I have always loved Scotland and Ireland even though I have never been there (fingers crossed, one day). When I first started reading fantasy books in high school I leaned toward ones more grounded in Celtic traditions. I remember being fascinated by knotwork and all the details that were used in their crafts (jewelry, carvings and tapestries etc.) especially the medieval works. So a movie placed in Medieval Scotland appealed to my adolescent self. If I had been 12 when it came out I would have been one of those girls that make one princess their whole personality.
Furthermore, growing up as a redhead, I was often pigeonholed as Ariel. But I knew in my soul, I was not Ariel. I was not slim or graceful. Sure I loved to swim but I was not a dancer or anything like that, granted I was not really a tomboy either but I did play softball. So Merida’s different take on femininity, and her no nonsense personality was more my speed.
Add to that a complicated relationship with her mother and being more attached to her father. Dealing with the world in a more independent way, that was, in short ….. Goals.
WHY I CHOOSES THIS COSPLAY
If I were to choose a Disney Princess, it would have to be Merida from the 2012 Pixar movie Brave. If you haven’t seen it, close your computer (not this page, leave that open) and watch it now and thank me later. It is about a Scottish princess whose Mother thinks it is time for her to marry but more importantly “start acting like a lady”. Merida is not interested in that, wanting to spend her time doing things that her mother finds more suitable to boys–like archery or riding her horse, Angus. During an argument with her mom she cuts a tapestry style portrait–splitting a literal and figurative hole between herself and her mother. Having (in her mind) burned all of her bridges, Merida rides away on her horse Angus. When she finally pauses, she’s in a ring of standing stones. There she finds some magical blue glowing Will-o-Wisps, which she follows to a wood-carving witch’s cottage who only makes and sells bear statues…Following fae-like creatures to an eccentric's cottage who is hyperfocused on a deadly creature, and then she makes a WISH? IN ANGER?? …It’s almost like Merida has never heard a fairy tale in her LIFE.
ANYWAY, Merida wishes for her mother to change. This wish is so unspecific, her mother changes into… you guessed it, a bear (foreshadowing, am I right?). To break the spell, Merida and her mom need to “mend the bond torn by pride.” In other words, they have to learn how to accept each other and see each other for themselves and not what the other hopes they might be.
Design: How Did I Design This and Why I Designed It the Way It Is
The first thing I normally do with any build is to think about the person that wore this garment and why.
Merida is a rough and tumble individual, so she is not going to be wearing fine or expensive clothing, we can see this when her mother dresses her in the light blue dress to meet the other clans she moves stiffly and even rips through the garments…. Almost like the storytellers are telling us this fancy dress doesn't fit her, in any way. While she is a princess she doesn't live near a port city like London, Edinburgh or Glasgow or really any trading hub. She is a princess in the highlands which, to me, means Tartan. Also, I LOVE PLAID SO FREAKING MUCH. *ahem* So, I needed to incorporate a tartan into my design.
At this point in my life I had been working in theater for 5 years. One of the things that had been drummed into me was TEXTURE ADDS CHARACTER TO A DESIGN. Whenever possible, avoid things like satin and quilter's cotton, unless it is a lining. I get why cosplayers and costumers can be drawn to satins and cottons because they come in a lot of colors. They are also easy to find and the quilter’s cottons, at least, can be easy to work with. (Quick head’s up: the poly satins you find at your average fabric store can be a nightmare to work with.)
Fabric can be an underutilized space to show a character's personality, environment, social status, and texture in a costume can add so much. Fabric is a great place to add those unspoken cues and make the garment visually interesting and or provide the eye a place to rest. And using textured fabrics is a good way to do that.
The original Pixar design was pretty plain, but a few months before I decided to make this Merida cosplay, she had gone through a redesign. Disney took the basic Pixar design and added finer details. While I could do without the shiny fabrics, gold trim, and the off the shoulder cut of the dress, I did love the idea of adding a celtic knot pattern around the bottom of Merida’s skirt. I NEEDED to add that to my version of Merida.
I set myself some rules.
