Cosplay: Steampunk MLP

I like making costumes.

No, back that up.

I HATE making costumes.

But I love designing costumes, and I REALLY love wearing costumes. So, I make costumes. Grudgingly, painfully, and with a fair amount of blood, sweat, and tears, I make costumes.


I started out making historical or historically-based costumes, particularly from the Renaissance and Elizabethan periods.

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Twisted Rapunzel, picture by Hugh Casey Photography

Then I did a few Steampunk pieces. They're always fun. Loosely historical, but lots of room for modification.

Now I'm getting into Cosplay.

But, seriously, cosplay's hard. You have to be all accurate and stuff, and accuracy is not exactly my forte. So I've decided to ease into cosplay by doing crossovers.

A crossover is when you take a cosplay and modify it to fit a theme. In my case, that would be Steampunk, because, well, I like Steampunk. For example:

Pixar's Jesse and Woody

On the left you have the original Pixar characters. On the right, you have my interpretation of them, all Wild West-ified and vaguely Steampunked. These costumes are still in progress--the shirt's being remade and the accessories are getting changed up--but you get the idea.

So now I'm playing with this idea of Steampunk Crossovers, and I've decided to tackle another one: Steampunk My Little Pony.

No, really. My Little Pony. Steampunk. Because WHY NOT.

I'm actually not alone in doing this. There's a whole group of "steamponies" that will be at Steampunk World's Fair this year. We've even got a semi-official meet and greet/photo op planned.

SO IT'S NOT JUST ME.

Anyway, I thought you might like to see some pics of the dress in progress. Here you go:

The "design board." Time to cut the fabric. It took me three tries to attach the sleeve correctly! Pinning pleats for sewing. The gown, without cutey marks attached. Finished gown!

If you aren't familiar with My Little Pony, this is a costume based on Twilight Sparkle. She's very bookish, so I've gone with a Victorian librarian look.

The bustle mimics the colors in Twilight Sparkle's mane and tail. I couldn't find striped purple fabric, so I made my own. The pattern called for something like five yards of fabric, so I got two yards of three colors of fabric, which makes six yards, which, MATH, should work, right? No. MATH NO WORK THAT WAY. I was short a good yard of fabric. So I had to leave off the apron (the front of the bustle.) But that looked silly. So...

I pieced together a modified version of the apron from the scraps of fabric I had left. I still can't believe this worked.

The bustle's honestly a little small. It could have probably been another two inches around the waist. But whatevs. Once the corset is cinched it *should* be OK.
Maybe?
Fine, there might be a small gap.
But no one should notice.
Why are you looking at my butt???

Cutey Mark designed by Brassy Steamington

I still have to finish the cutey marks (the designs on the pony's butt; my cutey marks were created by Dr. Brassy Steamington) and trim the underskirt... and figure out how to fit all of my hair under the wig. But it's mostly finished.

I'll post pictures of the finished costume after Steampunk World's Fair. Promise. :-)