Anyone who's known me for more than ten minutes can tell I absolutely adore The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's probably my favorite Disney movie (although it's pretty hard to consider it a Disney movie), maybe because it and I are almost the same age (give or take two months!).
In short, I love this film, and yet I had never really considered doing a cosplay of it. In fact, the idea for this group came from... TheMom. She, who loves making costumes for obscure characters, suggested making a costume from a very famous film from the most famous franchise in the world....
It all started thanks to (because of?) a figurine of the Mayor of Halloween Town, which made TheMom say: "that would be cool as a cosplay, the Mayor from the Nightmare Before Christmas..." and it became a group cosplay project with TheMom (The Mayor therefore...), Neevillia (who was originally supposed to do Sally, but who ultimately chose to do Stram) and me of course as Jack.
With the “Making-of” articles, I come back to the overall design of a character, including the mistakes made along the way, and even when possible, the sewing part (of which I generally have very few photos…).
1. Costume Choice
I was inclined to believe that there was only one version of the Mayor (his two faces count as one). But technically, there is a slight variation, since the Mayor swaps his municipal ribbon for a poinsettia and adds a mistletoe wreath to his hat when the Town prepares for Christmas.
Since I hate poinsettias, we obviously went for its iconic version:
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| Technically, this is the Kingdom Hearts version, but it's my only full reference picture. |
2. Pieces list
Besides the obvious sewing elements: Jacket, shirt and pants, there are also the equally obvious “non-sewing” ones: the mask with the two faces, the spider-bow tie, the hat and the “Mayor” button.
But above all: the Mayor of Halloween Town is a kind of cone/tumbler: His head is a cone, his bust is a cone, his arms and even his legs are cones. So, we had to find a way to create this silhouette for TheMom, on which the sewing of all the "couture" elements would then depend.
3. Crafting
Small disclaimer: Khonshu may regularly make cameos in this making-of. His skull is “stored” at the top of the pole of my mannequin (which I tend to call Khonshu as a result). And I sometimes (often) felt too lazy to remove it when taking my WIP photos.
- Bust structure:
At the very beginning of my reflection on the feasibility of the costume (understand: in front of the figurine at the origin of everything, in the middle of the store), I thought of making a structure similar to Barry's belly (more details in part I of the making-of of Barry HERE, with an EVA foam shell.
Ultimately, I decided that, unlike Barry, who represented a suit of armor, the Mayor didn't need such a rigid structure, so I opted instead for sofa foam, using a technique well-known among mascots. Which would have been perfectly fine, but I ultimately opted for a third option: making a crinoline. After all, if it could give legs a conical shape, there's no reason why you couldn't wear one around your neck to create a bust!
Sewing a crinoline isn't very complicated; it's just a bit time-consuming and requires a bit of math. I based my work largely on a tutorial from the blog Cousu de fil banc [link to the crino blog], which explains how to make an elliptical crinoline. Of course, I made a straight crinoline, but the first calculations are the same.
The "waist measurement" is simply replaced by the shoulder measurement. Knowing that I wanted a diameter of 35cm (approximately the width of TheMom's shoulders), we multiply by Pi (don't leave, I promise there will be less math afterwards), giving a perimeter of approximately 110cm. For the bottom of the crinoline, I roughly measured a diameter of 80cm on TheMom, which is about 252cm in perimeter.
Once these two measurements have been obtained, we estimate the desired number of rings. For a height of approximately 80cm, I chose an interval of 8cm between each ring, or 10 rings in total. On a real crinoline, there is no boning on the waistline, unlike my shoulder measurement, so we shouldn't count this circle for the next calculation: (252 [maximum ring] – 110 [waist/shoulder measurement] /10) = 14cm.
Each ring will therefore be 14cm larger than the previous one: 110, 124, 138... Which gives us this delightful diagram:
As I wasn't necessarily confident in the result, I only cut the boning that I assembled from various scraps of ribbon:
You can also see that I didn't make the second ring (the 124cm one) to allow TheMom to pass her arms through the gap between the 110 and 138.