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Make it look historical without actually being historical with all the layers
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Use fabric“ tom boy” princess would wear and add texture ( No Satins or Velvet)
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PLAID
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Use that redesigned celtic knot
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No zippers only laces to tighten
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Also? Plaid.
When we take this cosplay apart we get:
Dress ( including the under dress)
Belt and quiver
Wig
Maybe a prop
With this list and these rules let's get started.
Take The Look Apart
The Dress
I got lucky with the first fabric, I found this great plaid at a thrift store. It was the perfect color, the perfect sized plaid, and enough yardage (which is very rare). Unfortunately, the weight was not ideal for a historical costume. But like Meatloaf says “2 out of 3 ain't bad.” I have a few different techniques up my sleeve to trick the eye into seeing a lighter-weight fabric as heavier.
One fabric down, 2 to go. With only 3 fabrics, each one is important. I needed fabric for the underdress or chemise. I found this interesting woven looking fabric at my local independent fabric store that would add character to what could have been a very boring white cotton garment.
On the same shopping trip I found an odd brown fabric with a rough and stiff texture. Importantly, it had a fused backing–which meant that the fabric was made not to fray even if I left the edges unfinished. Because the backing held the woven fibers in place, I could leave the skirt unhemmed. The weight of the fabric would help make the plaid look heavier. Finally the stiffness of this brown fabric would help the plaid stand out a little more, giving the skirt more of an A line silhouette than a column. Win. Win. Win.
I started with Butterick 4827 for the base of the dress pattern. I knew that there was going to be quite a bit of pattern manipulation. Butterrick 4827 had the princess seams; the fullness in the skirt was perfect; and the neckline was the right shape. HOT TIP! So that I don’t irrevocably damage the pattern in case I need to go back to the original at some point, I trace the pieces I need onto brown butcher paper so I can make alterations without destroying the original pattern. This was especially important with Merida because I was going to make both the underdress and the over-dress with the same pattern. Furthermore, I was going to mess with the lengths and would have to cut into the pattern.
The pattern manipulation is also where the no zipper rule comes into play. Because I wanted it to be fitted without a zipper, I needed to alter the pattern to accommodate my arms, shoulders, and bust by making the pattern bigger on the sides and to minimize the fabric when actually on my person. I also needed to add lacing and loops. How I get in and out of a costume needs to be accounted for, and should be done in the patterning sections of a build (aka super early).
Underdress
Just a little history about chemise, because I have mentioned them a few times and will probably mention them a few more times in this article. Chemises have been around for hundreds of years, and have morphed over time. It is traditionally worn as an under layer–the closest layer to the skin for example in the Victorian era it was worn under the supportive layer (corset, bustle ect.). It was designed to keep your body with all its dirt, oil and sweat away from the nicer, more expensive materials of the outer clothes.
On the construction side of things, this is where historical accuracy and practical cosplay construction start to split. I treated Merida’s Chemise (the white sections) more like a lining than its own garment, by fusing it to the dress at the shoulders and sleeve. This helped to keep everything in place.
From the character design side of things, chemises were generally white or unbleached. But remember we are thinking about lifestyle in this build. With Merida’s active lifestyle, I doubted it would have stayed pure white for long. With that in mind, I could use this to add yet another texture, and even more visual interest to the cosplay. The base of the chemise is a white bed sheet–chosen for its simplicity and breathability. This piece of the dress looks like the original Butterick pattern but without sleeves, since those are fused with the outer dress at the shoulders. The textured fabric you can see around the neck is actually just a facing.
Quick sidnote about facing: Facings can be a lot of fun and can be used to add more detail or they can just do their job, and not be seen. This is up to you. In my Merida there are a few different styles of facings but in short, facings are an internal piece of the garment, generally used around edges–mainly neck areas and sleeves–to stabilize the garment, and to finish off a raw edge. For Merida, I used the facing as a way to add even more layers and texture. Once you get the hang of making a facing, they are an easy way to add so much interest to a costume.
