Antimony cosplay?

[kiwise]

Hello! I am very new, but I have been following Gunnerkrigg Court for a long time!

To express my love for GC, I plan to cosplay Antimony in her school uniform. I've been figuring out what I'll need, and I've gotten stuck on what to do for a few things: specifically, her hair, her sweater, and her necklaces. I'd like some input from other fans. =)

I apologize if this should have gone someplace else. DX

Also, I am kind of a perfectionist. And this is kind of long. Sorry.

Hair:
My own hair is curly, about shoulder-blade length, and currently red. So, I guess I could cosplay Annie without doing anything to my hair, besides straightening it a bit (so it'll be less frizzy and more wavy, and also so it'll look longer)? But I don't know if that would be recognizable as Antimony, so I'm currently torn between getting a wig and using temporary pink hairspray.

Pros for using hairspray is that I think it might be pretty accurate to what Antimony's hair actually looks like; I was under the impression that pink is like, artistic license and her hair is actually red? More importantly, it's way cheaper than a wig. I actually already own two cans of pink hairspray. And I don't mind having pink-ish hair for a few weeks.
Cons for hairspray is that sometimes it can be sticky and eww and get all over everything. I've never had much trouble with hairspray, honestly, so I'm not too worried about that. If it turns out terrible at the last minute, though, I'm kind of screwed.

Pros for buying a wig is that I can cosplay Annie anytime, whatever I do to my hair. I don't usually do much to it except dye it red, but I am planning a future cosplay where I'll have the same problem, whether to dye my hair black or get a wig. So I might have to get a wig for one of them, probably this future one (Aradia Megido from MS Paint Adventures, if it matters). And also, I don't think my own hair is long enough, and I'm not that crazy about straightening my hair.
Cons for getting a wig is that non-crappy wigs are expensive. DX And a pink, wavy wig isn't all that versatile, so it'd be really hard to reuse it for a different character. I could basically only use it for this cosplay.

So, I'm asking you guys! Which do you think would work better or be more accurate? Or, just which would you prefer to see? Personally, I'm leaning towards the wig, but I'm reluctant to spend the money....


Tan/beige sweater:
As seen in this picture. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find normal, plain, solid-colored, non-cable-knit, non-v-neck, school uniform sweaters-not-cardigans. In small or medium. Maybe I'm just terrible at searching, and maybe someone could find something better, but here are the top three closest shirts I've found so far in order of preference:

Option one.

Option two.

Option three.

Option one is the closest, I think, but I'm worried about the neck being too wide to cover with my shirt collar. Also, the lack of the ring-around-the-neck-you-know-that-thing? will bother me endlessly. There is probably a way to fix it, if only I could sew.
Option two would also work fine, though there shouldn't be a ring-thingy around the wrists, but maybe I could cut them off and hem them or something I dunno, I'll figure something out I can live with it. The problem there is the v-neck. Why do all sweaters have v-necks. Also the color seems kind of off, but the color will probably be off no matter what I do.
Option three, same v-neck problem, except it is also ribbed and maybe too short. Cheaper, though.

What do you guys think will look better? Option one is my default, but I'll go with whatever you guys think will look best.


And some miscellaneous necklace questions:
1.) Have we actually seen what the coyote tooth looks like as a necklace yet? I found something that will work for the tooth on this site, so I need to figure out how to turn it into a necklace. (I'm not going to try to make the tooth-sword right now. Currently, the thought terrifies me. Maybe eventually.)
2.) Any idea how make something that looks like a blinker stone? DX I have no idea.


Thank you very much, if you bothered to read this! ^_^ Any advice at all would be very appreciated! Again, I'm sorry if this should have been posted some place else or anything.

[key]

Her hair isn't really pink, not exactly. And your natural will look much better than plastic/metallic looking hair. So if you can't afford a nice non-shiny wig, I'd say just stick with your own hair. What kind of red exactly is it? More orange-ey or brown-ey? Or is it absolutely red?

