- Still a work in progress -
I taught myself all I know about propmaking and costuming. As a teenage of the 1980's I attended local Science Fiction Conventions, and every convention usually had a 1 hour seminar on costume making. These seminars only helped me for the first year or so, so I soon surpassed the seminars introductory level and had to go to libraries and talk to local artisans to learn more advanced techniques.
It took me about 10 years to become a pseudo-Master at costuming, but, I did not have the Internet. Right now I would say kids these days are making high level costumes within 3 years time, soley due to accessibility of information on the internet.
My advice to you is to start small. If you've never made a costume before, look for a project to take on that uses everyday clothing items in the costume, and needs a single prop/weapon that you have to custom create. Trying to take on a full body stormtrooper armor as your first costume project is daunting, it usually crushes the novice immediately. Start small, learn some basic techniques, then advance into a larger project after you complete the first one.
Potential first time costumes (just to give you an idea)
The internet is an AMAZING resource. If you have an idea for a costume, odds are someone out there has taken on something similar and you can read about their project, or you can sometimes just email the person to find out how they did it.
Google.com is a god send, but even yahoo.com in the old days helped the budding costumer immensely. I cannot stress the internet enough as a resource to the novice or even the professional.
Feel free to email me if you want to discuss this more, I am here to dispense information in a leisurely email fashion.
Every project starts with an idea. Without a idea of what the item will look like, you will be heavily challenged to make something. You can build a costume/prop from the hip, i.e. let your natural creativity shape the look of the costume, but even then, you still have to have an idea of what the final creation will look like.
I like to use reference pictures of what I am making. These can be hand drawings or photographs. I like to go back during the course of the project and compare what I am making to what I wanted-to-make in the beginning. This ensures my original vision is not getting distorted along the creation process.
The next thing I like to do is make Blueprints of the actual item to be made. This helps me keep the size of the costume or prop from being too small or too large, and it ensures my vision stays true. Lately I've been making 1:1 scale drawing of my fullsize costumes on large sheets of brown craftpaper. These 1:1 blueprints have actually speed up my creation of the costumes because I am not second guessing how large a particular item on a costume needs to be. I just whip out the ruler and measure the 1:1 blueprint.
Once my blueprints are done I can get to work on the physical costume/prop. Generally I am always sculpting something or another. I tend to use an OIL-BASED clay for my sculpting purposes. Kleen-Klay, Chavant or Sculptey III is my favorite clays to work with. Sculptey is best clay for projects smaller than 3 inches long (you can bake it hard and sand in some very nice details into the hard surface).
When doing Sewing work I always keep a sewing reference book handy. "The New Sewing Essentials (Singer Sewing Reference Library) is excellent as is The Vogue/Butterick Step-By-Step Guide to Sewing Techniques and the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. Buy a sewing book if you are going to sew anything from a pattern. Pattern instructions expect you to know the terminology like MITER, EASE-INTO and NAP when you buy that $9.99 pattern from the store.
Some adhesives that you will use over and over again in costume and propmaking are: Hi-temp hot glue/caulk , Superglue/Krazy Glue, 5-minute epoxy and JB Weld (for metal parts).
Tape is always needeed in costuming. Masking, Scotch, double-sided, electrical and duct-tape. Heck, DUCT-TAPE is the most widely used item in a costume makers kit bag. Duct-tape comes in very handy for fixing items on the spot when on stage or at a convention.
Velcro is a highly used item also. You can sew, glue or 'stick' velcro in almost any project you work on. Case in point: I tend to velcro my weapons into their holsters, to ensure they do not slip out when wearing the costume around.
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More to come as I find time. Contact me and bug me if this text is not finished by March 15th, 2006. I do get busy and things on the site get forgotten about.