Melisandre of Asshai, Game of Thrones (Original)

This is a costume I plan to complete, though the initial purpose was for a Game of Thrones cookout my friends hosted and it didn't get done. It was for my birthday, and all week people kept dropping by to visit (normally everyone forgets? thought I'd have several days to work on this), so I ended up sewing the entire cloak from scratch the afternoon before the party. It is still wrinkly from my drunken lounging.





Allow me to gloat for a minute, I've NEVER had a costume poof into existence in about 3 hours. I picked the fabric because it was cheap, light, and the right color. It needed some interfacing, so I built up a rough pattern with the interfacing itself, pinned the pieces together, and fed it to my machine. It wasn't perfectly smooth, but I'm amazed how decent it came out.

I went with an original design because I have read the series with my own interpretation of how the characters look. Plus, I could never be as awesomely creepy as Carice Van Houten who plays her on HBO. Just don't have those eyes. I'll have to figure out my own angle.




This was my inspiration for the cloak, from another series I've read (Sword of Truth/Legend of the Seeker) that briefly made it into a show, which I have not seen, though the costumes are great:




I'm not entirely sure what I want to do about clothing under this - the idea of a two piece sari-dress appeals to me. The books always described her as though she were dressed for a much warmer climate.


I have a felting machine that desperately needs some action. I've also gotten a bit rusty on my digital embroidery. Want to embellish this costume with my own fiber/dye/embroidery work, because there is amazing stuff you can do with silk and raw fiber.


(inspiration, not my work)



The best part about the HBO costumes is how accurately homespun they look. Right now you can tell my cloak certainly came from some upholstery section of a fabric store, but hopefully by the time I'm finished it will look the part.

I love this! I agree that the homespun fabrics the show emulates are very difficult to find (i know i haven't found them). Would love to the whole thing complete!

Rue

So the red fabric I used for the cloak is in the center, surrounded by some of my dye experiments. Most people think of her iconically in red - only red - but I have noticed the show costumes have a lot of different tones that still come off as "red." Since fire is her medium, I am going for exotic fabrics with copper and blue as accents. That two-tone silk I have had for YEARS waiting for the right application (originally got it as lining for my Twilight Princess Zelda cloak, but it's too beautiful to be almost completely concealed). It mostly comes off as dull copper/violet, with shifts into ice blue. The iPad did a decent job capturing it, to me this stuff really mimics flame.

Deciding how to pull all of this together is going to be REALLY tough, might have to sit down and make some sketches!

Here is what I have pinned together as a starting point.



Some new fabrics added, including a top that I am modifying from a dress for this costume. The neck will be covered by a high embroidered collar, while the collarbone area is left open. The top is pink but it will hopefully be dyed to match one of those reds, I don't care which one.

The large bell sleeves have the blue/copper silk lining the inside of them, which really keeps this from being too predictable and red. And red.

I have wig on the way, it's really hard to tell what KIND of red wig you are going to get from a monitor, but this is also the same ebay store I got my Commander Shepard wig from, so their documentation was fairly accurate. I didn't go with bright copper red, fiery auburn, or anything like that. This wig looks to be mostly dark brown with henna red highlights, similar to the show, but less wine-colored. I want this to be believable and not cartoony like a comic book villain.

Looking at henna designs for some embroidery ideas.



These paisley shapes could easily be tweaked to look more like flame. Can't wait to see how my embroidery software interprets something like THAT. :unsure

The wig came today! I was so stunned by the realistic texture of the fibers on this thing (it's synthetic), I immediately put it on for a picture. It is exactly the henna brown/red color I wanted.



This will probably not be exactly how I style it for the costume, just pinned some of it back and slapped makeup on. YES. MY HAIR DOESN'T CLASH WITH MY CLOAK. That would be unforgivable.

I can't say the same for the dress top I dyed, I'll try one more rinse and if it doesn't work, oh well.