I think the second sweater is probably the best. The first one for all its having a round neck looks too flimsy, and the neck is too wide. The second one colour and texture-wise looks best, although again the neck seems a bit large. The neck on the third sweater seems the smallest.

What are you doing for the skirt and shoes?

[kiwise]

I know her hair isn't really pink, but one of my chief concerns is being recognizable. Which clashes with my other chief concern, accuracy. So, I was a bit torn there, but I decided I should probably go with recognizability over accuracy. My hair is dark brown-ish red, so I figured that if I could get the hairspray to work the way I wanted it to, I could get a compromise between pink and red. But then I discovered this wig. I do have enough money to buy it, I'm just reluctant to spend it (though after sleeping on it, I'm less reluctant). And I know cosplay.com's wigs are pretty good quality. But if you think using my own hair would work better, then I'll go with that.

OK, one vote for option two. I'll wait for some more votes before I buy it.

I asked a friend who can sew if she can make the skirt for me if I get her the fabric, and she's agreed because she is awesome. <3 As for the shoes, I haven't done much research into what kind of shoes Annie usually wears, but from what I can tell, it's mostly black Mary Janes and ballet flats? Shouldn't be too hard to find, and I found a backup pair of ugly, clunky Mary Janes that I could use just in case.

[jayne]

Red wig that won't look real but it IS in the spirit of Annie's Character, which I think might be better since Annie doesn't look real herself.

[jayne]

Darker Red

[Eversist]

Quite the ordeal to find a blinker stone... Took me awhile to find this:

Octagonal plastic gems, 4th one down.
And you have to buy them in sets of 50 or more, but it's only 5 bucks.

I'm going to keep looking for a bit longer.

[rutland]

I'd use a wig. Cartoon characters always have thicker hair than most people naturally do, and you can find good quality wigs for relatively cheap. This is a quick example -- the light pink maybe wouldn't be the best fit color-wise, but you could always redye it.

[digikitty]

still messing around with my own Annie cosplay, but here is a pic of me with the wig I got to use for it. Was the closest shade of a natural red I could find to Annie's hair color without going into actual pink wigs. I believe the color is called Henna Red.

i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo153/Maryannah_2008/thanksgiving096.jpg

[eightyfour]

Nov 19, 2010 23:38:03 GMT Eversist said:

Quite the ordeal to find a blinker stone... Took me awhile to find this:

Octagonal plastic gems, 4th one down.

Those look amazingly accurate - shape, size and color seem pretty spot on from what I can tell (maybe just a tad small and minimally too dark). I think you'll have a very hard time finding anything better than that, short of having one custom made (and I shudder to think what that would cost).

[fuzzysocks]

You can get a pink wig... of you can get a white one and dye it yourself.

To take care of the shinyness a ton of people are referring to... you can dust it with baby powder and it takes away a ton of the shinyness and makes it look more real.

[kiwise]

jayne and rutland: Thank you, I think I probably will end up using a wig.

Eversist: Thank you so much! It completely slipped my mind to look for fake gems, and those are amazingly accurate. Thank you!

digikitty: It looks good so far! Have you debuted at a con yet? If I may suggest something, I would use red eyeliner on your eyebrows so that they match your wig. Which reminds me, I'll need to do that too. XP

fuzzysocks: I didn't know about the baby powder thing! I'll definitely keep that in mind, thanks.


Any opinions about which sweater I should use? <3

[jombra]

Nov 19, 2010 23:49:42 GMT rutland said:

I'd use a wig. Cartoon characters always have thicker hair than most people naturally do, and you can find good quality wigs for relatively cheap. This is a quick example -- the light pink maybe wouldn't be the best fit color-wise, but you could always redye it.

Actually I think the last one (Merlot/Burgundy) is the best fit for Annies hair, since her hair is almost a dull pink.
For the sweaters... Hmmm Annie's sweater sometimes looks oversized, so number 1 with it's large neck line actually might work for that. I'd be safer than sorrier though and go for number two.

