Check out these cartoon heads made to complete dance costumes for a school dance performance. They had already arranged the black leggings and singlets, and required from me the images on the front for them to hand stitch to the singlets. I could have made lycra jumpsuits or leotards, but they already sourced an alternative by the time they found me.
They emailed measurements of the kids and these cartoon heads were made to scale.
The heads were quite small, to allow for the movement of dancing limbs, and I realised I had just the right amount of colours in stock from previous jobs. In this case, I charged only for the labour and the foam, throwing in the lycra for free. It could have been a fair bit more expensive If I’d have to make a trip out to purchase a metre in each colour, so that was lucky. I’m not always able to do that.
we used foam because we felt that was the best light weight material to keep it’s shape without causing injury with sharp edges like plastic, or to lose it’s shape as cardboard can.
Basically I drew the designs to scale on paper and used the paper design to trace the foam shapes and to cut the pattern pieces.
Once the foam was cut, I bevelled the edges to make smooth and to give a better finish through the lycra.
Then I ironed on interfacing onto various lycra pieces and then used an iron on glue to fix the pieces into place. These pieces were stitched in place using a stretch stitch and stretch needles in my machine.
Then I stretched the cover onto the foam and hand stitched it closed.
Because the foam heads were firmly encased in lycra, the client was then able to hand stitch the heads into place on the costume base.
I was very pleased with the result. It’s fun to work with bright colours.
contact agent costume if you need a custom made costume, or want to to be styled up from the costume collection.