1. The Puppeteer: Jacket

Year: 2013/2014

Source: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag multiplayer

Conventions attended: Armageddon 2013, EB Expo 2013, Supanova (Melbourne & Sydney) 2014

Awards: Placed 2-5th in Ubisoft's E3 Fan Video Contest - Cosplay Category 2014

Promo image

Official artwork

The Puppeteer is still the most technical costume I've made just because of the amount of new skills and techniques I had to learn: silicone moulding, resin casting, leather work, millinery, Worbla, woodwork, patterning, how to make a pair of trousers!

At the time of making, the game hadn't been released yet and there was very little reference material. The two images above, a promo/demo gameplay video, and maybe one cosplayer were the only references I had.

Photo: John Jennings
Photo edit: Illumis Creations

Photo: John Jennings
Convention: Armageddon 2013

Photo: John Jennings
Convention: Armageddon 2013

Original photo: John Jennings
Photo edit; TitanZee Productions

Patterning 

This was the first time I'd used a dress form and tried to create a pattern on a mannequin so this was a little dodgy. The bust/shoulder measurements are a fraction too big compared to me which didn't help...

1. I marked the outlines of the pattern with masking tape. I only did one side.

2-4. I pinned up sheets of crepe paper and then sketched the jacket shape with a permanent marker and cut it out. Don't cut the angled bottom panels of the jacket yet. Because of the drape of the bottom half of the jacket and it alternates colour of blue/red, I used an old bed sheet and pinned it, then drew a rough outline with a highlighter.

Making the toile

5. Highlighter marks for the red panels.

6. I then took the crepe pattern and made a toile out of another old bed sheet. With the correct length for the back centre panel, I marked out the slope of the rest of the panels, and cut.

7. Studying reference pictures, I wanted the two back red panels to be partially hidden, so it allows the jacket to fan out (2017 edit: they're called godets). Try on the toile and make sure it fits! Make any modifications if necessary. Unpick the toile and use them to trace out your pattern pieces onto paper.

8. The actual jacket. When fanned out there's a fairly steep slope of the hem, but because of how it's sitting, the back panel looks longer. In retrospect, the front of the jacket is too short, so if that were longer, it may have fixed up the angle problem...

Trying to pattern the collar.

The collar was an absolute logistical nightmare and I re-made the collar a number of times and even then I wasn't entirely happy with the final one because it stuck out too much at the back. I should have added a seam in the centre back to counter that.

Attempt #1 at the sleeves

Like the collar, I ended up re-making the sleeves multiple times because something always went wrong. The first sleeve (above) was sewn as one piece but I found it to be very restrictive and didn't look/feel right.

Attempt #?

I can't remember if this was the correct one in the end. I was patterning the sleeves late at night and I stuffed up the pattern one too many times where the panels or the seam were in the wrong spot. All the panels in the jacket are separate. I know one cosplayer made the base jacket blue and then sewed the red panels on top, but I didn't want to do that.

Essentially, there are two layers to the sleeve. One is the puffed sleeve and the other is the full arm panelled sleeve, both attached at the armhole. This allowed the two layers of sleeves to move independently of each other and made for easier arm movement.

The jacket does up with an open-ended zip in the front. The leather waist cincher was modified from my Mulan corset pattern. It contains a cotton duck underlining with plastic boning and the leather layer was hand sewn in the back of the car on ride up to Canberra.