[simzthedragon]

If you're really a perfectionist like you claim, then this cosplay will be delightful!
When you get it all done, there needs to be pictures posted.

Ooh, and don't forget purple eyeshadow and orange lipstick.
(the eyeshadow looks dark, but if you google it, there's a picture that show it's accuracy.)

[kiwise]

Yes, pictures will definitely be posted once I've made some progress! <3

Annie's lipstick looks more gold than orange to me, but I found some orange-ish metallic-ish lipstick lying around my house and experimented with it a little. (Please ignore the red eyeshadow stuff, that was an experiment with lipstain.) Sadly, the lipstick didn't show up very well in that picture. I will need to fix that somehow. I think I'll need to invest in gold or orange eye/lip liner.

[simzthedragon]

Nov 26, 2010 21:10:07 GMT kiwise said:

Yes, pictures will definitely be posted once I've made some progress! <3

Annie's lipstick looks more gold than orange to me, but I found some orange-ish metallic-ish lipstick lying around my house and experimented with it a little. (Please ignore the red eyeshadow stuff, that was an experiment with lipstain.) Sadly, the lipstick didn't show up very well in that picture. I will need to fix that somehow. I think I'll need to invest in gold or orange eye/lip liner.

I don't think that will be necessary, the lipstick looks spot on.
Hopefully it's not too distorted?

And the light purple eyeshadow-- do you have any?

[kiwise]

Strangely, I don't seem to have any pink eyeshadow handy at the moment, but I plan to pick some up! Actually, since that lipstain showed up so well in the picture, and since that particular brand never comes off ever seriously I might end up using pink lipstain for eye shadow. ._. Maybe, I'll see what I can do with regular stuff.

It's important that the makeup shows up in photos, since her makeup is one of the things that makes Annie stand out, and it's pretty much one of her defining features. I'm having trouble getting the lipstick to show up on camera, and it looks a little strange in person since it's such a weird color, so that's why I mentioned lipliner. Also, it's a more orange-y IRL than in that picture, so I figure gold will help it both look more natural (or at least less weird) and be more accurate.

[Ulysses]

I remember Miri cosplayed as Annie once; you could ask her for some advice. I think she used a pink wig...

[Miri]

I did indeed, and I used a dark-pink wig. It's a color I really like - if there was ever a natural pink, this is the color it would be. Some sellers on eBay have them (eBay is a perfectly good place to get wigs if you know what to look for), shop.cosplay.com has them, you could dye a lighter pink wig to it or a variant on it with a mixture of pink and brown sharpies and a little experimentation. Or you could even take a wig this color and take it darker with a mix of brown and red. Lots of options.

Whether or not to use a wig is a matter of some personal interpretation, but I will echo the above and beg you, as a cosplayer, please please please do not use color hairspray. I realize the temptation. I know how expensive wigs can be. But it looks flaky and disgusting, it's not convincing as a hair color, and, more to the point, it gets all over everything. Your sweater will not stay the color you want it. Temp color hairspray kills babies. Please don't do it.

When I cosplayed Annie, I took a more natural approach to the makeup - so I'm extremely interested to see how yours looks, Kiwise! It's something I'm thinking about changing if I ever revamp the costume.

[lady]

I'm seconding Miri - don't go with the colored hairspray. I have seen it not only destroy many a costume, but it just...man, it gets everywhere and looks terrible. Totally not worth it!

I had hoped to get a better color wig for my Surma, but time was short and I was limited on what was available to me at the time.
amphigory.com/wigs_alices_dream.html this wig in burgundy may work well. You'd need to move the part a bit, but that's easy peasy. I've always had great service from Amphigory, so I plug them when I can.

In your makeup shot, it was hard to tell if you had any mascara/eyeliner on. That's really the only makeup advice I would have! Even for characters that aren't terribly made up, I always make sure to at least have a little liner and mascara. It makes a big difference for photos.

Good luck! Keep us posted on your progress!

