Making a Jessica Rabbit Costume (aka, how to fake an hourglass body shape!)

Okay, I know we were going for like an extreme look but this is gonna look too much. My name is Shae and I like to make things and this week I am telling you how I made my Jessica Rabbit costume but more importantly I'm telling you how I made my Jessica Rabbit body and how I made my very non-curvy figure look like Jessica Rabbit's voluptuous hourglass body. So a bit of background first. This past Halloween I wanted to go as Jessica Rabbit. I wanted to make a full cosplay and like get dressed up and the wig and the hair and everything and as you may have noticed I am not quite built like Jessica Rabbit. I'm very square. I'm very flat. I just don't have very many curves so I thought it'd be a fun challenge that instead of just sewing her dress and just making it like that I'd also try and use like corsetry and drag queen techniques and all of that stuff to try and make this like illusion of her hourglass figure. That being said I've never done anything like this before. All the techniques I tried and the stuff I did that was all just from random internet research and just winging it so take what I say with a grain of salt but I think the results speak for themselves. So on that note let's make it. Okay so first things first we gotta plan it out. So there's two big parts to this project making the body and making the dress. Before I can even think of making the dress I have to make the body that the dress is gonna fit so we're gonna start with that. Looking at Jessica she has really big boobs, an itty bitty waist, and a really big bum. They're almost like equal. The waist is easy I think I'm just gonna nip in my waist as much as I can with a corset but I think I'm gonna really have to make this hourglass illusion by building out my bust and building out my hips because that way in proportion my waist will look really tiny compared to these really big butt and really big hips that I'll have. So I'm going to be making hip pads out of foam and then corsetting my waist and making breast pads. That's the plan. So first up is hip pads. I don't really know what I'm doing I'm just gonna kind of go for it. I'm vaguely following these two tutorials but I'm just gonna kind of wing it we'll see how it goes. You make your hip pad pattern by wrapping yourself in saran wrap, drawing on two little like chicken leg hip shapes, and cutting it all apart to get your pattern. I cut a hole in my shirt. I then took those hip patterns traced them onto four inch upholstery foam and then carved them. Okay these are what the hip pads are looking at before they are all shaved down. A little chunky but I think once I shave them down it's actually gonna be really nice. Now I'm just gonna go in with my knife and carve it all down till I can get like a more tapered hip pad shape. Just gonna kind of go for it and cut off all the edges until it looks very nice. Okay I know we were going for like an extreme look but this is kind of too much. She definitely has that hourglass figure but I think this is far too extreme even for Jessica Rabbit. So the hips looked good but they were way too big for my body shape so I'm doing take two this time with two inch foam. Last time I used four inch foam so this is half the size. Hopefully it should look a lot more natural and yeah let's try again. Okay so this is take two. It looks a lot more natural. Look at those hips. So this is what it looks like with the corset. I think it's a good shape. I think it's still very like hourglass without being as crazy as the last version. This is this is a Jessica Rabbit shape. Now all that's left to do is make the boobies. Stacking bras and stuffing them with socks is an age-old cosplay hack for bigger boobs so I wanted to start there but I wanted to take that to the extreme. So first things first I bought some bigger bras. So we have our four bras. This is the bra that fits me a little bit bigger a little bit bigger and ideally this is the size chest that I want to achieve. Okay so this is what we are starting with. I'm pretty flat and I'm about like an A cup maybe a B cup but I have very little chest to work with in general. So for building my chest I really am trying to like push what I have up and forward and then build the rest out with padding. First up is just normal push-up bra that fits my size. This is from Victoria's Secret. As you can see it's not a lot but it's a little more. To make it a little bit more I'm gonna stuff it with foam. Starting to get a little more. It is time for bra number two. Same deal put the bra on top and then stuff it. It's getting pretty solid. Okay it's getting pretty big now. The last step is a third bra that's gonna kind of shape everything and be our final. It's pretty big. This is all I got. This is all foam. With that let's put on the hips. Not bad. Again that is all foam and then the last step is the corset. Body. I feel like a pin-up model. It's kind of fun. Yeah that's my shape. So now we finally have our base shape we can move on to the next step which is going to be patterning. For that I'm gonna go outside. But before we get into that I am finally free of my foam curves and I can wear my normal clothes again. So I'm gonna tell you about the sponsor of this video ThredUP. ThredUP is an online thrift store and that makes it a pretty cool way to shop because not only do you get the benefits of shopping secondhand that it's better for the environment and it's also more affordable but you also get the benefits of online shopping. You can do it from home. There's a huge inventory with thousands of brands and there's a search bar so you can search up what you want. I like to use the search bar to shop for brands that I know are high quality and that way I can get high quality pieces at fairly low prices. But with that here's my little ThredUP haul and how I styled them. First up this tape measure casual dress. It retails for about $36. I only paid about $10.50 for it. I styled it with a yellow coat and beret into this look that is very inspired by the guy from Curious George. He has a good look going so this is just my fashion version of that. Next up the Sparrow short sleeve blouse. It retails for about $45. I paid less than $4 for it so I styled this one into an overall look to create this very casual but really cute everyday look for me. Thirdly I got these Marciano casual pants. They retail for about $167. I paid $24. I styled this into a more casual look with just a white crop top but I think it's still very spring inspired in like a classy casual way. Also speaking of pants I got more pants. I got these green envelope casual pants and I put them into this black and white look that I thought was also kind of casual and classy. I just think it looks nice. And then for the last one