For the common man and the troubles we face
My current prokect at the moment is creating Voyager uniforms for the girls and I for the upcoming Dallas Comic Con. The task is proving to be quite a challenge. Although there are commercial patterns for adult, such as the one at Roddenberry.com or from Joseph Kerezman, no one currently makes one for kids. After making one for myself and understanding how it all fit together, I decided to use McCall’s M5952 as my base pattern and modify it to work. The good folks at Starfleet1701st have been an amazing resourse through this project. I am only finished with the first mockup of the pattern for my oldest, but I am hopeful the others will go quicker once I have the patter down.
Comm badges and rank pips are another item required to make the uniform complete. They are easy to find for adults, but I wanted some that would be proportional to kids. I happen to work in a place that has CADD designer so I asked if he could model the badge I had purchased. He did and scaled it down to both 75% and 50% of the original. I uploaded the OBJ files to Shapeways.com and now I am awaiting the 3D printed versions in white plastic. With any luck, these will have the look I am after.
Update: the badges came in and they are AMAZING! Exactly what I wanted. The patterns for two of the jumpers are cut out. I love it when a plan comes together.
I volunteered for the Official Pix team again for their Sci-Fi Expo. It was a great show. I got to meet many wonderful celebraties who were all too happy to take time with each fan and even engage my kiddos in coversation about who they were and if they were enjoying the show. I got a few signed photos and a picture with Mr. Avery Brooks, Capt. Sisko of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Such a great guy, and the second Star Trek captain on my wall. William Shatner is scheduled to be in town for hte May show, so I am hoping to make that number three.
This year my oldest daughter wanted to be Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. I thought that was a great idea, so I decided to make her the uniform and one for me with the science officer colors. I purchased two patterns. One was off eBay designed by Joseph Kerezman and the other was one from Roddenberry.com. As usual, I got started late and had to polish my skills on the fly. The patterns were challenging in that the sizing was a little off and the instructions were vague. I did find a LOT of help from the community at starfleet1701st.yuku.com. Many there had already been through many of the challenges I was having.
I started with my daughters using the Rodenbuerry.com pattern. Besides the vague instructions, I also had to deal with pieces not being quite the right size. As seen here, the yoke at the top and the front panels did not match. There was a serious gap in the front panels.
So I redrew the piece I needed:
Next problem was needing to resize the whole outfit to her. You have to take it out of the middle or the whole thing looks wrong.
I got all the pieces cut and reassembled:
Mine went together much faster since I had to do very few modifications (and I was running out of time). It was a little snug, but otherwise fit well. The under shirt for me was a Champion running shirt while my daughter wore my attempt at making one. The badges were a bit gaudy and I could not work out how to add the rank pips on the collar. Overall, I was pleased with the result and got the bug to make more costumes.