I won't dwell on the making of the arms, which are actually mini crinolines with a first ring of 48cm (TheMom's armholes) and a last one estimated at a diameter of 20cm (or about 63cm in perimeter): If you've been following along: (63-48)/8 (number of rings in addition to the first) = 1.8cm.
I rounded up to 2cm: 48, 50, 52... And I ended up making 7 rings; otherwise, the sleeve would have been too long.
For the actual assembly of the crinoline, I closed the bias tape with the machine, which took the opportunity to let me down at that point, by the way.
(machine sewing, my great joy after painting…)
Then, unlike the tutorial, I garnished each channel with its boning, and I attached each ring to strips of twill, first at each cardinal point, then at two other attachment points between each point. That's 12 vertical lines arranged like a clock face:
The paperclip, the cosplayer's unexpected friend!
Knowing that there are 11 boning rings (this time the shoulder circumference counts!), that gives 132 crossings to sew by hand. Fuuuuun!
(plus the 14 arm rings, with 6 vertical ones, or 84 additional joints)
I took so long to sew everything that my paper clips started to rust on my white bias binding. (Actually, it's due to the combo: old paper clips and a damp house; it didn't take me that long either!)
Anyway, 132 seams later, the bust looks like this:
Which is good, but the top ring isn't strong enough to support the weight of the entire structure. So I glued on a 10mm thick strip of EVA foam, which supports everything and will also serve as a collar reinforcement later.
As if that weren't enough, there's also a disc (1.5 cm thick) inside. Which strangely made me think of the rings from Wild Wild West:
I didn't take a photo of my discs, so instead I invite you to use your imagination.
Edit: In the meantime, I took a photo, so here it is, but since I find it funnier, I'll continue to call it "the Wild Wild West disc" for the rest of this making-of.
Once the mini arm crinolines are sewn to the main crinoline, the structure is finished!
(Well, I'm pretending for the logical sequence of this making-of. In reality, I made other progress before finishing the arms. In fact, there aren't necessarily arms, in the following photos or just one pinned).
- The shirt:
Or should I say the petticoat?
Originally, I thought just making a bib would give the illusion of a shirt with a collar, but to hide the boning and prevent any texture from showing under the jacket, I came up with the idea of making a petticoat that would act as a shirt. (Spoiler: you'll still see the boning channel a bit, since the coat fabric isn't very thick...)
It's two trapezoids sewn together on the sides. Two holes allow for the arms to pass through, giving me the opportunity to add bias binding for the first time (I'd rather die than make a mini rounded hem!).
You can also admire the worst hem in the world. Honestly, it was so uneven that I finally took everything apart, cut it to the desired length, and added bias binding instead.
Oh, I had to make super Saiyan shoulder pads for my model; it was too wide for her shoulders. I repurposed my bib idea by using a leftover piece from the trapezoids, creating a fold that gave the illusion of two overlapping pieces. The collar is sewn to rest on the Wild Wild West disc:
Yep, the bib is not at all symmetrical, and it gives the impression that it's not in the middle, but it is.
- The Head:
The Mayor's head is, in my opinion, deceptively easy. At first glance, it looks like a cone with a face on each side. After all, a cone is simply a circle from which a slice is removed; the wider the slice removed, the thinner the cone will be. The height of the cone is equal to the radius of the drawn circle. However, I had to make several attempts before finding a suitable pattern, especially since the cone actually has a narrower fold underneath, so I needed to make a ring under the cone.
My first mistake was to start with the height that I thought was good (around 33 cm), and then estimate the circumference of the cone.
As a result, my cone was not wide enough at the base to line up with the body. My cone was also too narrow to put my head through, but if I enlarged the slice to remove it, I lost the very pointed side of the Mayor, with a cone that was much too flat. It was therefore necessary to have a taller cone (therefore a larger radius), and a wider perimeter (a narrower slice to remove). So, for my second attempt, I started with the diameter of the Wild Wild West ring and a greater height (40cm), and there's more math involved...