I sewed the facing–which is made out of the textured fabric–to the inside of the chemise made by the white sheet and flipped the facing to the outside so all the unfinished seams are contained inside the pocket made by the facing. (Basically, and inside out facing.)
At this point in the construction, I have what is essentially a cotton maxi dress with no sleeves.
Outer Dress
When you use a plaid you should buy more fabric than you need, so you can pattern match (align the lines of the plaid on the seams of the garment.) Because my fabric was thrifted,I had to make do with what I had. I managed to line up the torso plaid, and hoped that the fullness in the skirt would hide the mismatches of the plaid within the folds of the skirt.
I also used a few tricks to save my fabric.
1) I always cut the biggest piece first. That piece is going to be the most visible. In this case I cut the body of the dress first, then the 4 sleeve sections. THEN, and only then, I cut all the little stips.
2) Instead of making facings out of the main fabric all of the facings of the outer dress are made from a contrasting fabric. To keep it all cohesive, the brown fabric used for the skirt hem is used as the facing everywhere.
3) The hem, that brown fabric at the border saved me sooooo much plaid. That one modification adds 2-3 yards to the construction as a whole.
Let me explain how I saved the yards of the plaid fabric by adding the burlap border. There are two ways to add a border. One way is to make a facing. To do this, you make the plaid of the skirt hit the floor and then add a piece that you flip outward. This is how I did the neckline. But I did not have that much of the plaid. Furthermore, as that particular skirt pattern lengthens, it gets wider, using up even more fabric. While a shorter shirt will use less fabric, it might lose the nice flare–and the all important swoosh. In this case, I used a shaped piece to extend the fabric and keep the flair.
This is where that brown paper that I traced the original Buttrick pattern came in clutch. Lots of people think that you can just add a rectangle to the bottom of a flared hem and it will be ok, but you really need to shape those pieces.
This is where that brown paper that I traced the original Buttrick pattern came in clutch. Lots of people think that you can just add a rectangle to the bottom of a flared hem and it will be ok, but you really need to shape those pieces. (picture)
In this case, I decided where on my body I wanted the border to land. Then (after I had traced the skirt pattern pieces onto the paper) I measured the border on each of the skirt pattern pieces, made sure they were equal, and drew a line on each pattern piece.
When I cut that line, instead of 4 pieces I now had 8.
I marked these so that each skirt piece had a companion border piece. They had to match back up to where they had been cut. I marked them as 1 upper, 1 lower, 2 upper, 2 lower and so on. KEEP IN MIND having added a seam, I needed to add a seam allowance when cutting out the actual fabric pieces.
I used the curved lower piece to help as a guide to create the stencil for the Celtic knotwork. I hand drew the knot pattern. Because they interlock, I only had to draw two repeats (I think they are birds). As long as I kept the same distance from the curved edges the pattern sat nicely in the border. The stencil ended up being so large, it could not fit in my vinyl cutter, so I cut it by hand on cardstock.
To prevent the stencil from moving, and the paint from bleeding, I traced the design with a brown sharpie. Then I used acrylic paint to fill in the knotwork. Captain, my cat, supervised this part ( RIP little helper) .
SLEEVES
Right or wrong, I always put the sleeves on last. In this case, it allowed me to use every inch of scrap plaid, since these are all smaller pieces. This part of the design, I thought of like filling in a coloring book. First, I made a lining out of the white bedsheet material. While constructing that, I made sure that all my little pieces of plaid stayed within the parameters of the lining. This way, I did not make it too big or too long. While there are fluffy parts of her sleeve, the fluff is created by too much fabric. Controlling the fabric with a fitted lining helped keep the fluff where I wanted it as well as preventing it from moving around or sliding down, or losing all that glorious fluff.
To construct the sleeves as a whole, I started at the top.
