#ajconstantinecosplay

[ajconstantine]

@neil-gaiman I was lucky enough to watch episode 1 of Good Omens Season 2 at San Diego Comic Con. It was glorious. A packed room full of fans who laughed, cheered, and reveled in the joy of it right along with me.

I tip my hat to you sir, you’ve knocked it out of the park once again. Thank you. (Also, thank you for Muriel. I love them!)

More cosplay photos on Instagram.

[ajconstantine]

Upon request, I put together a presentation on my three Good Omens cosplays that will be presented at the virtual Ineffable Con 4, on October 22, 2023.

Come to the con, it's a lot of fun (and raises money for Alzheimer's research), and wave your pom-poms at me during my presentation!

[ajconstantine]

May 21st marks the day of Saint Constantine, and so in honor of my name day I present to you the Gentleman Pirate cocktail.

The ingredients include gin which was wildly popular in the 1700’s, Orange Curacao as a nod to the oranges in the show, lime to ward off scurvy, and simple syrup for Ed’s  love of seven sugars. The combination results in the gorgeous signature teal color that Stede favors.

Fresh squeezed lime is essential to this cocktail; not only for superior taste, but also for the clarity of the teal color.

For the gin, I recommend a London Dry gin. My favorite gin to use with this cocktail is Mermaid Gin by the Isle of Wight Distillery in the UK. It's gentle on the juniper and an utterly lovely, well-rounded smoothness to the palate.

Cheers on St. Constantine’s day to all of you Constantine's out there. 

[ajconstantine]

My female Stede Bonnet cosplay from Our Flag Means Death. It is marvelous fun to swan around in; there is something about wearing fancy swishy clothes that is utterly fabulous. 

[ajconstantine]

The stylized button loops on the coat took a bit of staring at screenshots to figure out how they did it. Historically, this detail was either open loops or twisted into a ball at the end, and they had used the latter method. I dyed narrow metallic gold trim brown to match the wider trim, rolled one end over several times to form a ball, tucked the other end under the ball, and then hand sewed all 13 of them onto the coat.

Yes, Stede has these ridiculously darling epaulettes on the shoulders of his jacket. I have small shoulders, so my epaulettes are fairly small at 2.5" wide. To make them, I cut strips of fabric 4" wide x 10" long, ironed it in half lengthwise, sewed the ends together to form a circle, then ran a basting stitch through the inside and pulled the threads taut to form the ruffled shape. I used a similar technique with the coat trim for the center. There's a round teal detail in the middle of Stede's epaulettes that were likely created by forming a ball from the teal soutache trim threaded through the dark gold trim on his coat. To recreate the look, I superglued ribbon around a pony bead, leaving a length of ribbon free that I used to thread through the center of the epaulette to hold everything together. Ridiculously darling epaulettes.

[ajconstantine]

Stede has these utterly ridiculous embellishments to his pockets. Five little bows, three of which are so long they dangle past the hem of his coat.

To recreate this look, I used a small bit of the trim I used for the coat edge at the top with teal ribbon threaded through it. Then I dyed beige twill ribbon tape a darker brown to use for the vertical trim and bows.

I am a firm believer in the concept that everything must have pockets, so I added a welt pocket underneath the flap so it has fully functional pockets.

Voila! Ridiculousness achieved. 😍

[ajconstantine]

Two different methods to construct Stede Bonnet’s necktie.

How Stede’s necktie was tied confounded me, because it’s not tied in a traditional knot. So at first I created it using a cheater method, and then later figured out how to recreated it using the correct knotting technique. So I present both methods to you.  Method 1: Cut out two lengths of black polyester fabric, sew them into tubes, then turn them inside out and iron them flat with the seam at the back. The finished size of the long piece is 2" wide by 30" long, with 1" angled points at the ends. The short piece is 1" wide by 6" long, open at the ends so it's a tube. I have a fairly small neck, so for a larger neck it would need to b longer.  To put it together: Step 1: Attach a safety pin to each end of the long necktie. Slide one end through the short fabric tube and pull it through. Step 2: Slide the other end of the necktie with the safety pin through the opposite end of the fabric tube. Step 3: Remove the safety pins and tug on each end of the necktie to pull it taut around the neck and adjust to hang the ends down equally. The fabric tube will bunched up in the middle. Voila, necktie accomplished! Method 2: Follow the knotting tutorial in the image above to tie it historically accurately. I actually prefer the Method 1 way as it’s less complicated than remembering how to tie it, and easier to make the ends hang down equally.

[ajconstantine]

The most important piece of the entire cosplay-- the frock coat. I used the digital Stede Bonnet Jacket Cosplay Pattern from Cospayton.com as a base for the pattern. I did have to modify it a fair bit, but I'm an experienced seamstress and it gave me a good starting point. One of the biggest changes I made to the pattern was adding the full pleats to the back of the coat to provide the full skirt look Stede has in the show. That was a bit tricky to get it to hang just right, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

www.instagram.com/aj_constantine