To put it simply, the semicircular band (under the mayor's "chin") had to have a radius of 30 on the inside (to fit inside the Wild Wild West disc) and 37 on the outside (7cm being the thickness of the band), which gave me a circle perimeter, once the ring was closed, of 116cm.
Now, if I wanted a 40cm high cone, assuming I was cutting a semicircle, that would give me a perimeter of 125cm. So, I removed a 9cm slice so that my 40cm radius cone would coincide with my 37cm diameter ring!
I must have lost the few people who had managed to hang on after the calculations of the crinoline…
As I was not 100% sure of the reliability of my calculations, and I had no desire to waste kilometers of EVA foam by trial and error, I made a mini prototype in 1/10:
Maybe my explanations are a bit more understandable now?
Then, since it was good, I made the final version in foam:
Foam cone that I immediately mummified with paper to trace the Mayor's faces and make a cutting diagram:
Since it's in pencil, you can't see anything, obviously...
The diagrams aren't quite final, since I finally modified the "happy" Mayor's eyes:
The mouths are intentionally very wide, so that TheMom can vaguely see something in her costume.
All that's left is to transfer the drawings onto the cone and cut them out:
For the eyes of the Mayor's "panic" part, I replaced the cut-out shapes after adding a 45° cutout on the inside, so that the eyes would be set back from the rest of the face, like this:
Once my facial features were in place, all that was left was to sculpt certain elements with EVA foam clay. Mainly the eyes and nose of the "Panic" part, and the lips on both sides.
First sculpting pass, I did three or four, to build the shapes little by little, as the clay I have tends to shrink quite a bit.
During the third pass of "Panic," I wasn't very happy with the nose of the "Happy" part, so I finally cut off the other half of the nose (originally, only the right side was pierced). I glued a piece back on the inside, then filled the gap with a little foam clay. It adds a little more contrast to the otherwise rather flat face...
Once the head was primed (flexbound + gesso), I had to start painting, which is obviously my favorite part... Especially since to add a little fun, my compressor had decided to play up.
The "happy" face is painted ham pink, while the "panic" face is nitrite-free ham grey:
Another fun aspect of painting (with an airbrush) is masking! Especially the curves...
Still using the airbrush, I did the shadows around the happy face with a darker shade of pinkish-brown, and the blush with a deeper pink:
Surprisingly, only the pink has a kind of contouring on the happy/panic juncture; according to my reference images of the puppet, the grey face is quite flat... On the other hand, the eye contour is enhanced with a darker grey, still using the airbrush.
The rest of the painting details are done with a brush: lip contour (burgundy and grey) or with Posca for all the fine lines and the spiral of the eye in yellow. But since I was starting to rush, there weren't many photos at that step...
Same for the eyes, which are polystyrene half-spheres, painted off-camera…
Finally, the last step for the head, the teeth, which was also supposed to allow TheMom to see.
They are painted on black mesh fabric, which will then be glued over the mouth openings.
Underneath is a paper template to ensure the correct positioning of the teeth.
The other holes (nose, eyes, etc.) are closed with 2mm foam painted black:
- The hat:
As the hat had to be, logically, at the top of the Mayor's head, but it is also very high and thin, I was looking for how to make something that would be: solid (it shouldn't break in two), light (we'll avoid compressing the vertebrae) and rigid (we don't want a hat that dangles).
Bonus: the hat had to be removable, to make it easier to store the costume.
The technique I used to make the hat wasn't necessarily the most efficient, but it had the advantage of being able to be done with things I had on hand...
The removable part was quick and easy: I had a 40-32mm PVC coupler lying around, all I had to do was place it on top of the cone on the head, and have a 32mm PVC rod sticking out of the hat.
To keep it light, I remembered I had some foam insulation left over from Ammit's costume (it was used to make the braids: more info HERE [link to the making-of Ammit].
