Romantic Jewel Aquamarine

I'm so pleased to upload my newest costume: Aquamarine from Sakizou's Romantic Jewels artbook. This was such a crazy project! I made it in two weeks to wear at Supercon, and it was a bunch of ruffles, beads, and tears. I wanted to use a nice, low shine fabric so I choose a white shantung. The art has this wonderful watercolor gradient of blues and greens so I wanted to dye my fabric accordingly. Each of the ruffles are gradient dyed from green to blue, as is the rest of everything. To give the skirt the correct shape and poof, I made a multi layer petticoat with a bustle/butt pillow to go on top of that. Then there's even more tulle on top of that to poof it out even more! All of the bronze beads started out as 3mm white pearls that I painted and antiqued. The corset was made by me as well. It utilizes cable ties instead of spiral steel boning, and WOW is it super sturdy! The tights were an interesting undertaking. I made a form of my legs with tape and batting and put the tights on those to paint them. The cameo/brooches were made using clear cabochons backed with a very lovely aqua scrapbooking paper.

Thanks go to David Arran Photography for the wonderful photo!