I cut a rectangle of the textured white fabric slightly longer and wider than needed to cover the cap of the sleeve. I then hand gathered it, and pinned it to the sleeve lining to test it out before sewing it down. The textured fabric hangs over the edges of the lining and that is perfect. Then I made little tubes of the plaid for the straps. I sewed them down at the sleeve cap only (the top) first. And the bottom (where the biceps plaid starts). By making the straps a little longer than necessary, they add to the illusion of fullness. For the plaid around the bicep, I cut a plaid strip that is as wide as my arm and long enough to cover the bed sheet liner fold over the seam allowance and top stitch it down covering the raw edges of the white textured fabric and the strips. Leave the bottom of the piece open that will be where you start repeating again with the white textured fabric and the strips. The forearm is the same technique only finished with a ruffle at the wrist.
Once I was done, I cut off the fabric hanging over the edges. I made sure to hide the inner lining. I surged the raw edges of the false chemise, but one could also zigzag along the edge, or use pinking shears. The sleeve is one piece. I put lacings at the wrists before sewing the under arm seam. First, I sewed button holes for the laces. Then I put the sleeve in. I like to deal with sleeves last. I get all the details on each sleeve, and finish them off by hemming or serging them. This way I can deal with the fiddly bits on their own without also fighting with the added weight of the full garment. Once the sleeves are finished to my liking, I add them to the full garment. With that, the sewing part of Merida is done. While that is a huge step in the right direction, it’s not over yet.
BELT
While I like to learn one new skill in every build, leatherwork was not on the list to learn for this project, so I thrifted the belt. I chose a braided belt to mirror the Celtic knotwork of the hem. By happy coincidence, the belt I found had a round, flat metal buckle on which I could apply my chosen Celtic bear design.
I really loved the Celtic bear necklace motif more than the one Merida actually has on her belt and so that’s what I used. I printed it out the size I needed (this took time and many trials).
Once I found the right size, I traced it on 2 mm EVA foam. I then glued it to the original metal buckle and GENTLY with a SHARP Exacto knife cut into the foam. Then I heated the foam carefully (metal conducts heat more than foam does, so it will be hot). Heating the foam opens the lines. While it was still warm, I pressed the foam evenly over the metal. It’s important to be careful during this process. Thin foam has a tendency to curl, and heat has a tendency to make the Barge separate from the foam.
Ideally I would have liked to take the buckle off the belt for painting but I had no luck. Instead, I masked off the leather part of the belt with tape, and started painting. I painted the foam black first, then Rub-n-buffed silver gently over the top. Rub-n-buff is a wax so it takes a little more time to dry than normal paint. I let mine sit for 24 hours. Once that was dry, I rubbed black and brown into the grooves; touched up with a silver pen; finally sealing the whole thing with shellac. If the foam is going to be worn in a state where it needs to bend I wouldn’t do this because shellac will create a hard shell. However, since it was backed with metal it wasn’t going to bend and crack.
QUIVER
The Quiver was the piece of this cosplay that I want to learn about. I had been sewing for years and felt really great about it, but prop making, in general, was a new world to me. The quiver I have now is the second iteration of the quiver. No need to bore you with how I made the first one. It got the job done, but it was nowhere near as sturdy as the one I have now which is EVA foam essentially wrapped around grilled PVC. PVC, because it takes a beating (I can’t tell you how many doors that thing has banged into or people have whacked into it walking past me) grilled, because fumes.
Very important warning: PVC WHEN HEATED RELEASES VERY HARMFUL GASSES. Instead of filling my house with said harmful gasses by heating it slowly with a heat gun, (there’s only so much airflow opening all the windows will create) I moved the whole operation outside. I could have used a straight piece of PVC to make it, but quivers are not a perfect cylinder. It’s more of a “not quite a cone” in that it’s slightly wider at the open end and slightly narrower at the closed end. Before I heated it, I cut a long, narrow triangle out of one side. I then wrapped my grill plate in aluminum foil and heated the whole piece all at once. I used grill gloves to gently ease the sides of the cut back together and let it cool.
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Now, to make it look like a leather quiver as opposed to a PVC pipe. I started with the inside, and made a thin long black bag [out of what?] and glued it at the top of the pipe. I rolled the bag over the edge to the outside just a little, I figured the foam would cover it from there. For the outside, I applied a sheet of 8 mm foam. I textured it with aluminum foil, and added stitches by punching through the foam with a leather needle (unlike standard needles, leather needles have 3 cutting edges instead of just a sharp point).