The hat was wider at the ends, so I first took a sheath slightly widened by a slice of another sheath to get a 32mm diameter inside. From there, I simply added pieces of sheath at the different places where I wanted to widen it, like this:
The pieces aren't in order, but basically there's: a slice (half a sheath) to get to 32mm inside (the leftmost piece), then a triangle to reduce the diameter, then a thin slice to slightly enlarge the base diameter of the sheath, then reverse with an increasing triangle and half a sheath to widen the top of the hat.
It was a total failure.
The foam wouldn't settle enough on itself, which didn't distribute the extra centimeter; the additions simply created unsightly bulges on the base tube. To top it all off, the glue, either too hot or not hot enough, alternately created holes (the edges no longer touched) or hard, unsightly caps.
Since I'm stubborn and I stuck to my foam sleeve idea, I revised my copy: To obtain a sufficient internal diameter for my PVC, I had to add half a sleeve, but adding half a sleeve to a preformed tube resulted in two torsion points where each preform struggled to maintain its own. So I cut everything into thin slices to force each piece to give up its pre-form!
The top of the hat and the bottom therefore received an additional half sleeve, and the middle a 3cm slice. And it worked:
So why are there so many small strips left unadded?
Well, to further thicken the base of the hat, I had the idea of glueing foam strips around the edge like this:
which I then trimmed with a craft knife to refine the transition to the top of the base.
But since it still wasn't wide enough, I added a row of strips:
also trimmed with a craft knife:
The base of the hat looks like a big, strange flower:
Not necessarily the simplest technique, as I said, I had everything on hand, and the hat remains ultra-light. Small downside, the surface is far from uniform:
(You might say, the Mayor looks rather happy in the background) To unify it all, always with the aim of being light + with things that I already have, I told myself that I was going to make a little papier maché.
Papier-mâché...
Perhaps you, who are reading this, if you're a bit of a DIYer, are thinking, "Oh, that's true! It's been a long time since I've done this! And yet it's cheap and it looks good as a technique."
Indeed.
Like you, that's what I thought when I cut up the unprinted newspaper (you know, the paper you find in new shoes) that I'd been hoarding for this purpose for years. Papier-mâché is a great technique, until you dip your first strip of paper into the glue: usually three times too wet, it tears, and you remember how sticky it is, that the piece you're covering becomes less and less manageable as you go along, and that the paper creases even though you didn't ask it to.
And it's a looooong process.
Finally, you reach the end (in this case, at the top of the hat), and as the first notes of "We are the Champions" start to resonate in your mind because you're so fed up, you remember that this is only the first layer, that you'll need at least 4 to make the support rigid, and that it's better to wait a little between layers to avoid moving it when doing the second one if the support isn't rigid. (Oddly, I don't have a photo of this step...)
I made, from memory, 5 layers of paper alternating the direction of the strips, then I made 3 layers of vinyl glue to smooth out any texture that I missed.
But let's be honest, papier-mâché, when done well, solidifies and unifies a structure perfectly. To smooth everything out, I added a few layers of vinyl primer, and all that was left was to attach it to the Mayor's head and the brim.
Or not.
To attach the hat, while keeping it removable, I removed the top of the cone forming the Mayor's head, and inserted a 40-32mm PVC coupler inside. A 32-32 coupler would have sufficed, but I had this coupler in my bottomless stash of "leftover stuff from another project." (Coupler purchased for the Men in Black Nerf guns for those curious).
The coupler is attached to a platform inside the head, so that it sits flush with the brim, and the hat's 32mm stem clips over it.
Unfortunately, although extremely light, my hat was still too heavy for the head's balance. Once placed on the WWW disc, it didn't fall off but leaned dangerously forward in a "move a little and it falls" kind of way. So I had to redo the hat to make it even lighter.
The first one was still useful to me since I used it to pattern a version in 3mm EVA foam that was completely hollow, and therefore ultra-light. Note that I had thought about making the hat in foam from the start, but I was afraid that the thinness of the hat would cause it to bend. But in fact, it didn't.
So I mummified my hat in duct tape:
Then I traced and transferred my pieces onto 3mm foam (swimming pool tile, hence the hat's very... blue appearance...).
