Lisa's Pieces

Does anyone have a moist towelette?
Photo by Renee Needham

Come just a little closer, Plate Mail.
Photo by Renee Needham

My entry for the Dragon Age Tallis fan art contest!

With Felicia Day at Dragon*Con. I was
the first Tallis cosplayer she had seen.
Photo from Felicia Day's Facebook.

Fierce face! Rawr!
Photo by Renee Needham

I began this costume shortly after the series was announced, when there were only two reference photos to go by, neither of which showed a whole lot of detail. Eventually I was able to grab some grainy, blurry screencaps from the "Felicia runs around a lot in the dark" trailer, which helped a tiny bit with knowing how the back was supposed to look, but not much. :) Some parts of the costume are inaccurate for this reason but I'm working on improving it. Version 3 was completed just a few days ago.

True story--Adam West and Burt Ward were
on the other side of that curtain. One wrong
slip of the dagger and Batman and Robin could
have been toast! I shudder to think.
Photo by Corielle Riddell.

Not a woman you want to meet in a dark alley.
Photo by Renee Needham

I contacted the incredibly talented Greg Aronowitz (http://www.barnyardfx.blogspot.com/) to see if he could provide any more useful info for me, since he had helped me out a great deal when my friends and I made our Do You Want To Date My Avatar? costumes a few years ago. He wasn't able to give me too much, since a lot of info about the show hadn't been released yet, but it was definitely enough to get started. Thanks Greg!

Capturing the Saarebas! With Doug Jones at Mid Ohio Comic Con.

Jump down, look up! Tallis is good at that.
Photo by Renee Needham.

I stayed as true to the original materials as I could. The armor is foam (though not cast from a mold), tooled with a basketweave pattern on some pieces, covered in hand-cut strips for others, then colored with rubber and tinted latex, and weathered using the colors Greg detailed in his blog. I learned leatherworking for the boots, belt, and straps. The hood, pants, and trim are all real suede. Everything is held together with rivets, buckles, and snaps, and decorated with studs and dots where applicable (in all, 50 leather straps and 68 rivets and snaps were used, and almost 100 hand set studs). All the leather pieces were dyed to match. The pyramid-shaped pieces on the shoulders and belt were sculpted and then cast in resin and textured. The necklace gem was also sculpted and then cast in clear resin tinted green. I even made the leather pouch she wears, yay for costumes where I don't have to build hidden pockets in!

The bra was built over top an existing bra, and I made a fabric corset as the understructure of the foam corset. The two pieces were kept separate for ease of movement because my materials aren't as stretchy as the foam latex Felicia wears. The edges curl up sometimes but it's a necessary trade-off.

Never touch a woman's daggers! Photo by Corielle Riddell.

The daggers are made from the same plastic material used in the show's stunt daggers, called Sintra. The handles were made from PVC pipe, wrapped in strips of leather and then the ridges were sculpted with an air drying clay.

I want to give many, many thanks to my costuming ~~minions~~ friends who helped me out in various ways to complete this costume in time: CJ, Mowgli, Chris, Clyde, Betty, and Jon. I love you guys and couldn't have done it without you!