New Year, New Start, New Skills: FanPowered Press, Smocking and Foundations
Ah, the new year. The post Christmas blues are setting in and you’re living in a world of hangovers, pledges to get healthy, and those groaned “never again”s in all its stereotypical glory. It’s the time when we sit down and promise ourselves that we will do more, be better and improve on what we did. Very much easier said than done. And it is no truer in the cosplay community than anywhere else.
How many of us got crafting stuff for Christmas that’s just looking at us waiting to get started? Or started the new year having resolutions to get your cosplay game up for a big convention, enter or win a comp, or simply wanting to try that technique that’s been catching your eye for the whole of last year? We all start out the new year with a wish list of what we want get out of our crafting, but it’s hard to know where to start with all that post holiday malaise still swirling around our brains. Which is why The Cosplay Journal is here to help.
In some small way anyway.
FanPowered Press have kindly sent over some of their cosplay skill books for us to have a look at and to hopefully give you, and some of The Cosplay Journal team, a push to get going with new projects in 2023!
Smocking Secrets by Maggie Hofmann
It would be a lie to say that it was not a little bit exciting when this book arrived, it was one that certain members of editorial have wanted to get their hands on. Smocking is a technique that can be applied in so many ways and with such great effect, no matter how dramatic the piece, that having a whole book dedicated just to learning it, and all the variations there of, was a smart choice. It so easily could have been a smaller section in a larger text, and that would still have been educational with the way that it is executed here, but to give it space as its own thing allows for much more.
While it is a physically small book than others in this review, at a size closer to A5, it more than makes up for this in its content. It’s broken into two many categories, North American Smocking and English Smocking, both with a short history of the styles explaining them and their differences. As well as this, before you dive right into the tutorials, there is a general instructions section that talks through everything a beginner might need to know about preparing yourself and your fabric for using these techniques, as well as how to insert them into a garment once complete. It was very reassuring not to be thrown into the tutorials themselves, but be given these well thought out, but not overbearing, sections to help you feel ready to try these techniques. A bit like a teacher holding your hand as you get started. The section on yardage was definitely appreciated by someone who has difficultly working out how much fabric has to be added just to do a box pleat (‘Olly).
Throughout the introduction are pictures of cosplayers, using smocking as part of their builds. While it was nice to see all the techniques being applied to real life works, it was a struggle to see the smocking on some costumes for a number of reasons and it would have been nice to have had closer up images of those parts in some way while still showing the technique in the situation of the costume. Particularly if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it felt a bit like playing “Where’s Wally?” on the costumes to try and spot the smocking. That being said, the costumes are all beautiful and do give a varied look at how to apply smocking techniques in builds.
The tutorials themselves are broken into Beginner-Friendly, Intermediate and Advanced, with cute, little photo examples of the stitches in each of these categories in the introduction. This means straight away you know what you’re looking for, even if you don’t know the name of it, and what you can achieve from the get go and what you can work towards. This felt like such a simple but brilliant way of helping newcomers to this technique, with the image matching the contents then repeated at the top of that tutorial.
The instructions and combined images of each tutorial cannot be faulted. They are easy to follow in both the text and the pictures, with clear, bright, examples of what you are aiming for featured heavily alongside the tutorials themselves. Hofmann has thought this through to the nth degree and her educational focus as a crafter shines. Throughout the book she guides the reader to learn in an open manner, building on passed tutorials to help build up your confidence and ability - something that is only improved by the minimalist layouts of the tutorials, not over busied with images or text beyond what is need. It’s very well balanced.
If you’re looking to learn this skill, look no further than this book. It is a gift to any crafter’s bookshelf and will definitely be disappearing into our stash straight away!
Cosplay Foundations by Casey Welsch
A small disclaimer straight out of the gate with this one, almost all the costume foundation layers that are talked about and constructed in it are for a female shape, designed to create very specific feminine looking shapes on the body. There is however a short section on gender and creating different shapes using padding or compression depending on your needs, including safe tips for doing so safely.
It’s been very pleasing, in recent years, to see more and more cosplayers thinking about the garments that go under their costumes as much as the costumes themselves. Having the correct foundation layers always improves a costume tenfold, especially with any pieces that have historical roots to them in any way, so this book by Casey Welsch, aimed at cosplayers more so than reenactors or theatrical costume makers and designers, is a brilliant beginners way to start building up your foundations.
Unlike with many of the other books in this series, this book opens not with information about what cosplay is, but with a history of foundation layers throughout history before moving on to how they are and can be used in cosplays today. Short as this section may be, it gives context and a starting place for anyone looking for more detail on this subject going forward. This is followed, much like the previous book, sections on tools, materials and construction methods that will be needed for your journey into under garment making, though these sections are in and of themselves large, with a lot of useful information even before you come to the tutorials. Welsch looks into fabric, notions and boning, and the tools, explaining all the types used in concise but clear detail, going through the variations of each thing, its uses and accompanying it all with illustrative images just to top it off.
This all as well as a boat load of images of cosplays and the undergarments themselves to give an idea of what you are going to be aiming for. One noticeable thing here is that the cosplays have short notes with them to explain something of what the foundation layers are achieving with this specific costume, and it is so helpful!
This section also has one of the most in detail walk throughs of how to measure yourself that even if it had nothing else there would be a reason to keep this book on hand.
The book then breaks into sections on Ballgowns, focused on corsets, bloomers, hoop skirts, petticoats and the all important chemise, and Bodysuits for Armour and Anime, looking into the use of spandex with Sailor Fuku Fashion and making your own bodysuit with alternations. It’s a surprise to see the historical and the modern undergarments in one book, but a welcome one and both sections are heavy with tutorials, instructional images and construction tips to help you make each piece in the way that suits your build needs.
A few of the images in these sections do fall down a little in quality, clearly taken by the author, but this hardly matters as they still manage to show the information required, but it would have been nice to a continuation of the crisp, studio style images as in Smocking Secrets and earlier in this book itself for the sake of consistency. That being said, its actually got a very encouraging, homemade feel here, and as a beginner that almost gives a sense of comfort. This is your friend showing you how to do it from her home, its not overwhelming or scary in a way that it might be were it too pristine.
What is good about this book is that Welsch has obviously considered a lot of the practicalities of these garments beyond just their construction. There is a section for advancing your builds and adding in extras, which has some great, fun additions to the larger pieces and some brilliant tips on bringing something a little extra to your costume, as well as how to safety attach armour and embellishments. But it’s the section on storage and care that is particularly pleasing as we all know full well how much of a worry storing cosplay is, let alone large pieces like hoop skirts or paniers.
Overall this book definitely gives a great starting point for any budding corset makers and gives a brilliant foundation (haha) that will help anyone looking to up their costume game in the underwear department.
Both books can be found here at FanPowered Press, part of C&T Publishing.
Enjoy getting yourselves into crafting again in 2023! We certainly can’t wait!