As with the first one, a 32mm PVC pipe rod is used to secure the hat to the head. Two discs (at the base and a little higher up in the hat) prevent the pipe, and therefore the hat, from rocking on its base.
For the hat's visor, I simply cut a disc from the same 3mm foam, which I thermoformed to crease it in places. With that, the hat was ready to be painted black:
- The Spider Bow Tie:
Like many other elements of this costume, the spider had to be lightweight, since it would simply rest on one of the vertical ribbons of the bust crinoline.
The base is made of polystyrene, with a 4cm ball and an egg:
(Yes, I forgot to take a picture before starting to cut...)
The different slices are rearranged like this, with the addition of a 5mm foam disc:
Then the whole thing is reshaped to create a more spider-like shape, including the hooks:
The structure is then covered with EVA foam and painted in a black widow style:
For the legs, I used black pipe cleaners, twisted around themselves and then attached to the body:
- The "Mayor" button:
Because we shouldn't forget that this is the Mayor. So when in doubt, it’s written there…
I was motivated enough to embroider the letters on a cotton square (a scrap from the petticoat shirt), but not enough to take progress photos.
So, the finished embroidered text:
With the hoop removed, the embroidery is stiffened with two discs of thick felt.
For the ribbon, I tried to attach a long, continuous length by making loops, but it didn't look very good, so I cut 13 short lengths of ribbon, folded in half:
They are glued to the back of the disc, with a longer length to make the hanging ribbons. And here it is:
4. Sewing
- The Coat:
Sewing the Mayor's coat was a team effort between TheMom and me. Mainly because, given the Mayor's measurements, we had to make the pattern ourselves. So I took care of the “patterning and non-academic sewing” part (understand: sew the collar any way as long as it fits well), where TheMom did the visible sewing, like the hems.
I first made a pattern, taking rough measurements, on paper:
And once I was more or less confident, I made a fabric mockup:
I'm quite proud of myself for having managed to make the sleeve pattern, and especially the sleeve cap, on the first try!
I also made a coat collar that's not too bad, as long as you don't look too closely:
The final version is in charcoal grey gabardine, with black velvet lapels and collar.
- The pants:
Originally, I had planned to make the pants with a system of boning to maintain the Mayor's silhouette. But due to a lack of time, I opted to buy grey striped pants on Vinted. Ultimately, from what you can see, it's just as good.
And so, the final result:
Conclusion
Creating the mayor of Halloween Town was TheMom's idea, but I have to admit it was interesting to have to work on such a different silhouette. I'd already experimented with this kind of creation with Ammit, who happily borrowed fursuit techniques, but this was different again. (Although, one day I might end up making a mascot, maybe...)
The Mayor required careful consideration to maintain the body shape while ensuring it was "wearable" for a real human being. The same goes for the head, which, of course, had to match the film without giving the impression of having put on a traffic cone as a hat. In short, it was a rather fun challenge.
For each making-of cosplay, I highlight one or more negative points, and on the contrary, I try to find at least one positive element.
What I would do differently:
- I didn't mention it because it wasn't very interesting from a making-of perspective, but the Mayor has a structure to support the Wild Wild West record when worn. Except it kept slipping, causing the head to tilt forward. I'd have to rework that.
- The coat could have been fitted much better, but since I don't really like sewing... the collar needs to be pinned directly to the WWW record to stay in place. But hey, if the breastplate on 17th-century dresses could be pinned, why not cosplays?
- The sleeves tend to flatten out and not maintain their conical shape. It would also require some adjustments here and there.
What I like:
- Except for the sleeves, the body structure! It really captures the conical look, is super lightweight, and is ultra-easy to carry in the car since it flattens out and can even be slightly folded.
- The head and its two faces are pretty well done, I think. It's not without its flaws, since the modelling left some texture in places, but it looks decently like the original, especially considering my boundless passion for painting…
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What would the Mayor of Halloween Town be without Jack? After all, he's just an elected official; he doesn't make decisions on his own...
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