I like the wig and cloak combo, very complimentary. The cascade of hair sort of mimics the fall of the dress. Are you going to try and get the necklace from the show?

Rue

Very nicely done so far!

Very cool! You just need to find someone with royal blood...

Looking great so far!

Sluis Van Shipyards said:

Very cool! You just need to find someone with royal blood...

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Don't forget the leeches.

Looks great! On the one hand, you might want to pad it to make it look like you're pregnant. On the other hand, you might not want people's reaction to be running away screaming...

SmilingOtter said:

Looks great! On the one hand, you might want to pad it to make it look like you're pregnant. On the other hand, you might not want people's reaction to be running away screaming...

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Not to mention, if they HADN'T seen the show, what would they think of me throwing back cocktails?

Rue said:

I like the wig and cloak combo, very complimentary. The cascade of hair sort of mimics the fall of the dress. Are you going to try and get the necklace from the show?

Rue

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Good question. I do like the design of the necklace on the show, but since my gown will have a collar, I may have to change it slightly.

Really happy with how the two-tone silk looks inside the sleeve. That wasn't how I intended on hemming it though. I think some kind of applique or embroidery will end up covering it eventually, at least along the area that is pinned up so the lining is exposed.

They will also be off the shoulder sleeves, so that placement on my mannequin is likely where they will fall on me, with an embroidered cap at the upper part of my arm.

How high is your collar going to be? I have the sense that on the show the "oriental" collar style is semi -reserved for Lannister ilk. Although stannis i guess gets away with it now that i give more thought. Do you have some drawings of the top?

-rue

I followed the link from your Shepard build and I am very glad that I did. I haven't done any sewing since I made a pair of shorts in high school 10 years ago. Now I really want to run over to my parent's house and make something on my mom's sewing machine. Maybe a hooded travelling cloak.

Of course now that I have seen this costume I am going to have to start reading and watching Game of Thrones. The RPF seems to introduce me to many series. Saw some great Halo armour, played the games. Saw an amazing Katniss cosplayer, bought the Hunger games series and watched the movie. The RPF also got me hooked on Mass Effect a few years back and I am itching to play Skyrim because of Volpin's work.

Rue said:

How high is your collar going to be? I have the sense that on the show the "oriental" collar style is semi -reserved for Lannister ilk. Although stannis i guess gets away with it now that i give more thought. Do you have some drawings of the top?

-rue

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I'm not entirely sure it will be a "collar" yet - it may be a necklace that clasps in the back, giving the impression that it is attached to a neckline - but I do know I've been wanting to try something like this on my machine for a long time.

Nessy said:

Of course now that I have seen this costume I am going to have to start reading and watching Game of Thrones.

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Definitely read the books! Both are equally entertaining though, which is pretty rare in my experience.

So I spent all day unlocking some new achievements in my embroidery software. If you want to see a hilariously narrated video (that my roomate kept imitating at random), this is what I did:

Generations Digitizing Software - 02 Image Preperation - YouTube

I will explain just some of the process - first I make a vector, then I stick it into digitizing software that turns it into a child's drawing. After a lot of individual stitch corrections, sometimes re-drawing whole areas with satin stitch (the darkened swirls in this picture), the software generates some embroidery that vaguely resembles the vector.



Here I've just put it on sticky stabilizer, but if I were actually using that sheer fabric I'd use water-solvy. I test print on the tear-away sticky stuff because it is easiest to see what glaring flaws in the design look like - that are not due to fabric issues.



And this is what it looks like straight off the hoop. The back is essentially paper, so it's pretty stiff.




I'm pleased enough with it, so it is ready to be repeated (designed to be a trim) and sewn on the costume. I haven't decided if this is going on the sleeves, or somewhere else.

That embroidery machine is pretty cool. I wish I had one for the Saruman costume I'm working on at the moment.

I'm surprised there aren't more Game of Thrones related projects on The RPF.

Hi! This looks AMAZING! I was wondering if you used a pattern and if so, do you have the link still?