The arrows are simply dowels with 1mm foam to look like feathers. These are stuck onto a ring of foam I lodged in the PVC. Most conventions check that “weapons” are not actual weapons and cannot be used as such. Once I show that the “arrows” are sticking out of a ring, I am usually waved through. As I mentioned before leatherwork was not the thing I was learning in this project, so I attached the quiver to the belt. To do so, I found two matching kids belts and looped them about the body of the quiver, and riveted them in place.
WIG
Costuming is my strength, not wigs, and in 2015 I had only just begun my journey in wig care. So I needed to find a wig that needed as little work as possible. Thankfully, long curly red are very easy to find online.
After getting the wig and comparing it to what I wanted, I decided to change two things:
1) Shift the color from a very unnatural orange to a more natural red
2) Re-style the curls to make them tighter.
The first step, however, was to straighten it, because wigs are easier to color when they are straight. When I buy cheaper wigs I am never sure of the quality of the fibers. Some do come with a " how to care” tag, but I don't trust them. (Arda or Wig is Fashion care tags are more reliable.)
With these questionable fiber wigs I always try delicate options. I heated a large pot of water until it starts to bubble, not a rolling bubble but small bubbles, then submerged the wig in the hot water WITH TONGS it will almost immediately start to relax. I would leave it in for a minute or two. Pull it out and brush it out while it is toast. The water is a more gentle way to apply heat to the fibers than a hair straightener. You might need to do this a few times depending on how tight the curl is. Let it drip dry and brush it every once and a while.
To add color I put a combo of alcohol ink (types of ink) and rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle This is a better way to control the saturation of the ink on the fibers. Since I was only adding a little color I sprayed the wig about 3 times but if you want a more saturated color you might need to section the wig and do more sections with the spray bottle. If you need to use rubber gloves to work the alcohol dye in. I let the mixture sit on the wig for about 2 hours after every pass with the spray bottle.
I eventually got the color to be a more natural reddish brown. Even natural, undyed hair, is a slightly different color than the rest of one’s hair. When working with wigs, one way to give it even more definition is by “rooting” the wig, i.e. giving the fibers closest to the scalp a slightly different color. Nature hair is darker at the root (only slightly), rooting gives that effect. This process involves taking the wig and ideally a Shapey that is the right color and coloring the fibers about 2 inches at the top of the wefts. I used rubbing alcohol and a q tip to blend the Shapey into the body of the fibers.It is a really easy process that takes a while but makes a huge difference. Once everything was dry I started to curl the wig.
Curling the wig was the next challenge. Because the wig is so long, and there are so many fibers, I started at the top and worked my way down. I knew that I could not fit all the rollers near the scalp of the wig even though the rollers were different sizes so the curlers at the bottoms were going to be hanging off the nape. I choose to use smaller rollers on the top and the bigger rollers at the bottom. (It took about 4 packs of rollers, if anyone ever needs rollers I have them).
It is important that when you curl the hair around the curlers to keep them smooth from the tip to the root. Once I got all the curlers in it was time to dip the wig in hot water. Basically, to set any hairstyle on a wig, dip it in hot water. For the curls to stay curly, it had to dry while still in the curlers. I waited DAYS for it to dry. You can also use a steamer but because the curlers were so packed I found the steam didn’t heat evenly, the outside of the curls were hot but the insides were still pretty cool.
Were I to redo anything, it would be the wig. It is amazing how much more knowledge is out there now than back in 2015. Youtube is a great resource for wig styling techniques.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND AWARDS
Overall look
I still really like this costume and I should probably put it back into rotation. Really the wig is the worst part. I can't keep it from tangling and the crown always looks really bad no matter what I try. I could probably use my hair but it is not that long or curly… but really beside 2 people who really does.
Awards
2015 Terrificon Best Female cosplayer
2016 Baltimore Comic Con 2nd place masters
Updates
(If there was anything I would change, I might make a bow, I do a LOT of versions of Merida and the bow might be easier to incorporate