If you want these vector templates for the full armor set (minus the boots) send me a message, I'll happily release them to anyone that wants them.

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Andr_Soul


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #10 on: Jun 26, 2018, 06:52 PM »
I will watch  this  thread with interest  :vizsla:

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Avidem


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #11 on: Jun 26, 2018, 07:18 PM »
Well I'm in for the long haul now.

Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #12 on: Jul 01, 2018, 09:00 AM »
First off: y'all are great lol.
Second: My friends are basically crazy so we have a habit of doing secret surprises for people who are a part of our costume groups. Well yesterday as I was surprising my best friend for his Birthday, we apparently double-crossed each other and I got surprised with a couple little things for myself (I got a patch so that's cool XD)
While I knew about the blasters and the helmet, I didn't know about the gauntlets.
We also cut 2 of the 3 armor plates and the last is being cut today and I'll just update this reply once I have them.
So here we go... Helmet, I got this from a friend who decided for a rather sad reason she wasn't going to be doing a mando anymore (or at least for a long time) and didn't see a reason to have the helmet.



Yes, I've tried it on, my local Rus' who I've been bringing my stuff too says there's no issue with it especially once I put padding in it which I'm holding off on until I have my wig and that gets styled because at that point I may not need any.

But here have a selfie in it.
Gauntlets



There may be a couple greeblies missing I'll have to go through and check it was 1 am when I took these photos
Model by AprilStormProps it's her "Ursa Wren and Bo Katan" gauntlets on Etsy, they fit awesome and with a tich of padding at the forearms later they'll be perfect but again: holding off until I do the gloves.

Blasters, this is round two, first ones were too small so I had to size up the file and try again.
Now the cool part armor
Yes I'm doing 3mm no I don't care that many other does 6mm I'm a tiny human being and it'll look funny if I'm covered in 1/4in plates.
'but it'll break' yeah not if I'm nice to it XD though I'm also prepared and had 2 full sets cut out of the material.

Here are some cut shots, inner lines are etched lines they pretty much just scratch the surface of the Sintra, other lines cut.
Yeah I know, pretty smart aye? Now if you're going to spray paint this I wish you luck, there are 2 colors of grey and 2 colors of yellow all in a very small area.
I'll personally be hand painting (and sealing lots of sealing not my first rodeo)

Another laser progress shot.

and almost all of my plates cut.
EDIT***** Got my final plates cut they look AMAZING


Each one took about an hour and a half to etch and cut, and thus by the time we finished the second one (we started late) I wasn't about to wait another hour, it'll get cut for me today or tomorrow.
On the boot front: I'm having a puck made that I can vacuum form from that way I know it will work. But a friend of mine modeled up the boot little... pocket things?

I'm still deciding if I'll print these and then have them shoved into the puck and mold as one piece, or print seperate and attach, that's a future problem.

« Last Edit: Jul 03, 2018, 12:10 AM by AhsokaFreakingTano » Logged

IzabetLorca-Wren


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #13 on: Jul 02, 2018, 06:24 PM »
What program are you using for all of your designing bits? And is that helmet 3D printed or a pulled mold?

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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #14 on: Jul 03, 2018, 12:07 AM »
What program are you using for all of your designing bits? And is that helmet 3D printed or a pulled mold?

All of the templates I used Adobe Illustrator Like I said if you want the templates I can send them to ya
all of the 3d files: I'm not sure I didn't do those, a friend who wants to practice modeling more did those.

Edit on the previous post: added photos of my final cut plates

« Last Edit: Jul 03, 2018, 12:11 AM by AhsokaFreakingTano » Logged

IzabetLorca-Wren


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Re: AhsokaFreakingTano's Ursa Wren Build
« Reply #15 on: Jul 08, 2018, 05:40 PM »
The templates would be lovely, thanks! Ursa will be my next project!

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