I got this Topshop cardigan. It retails for about $76. I paid $13. And since it's the perfect tomato color I put it into this tomato look and if you're wondering yes this is what I've been wearing this whole time. ThredUP also gave me a promo code to share with you guys so you can use code Crescent for up to 60% off your first order and free shipping. Thank you so much to ThredUP for sponsoring this video. It really does make these sort of projects possible and with all that said let's get back to making this ridiculous ridiculous costume. So back to where we were. We just finished the body so now I can finally make the red dress. I typically make my dresses by draping on my dress form but thanks to my new foam boobs and butt I no longer fit my dress form. So I have to make a custom pattern using cling wrap kind of like I did for the hips. Basically gonna do that all over again but for a sewing pattern this time. Again start by wrapping your whole self in cling wrap except this time instead of just wrapping your hips you're gonna wrap all the way up to your bust. Basically anywhere you want this dress to sit. Then on top of the cling wrap I added stripes of blue tape to create guidelines but also to give it more structure. I also added the blue tape a lot around curves so especially in defining the boobs. But now we just take our handy dandy sharpie and start drawing. Once I basically made a body cast of this new body I could just draw on the neckline and the seam lines that I wanted the dress to have. Once I like the look of it I just cut myself free and I have my body cast. So we end up with this guy and he is basically just a cast of my body that I can cut up and use as a pattern. Now that we have our pattern we can start to actually sew the dress. You can take this pattern as is and go straight into making the dress with it but I was a little nervous about fit so I made a mock-up first. A mock-up is basically a practice version of the dress where you make it out of cheap fabric so you don't have to wreck your real fabric if you do something wrong. I made my mock-up out of muslin fabric just because it's cheap and then I cut it out pinned it up and sewed it just like I would do for the final dress. This is the mock-up. I am just testing out all the fittings making sure it is perfectly shaped so that it's gonna fit nice. Once I got the fit right in the mock-up I did the same exact thing but this time in my lining fabric. So all that cutting it up, all that pinning it together, all that sewing together the pattern, we're doing it all again. But this time it's not a practice run it counts. I also added boning to this lining layer. This just helps give it a little more structure and support and with this chest I need all the structure and support I can get. That's looking like Jessica! Not gonna lie this is a lot more boobage than I thought I would be able to get. This is so crazy it looks so good! It's okay if it looks like it's falling out because that's kind of how her boobs are. They're like falling out. Yeah this is what we're working with. I kind of love it. I kind of love it. But now that we got the body, now that we got the dress base, we can finally finally pull out our sequins. So this is the sequins and like the camera doesn't do it justice. It is probably like one of the prettiest sequins I've ever seen. Okay now it's time to cut it. Yeah so you can't really see it here but it's super shiny and it makes a big mess and now we sew it all together. Once you've got your pattern pieces all cut, pin the pieces together just like you did for the other two, sew them up, and then we've got our sequins outer layer. So now that we've got our base and we've got our sequins dress we're just putting together. I connected them along the top just pinning the right sides together, sewing them up, and then you can turn it inside out to have your dress. And then lastly I just use my dress form to determine how long my dress should be and then I hemmed it up to that length. And then the dress and pretty much this whole costume is done! For some finishing touches to this costume I painted some red high heels to match, got myself a red wig, put on some purple velvet gloves, and got all dolled up. And with that I think it's time to show you how this whole costume came out. Here's the final montage! I actually did wear this costume on Halloween. Here are some lovely photos in front of my front door to prove it. But being honest it is not a super comfortable costume. I'm in like three bras, a corset, and high heels. So I personally wouldn't want to wear it for more than a couple hours. But it wasn't unbearable. Overall though I'm super happy with the whole transformation I was able to achieve with this look. I think the body illusion actually worked pretty well and came out pretty natural. And honestly it all just kind of came together better than I thought it would. If you haven't noticed yet my previous projects I really like things that have a bit of a challenge to them. So I'm really happy that I got to try something new and I'm really proud that it all came together like this. Also I think this needs to be said, this is just a costume. Over the course of this project I've gotten a ton of really sweet messages being like, you're beautiful as you are, you don't need to change, and thank you for that. But this is just for fun. I love my body. I wouldn't change it for the world. I love that it's rectangular and flat. It's me! Bodies can be weird and they can have a lot of feelings attached to them. And this project isn't meant to poke fun or say one body's good or one body's bad. It's just meant to kind of be a transformation. Like kind of how a drag queen transforms into a drag persona. But as for what's next, I've got a couple more videos coming out soon from projects that I already finished and I'm actually about to start a couple more new projects. So that's all exciting. I'm two for two with once a month videos for 2022. So I'm gonna try and keep that up this whole year and maybe even start doing like two a month if I can. We're gonna see. I'm trying not to have any more like four month I disappear breaks. We're being consistent in 2022. But as always, if you want more frequent updates, I post a lot more on Instagram. I post as I'm doing stuff and I put stuff up for polls and share progress a lot more. Again, thank you so much to ThredUP for sponsoring this video. You can use code Crescent for up to 60% off your first order as well as free shipping. So check out the link in the description if you're interested. And I think that's everything. So thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing. And I will see you next time with the next project. Bye bye. I cannot stop looking at my butt. It's huge. I've never had a butt like this before.