[jayne]

The problem is, Annie's hair isn't really pink, it just appears pink with these backgrounds. Its like those color optical illusions. Annie's actual color is more like brick.

When I get home, I'll get the hex number. I don't have my graphics stuff here.

[Mezzaphor]

Red 175, Green 88, Blue 96. Or something close to that.



Which still looks pink to me.

[jayne]

Thanks, I went home and promptly forgot all about it.

The hex number is #af5860

[kiwise]

Got some gold (and pink) eye/eyebrow/lip liner and tried again. I like it, it looks a lot less weird IRL, and it showed up on camera pretty well! You guys think that will work for the lipstick? Still need find something a little better for the eyeshadow, though.

I have been successfully scared away from hairspray! But I'm still curious about how it would look. I have two spraycans of the stuff lying around, so I'll experiment with it once I find an occasion to temporarily dye my hair pink.

[EDIT] Forgot to mention that I picked up the fabric I'll use for the skirt today. XP Little bit of progress.

Miri: I love that color, too! I know what you mean about natural pink, I tell my friends about "natural blue" hair colors, and they look at me like I'm crazy. XD I was looking at a wavy wig from cosplay.com that was about that color, but apparently it's out of stock (it was the "Rose" style in dark pink, IIRC). This wig from ebay is very close to what I was looking at (it might even be the same wig, I don't know). The seller seems legit from what I can tell (I'd like a second opinion, though), so I think that's the one I'm going to go with. Unless the cosplay.com one is restocked pretty soon, but I don't know when or if it's going to be.
Good job on your cosplay, btw! And your Reynardine is awesome. <3 It's great to hear from another Annie cosplayer! May I ask what you did about her antimony-symbol necklace? I haven't found any replicas anywhere, so I think I'll end up making mine out of Wonderflex, but I don't know if that will even work.

lady: I forgot about eyeliner/mascara, thank you for reminding me! It does make a big difference in my experience, I'm just not used to wearing it because I don't usually wear makeup at all. I didn't have any on when I took that first picture, but I did in this one I just posted.

jayne: I know it isn't really pink, but after some deliberation, I placed recognizability a step above accuracy. It will hopefully be accurate to the representation of her in the comic, rather than what her hair actually is. So, if her hair only looks pink because of optical illusions, pink it is because it's still pretty consistently pink-looking. And Mezzaphor's color swatch thing also looks pink to me.

[Miri]

Thanks very much! :3 We had a lot of fun with the Reynardine head - the girl wearing it helped quite a bit, too.

Cosplay.com isn't restocking its cosworx brand wigs. They've been discontinued. :/ We were all pretty ticked off about it. However, this one from the Cosplay.com premium line with a bit of hot-water straightening might work if you like a richer pink look, or this slightly shorter one for a lighter pink look (that you could tint darker in nicely realistic lowlight streaks, if you were so inclined). Also, the eBay one you linked looks legit to me. Very pretty.

I don't think Wonderflex would work for the necklace. 0.o I made mine out of white Sculpey clay (pretty easy to work with!) and painted it silver with acrylic paint, then just hung it off a black elastic cord.

Your makeup looks fantastic, by the way.

[0o0f]

I actually didn't think of her hair as pink before finding what exactly her haircolor is by using a pipette (I think this was for a drawing I did a while ago, but now I don't like using a pipette for that for some reason). I was surprised to see how pink it is. Especially the highlights. Maybe it's pink because that looks colder?

Anyway, that wig looks fairly natural for pink, and I think that's best if it doesn't look too unnatural. Also, it is pretty.

[kiwise]

I like that second wig a lot. Maybe I'll go with that one. Ebay scares me, I prefer to use other sites when possible. XP

I don't really think Wonderflex will work, either. I'm mostly looking for durability, since I'm kinda careless with my cosplays and jewelry. ^^; So I'll try Wonderflex to see how it works, but my backup will be Sculpy. It shouldn't take too long to do either one once the semester ends and I have time to work on them.