Basically a regular ticket price for only about six hours in the park? Is that really worth it? I was extremely hesitant about buying tickets for Mickey’s Halloween Party, but after hearing rave reviews from others, I was able to convince myself to bite the financial bullet. Plus, it gave me an excuse to finally make a fun cosplay, and not just for myself, but also for my boyfriend. Nothing excites me more than couple costumes. After months of trying to pick a couple to cosplay as, I realized that I had greatly underestimated how tough this decision would be. However, after an especially rough day of, I ended up at home alone with a large bowl of popcorn, an extra large glass of wine, and a hankering for some Disney films. Watching Hercules for most of my night, our costume choice became a no-brainer. I, of course, would be everyone’s favorite and sassiest heroine, Meg, and luckily this movie also had the perfect male lead for my boyfriend to be. No, not our beautiful, chisel-jawed ginger hero, but the loveably horrible villain, Hades. Not only would this be an easier project to tackle as a budding cosplayer, but it definitely fit our personalities much better.

I was lucky enough to be house sitting for my parent’s home while working on this, which meant that not only was I surrounded by my favorite cats and adorably needy dog, but I also had access to my mom’s treasure trove of sewing supplies, including a serger and a dress-maker doll, which we lovingly named Clarice (yes, from Silence of the Lambs). Having this serger machine was a god-send for this project. I would have been pulling my hair out if I was unable to do a rolled hem on most of this project.

I decided to start on my dress first as I knew it would be the more time-consuming of the two. When picking the fabric I didn’t want to go for the mega-cheap, costume wear stuff that feels like its going to melt in your dryer. I wanted this to be comfortable and feel like a real dress, especially since that meant only spending an extra $10 or so. Another important factor to me was making sure that the sheer fabric I needed for portions of the dress would be the exact same shade of purple as the rest of the dress. To achieve this I went straight to the Casa Collection at Joann. This collection is almost always stocked up fully at every store as well as online and comes in a variety of fabric types in each color choice. It is the perfect choice for inexpensive evening wear. Plus, Joann always offers tons of sales and coupons, so they are my go-to for sewing supplies. This is especially true about sewing patterns. I will never buy a full priced pattern again in my life. Joann runs deals (quite often) where patterns from all the large brands like McCall’s, Vogue, and Simplicity range from $1 to $5 when they normally range between $10 and $30 on average. When I told my mom about this she nearly cried thinking about all of the money she spent on Halloween costume patterns over the years.

Since I had months to plan my costume I was able to wait for one of these sales to buy my dress pattern. I went with Butterick B5181 knowing that I could edit bits of it to fit my needs. I followed the pattern almost exactly for the base dress, using the light purple fabric for all of it (including the straps), except for the center band. For the light purple I chose a matte satin light purple and for the darker purple band I chose a shinier satin. I was also sure to get some extra of the dark purple to use for Meg’s sash. The major part of the dress pattern that I edited was around the middle waist area. Instead of gathering the skirt top against the band and bodice, I made large pleats to mimic Meg’s dress’ fitted look. I estimated about where my hips would be and ended the pleats there. Besides that minor change, I made the dress as directed. Once it was finished I cut some sheer purple chiffon that matched the main, light purple of the dress. I cut this into a strip the length of the strap and about four inches wide. Gathering this piece on top of the strap I stitched it along the bottom edge of the straps, not worrying too much about messy bottom edges as they would be covered in the next step. I did a similar thing along the front edge of the bodice across the chest, draping the sheer fabric to mimic the sash-like effect on Meg’s dress. I just made sure that I put this high enough up to cover the rough edge of the sheer fabric on the straps. For the back of the dress I did the same thing, except I made one side of the sheer fabric detachable so that I could actually get the dress on and off (something I did not consider being a problem until it was almost too late. For Meg’s sash, I sewed together two rectangles of the dark purple satin to make one very long, thin rectangle. I then folded this over and stitched along the long edge to make a tube like piece. After turning this right side out and ironing flat, I simply draped this across my hips and used a safety pin to keep it on the dress. That completed the sewing of my dress! I was surprised by how little time it actually took me to finish, but I still had a whole other outfit to go!

I had never made an outfit to fit a male before so I was very lucky that this robe and shirt were supposed to be loose fitting, especially considering I decided to go sans pattern. “No pattern?!”, you ask in shock. I know, I know. Trust me, as a novice I am nearly hyperventilating thinking of making a dress without a pattern. But after spending hours looking through costume patterns that I could use for this robe or shirt, I found nothing close to what I wanted. Plus, they seemed like fairly easy shapes to replicate, so I decided to take the leap. My biggest challenge would be replicating the the zig-zag design on the shoulders of Hades’ shirt. I started out by cutting the top neck and arm portion which consisted of two strips of light blue/teal satin. I cut all of these large than I thought I would need, knowing I could cut it down to the size later when piecing everything together. I then cut strips of double fold bias tape in a dark blue and stitched this on top of the teal triangles, creating the zig-zag pattern. I then finished off one long edge of each rectangle with single fold biased tape to finish off the collar neatly. I fashioned the two strips together, making a neck hole in the center. It looked very wonky at first, but once I got the rest of the shirt together, it worked out better than I could have imagined. For the bottom of the shirt I used a grey satin made into a sort of bat wing shirt. I cut out two semi-circles as wide as the teal strips and sewed these to the bottom of the newly-made neck piece. I stitched the sides straight up on the side, leaving a large space for arm holes and giving the shirt plenty of extra fabric on the edges to create the wavy look of Hades’ shirt side. For the robe I used extra wide cotton fabric, usually used for quilt backs. I figured that this would save a little cash and guarantee I had enough fabric for a full robe. To make an easy robe I cut out the basic shape of a very rectangular one shouldered dress. After that I cut out a long quarter-oval to make the flowing shoulder portion of the robe. I stitched all of these together and to my surprise, the sash portion hung very well.

The finishing touches consisted of hand-made pins, hair, and make-up. The pins I formed by hand out of clay. I then baked and painted them. To fix them onto the outfits I super-glued pin backs to them. I wanted these outfits to be completely machine-washable so making sure these pieces were removable was very important to me. Because I have very short hair I wanted to get a wig for my cosplay. Meg just doesn’t look like Meg without those luscious locks. To achieve the extremely long look of her ponytail I bought a long brown ponytail wig and then bought an extra, curly extension clip piece to add to it. By layering these, with the curly one on top of the regular pony tail, I was able to get the look of an extra long pony tail. However, i opted to not wear the wig to Disneyland. Long-haired wigs and roller coasters just didn’t seem to mesh well in my head. I had also purchased a blue wig to style for Hades’ flame hair, but I am far from having that skill right now. The wig I purchased can still be used for another future cosplay, but it didn’t seem to be the best wig to attempt much styling on. I was able to get some quick make-up on my boyfriend (something he wasn’t too keen on), and this helped give him more of a finished look, considering we couldn’t accomplish the hair. I also hope to improve those make-up skills for future cosplays.

I learned a lot from this experience, and not only about cosplay. We also found a great hotel to go back to, learned to leave earlier next time thanks to being stuck in LA construction traffic for three hours, and we learned that the money was definitely worth it. Just getting to see everyone’s costumes was an awesome experience. Besides the many hours of work, the costumes only cost me around $60 (including wigs), which was a lot less than I had originally anticipated. Tickets go on sale again soon and if I can scrounge up the money for it, I will definitely be going again.

Please follow and like us: