Morrigan dress

The dress was the hardest part of the costume. I don't really know how to sew and there were very few reference photos at the time when I made this cospaly. Basically these two photos were the only ones I had as a reference. 

Here are the tutorials for the Morrigan corset, necklace and brooch.

social.bioware.com/

social.bioware.com/

UPDATE
The lovely Jessica Merizan from Bioware have also made a Morrigan dress, and being part of Bioware gives her access to mer detailed photos. And she has shared that on her bioware blog and she have mentioned me and my dress there (a little star struck)

The Witch of the Wilds - blog.bioware.com

To business - making the dress
I started by getting a crinoline, and there are a lot of scams on the internet regarding this one. I bought mine from an norwegian netshop: crazyshop.no, because they are located in Norway and could ship fast. But it does not look anything like the photo - so be warned. 

But I did get what I wanted from another shop. Ebay might have many good ones, I just didn't have time to wait for it to be shipped to Norway. 

I made the pattern for the skirt using measures from the underskirt. This is dress making for beginners (who don't have a clue). I have a new respect for cosplayers making huge dresses.  

What I tried to do was to divide the skirt into 5 pieces, the red front and 4 black sides, with meassure based off the curvate of the skirt (x) and the circumference of the top and bottom (y and w). 

Testing my theory. 

Well, it sort of worked. The skirt is adjustable around the waist. 

The hem was timmed with ornamented ribbons. 

Triangle studs (from H&M) was added to the black velvet. This was a fast way to get the dress done in time for Gamex 2013. But her dress is really adorned with silver flies. 

Stud!

Update. For Gigacon 2014 I updated the entire dress, including addind silver flied out of worbla for the dress. To make about 50 flies, I first made one fly out of worbla leftovers and used paper clay to quickly take a mold of it. When the clay dired I would stuff reheated worbla bits into it and get as many copies of the flies as I wanted. 

Then all these flies had to be primed and painted silver. They are attached to the dress with more worbla on the backside ;)

The top part

Double fabric layer.

Adding the golden part for the middle of the top (where I just had to use some cardboard to make it stiff, it can't be a Chrix dress without a little bit of cardboard).

The lace I have used is called Venice lace

The detailing was added by just using markers ;)

Added square studs down the arms

The cuffs are faux leather with the same bell rivets I used for the corset along the edge. 

My rivets

A very flat Morrigan next to a equally flat Inquisitor (by Karin Olava)

All together. I need to "puff" up the skirt a little more, but all in all I'm very happy. 

Darkness closes in. Will you stand against it?