Thoughts/Construction: 

I have wanted to make this costume for a really long time, and I am super proud of how it came out . It was such a fun project, but also one of the most difficult costumes for me to date.  It was the weird placement of random seams and the tight fit on the dress with a non-stretchy material that gave me difficulty. Casa satin does not really take dye. I painted straight dye onto the pattern pieces and faded it down the dress with water. I also used some black floral spray toward the top to make it darker. The wig also had be darkened with Sharpie dye since it arrived to me in a light brown. 

I did a crap load of hand painting for the designs on the sleeves, the little red designs on the black back thing, the mask, and on the fronts of the shoes. It took a lot longer to do than it looks like it would, trust me! The sleeves are individually sewn petals with wire and thick interfacing inserted into them. The black antennae looking things on the back have a wire base, and are carved from upholstery foam then covered in black vinyl. The iridescent bug wings are made from wire, clear vinyl, and some pretty pearly spray paint. They have another "fuzzy" layer that encases them like moth wings. The entire back piece is very light, and very flexible/durable. It can be hit and bent without any breakage, so I could easily move around on stage with them.

The black panel is based on a front and back image from several screenshots I acquired from the game. It sort of looks like a "bug stinger" with the black design on it. The black designs are made from the same black vinyl used for the black antennae things and little black leaves on the bottom of the dress. The vines on the dress are a pretty metallic cording. The tights were a super lucky find at one of my favorite clothing stores. 

This costume changes in every reference picture! It's really annoying! I combined all of the reference pictures to create my costume, so there are bits and pieces of each reference photo in it. 


Anime USA 2010 performance with Firelily:
*game spoilers*

This game was not a super popular or main stream thing, so we didn't really expect many people to understand the meaning behind our idea. I think it came out really cool either way! We had so much fun working on the mirrors together, and we were very proud of how things turned out. 

Our idea was based around the fact that Amila and Reith are the same person at a point in the game. Queen Amila loses her memory, and during that time she is "Reith". Her twin sister Serena takes her place as the Queen in her absence without anyone knowing. So basically Reith IS Amila thus our mirror image switch-eroo idea for the skit. Deep thinking indeed! 

See the performance here thanks to ACP!
The song used in our skit is "Running up that Hill" by Within Temptation. It's an awesome remake of an 80's song. The words to the song fit in with the theme so well, and I love Within Temptation!