Dragons
Spring 2022
For Zeeland High Players Production of Shrek I was given the task of designing, draping, constructing, and painting the costumes for our Dragon and her backup singers.
Design
In researching other Productions Dragon Costumes for inspiration I found that most productions either created a very literal Dragon costume or just put the dragon in a sparkly dress. I wanted to create combination of both aspects. The 3 Girls had have an actual dragon behind them, so I wanted to create a girl group style costume that reflected the sass, beauty, and power. of the song “Forever” that they sing. I also wanted to make sure Lilah, our lead Dragon stood out from her backups. So I put Lilah in pinks and purples (matching the colors of our actual dragon) and the backups in a deeper red and black. In designing the costume I not only focused on creating a girl group with the sparkly sleeves and fitted dresses, but also focused on making the costumes dragon inspired. I did this by creating a scale pattern down the bodice with distressing and a glitter pattern of scales down the skirts. I also decided to add horns which we were 3D printed
Bodice
After Cutting out the pieces and pinning I added purple paint onto the vinyl in order to add a more distressed and reptile like texture to the fabric
To begin the Bodice I started by draping with muslin onto the base bustiers I ordered. I completed the draping in 3 different sizes (med, xl, xxl) and I took the draping and transferred it to pattern paper
Next I used the pattern to Cut out Vinyl for the bodice. I added darts and pinned pieces onto the dress form to make adjustments before sewing.
The next step was to cut a sleeve. I used a beautiful purple stretch sequin fabric and patterned the sleeve myself using Lilah’s arm measurements
<<<Test Fitting
Skirt
For the skirts I used a circle skirt calculator to create a pattern, simply cutting the front off the lead dragonette to allow for the opening in my design. The next step was to create the scale design. To do this I used I created a stencil and filled it in with modge podge and glitter, eventually I began to run out of time and so I started using spray glue instead which was less neat but saved a lot of time. After the scaled were added I added waistbands and zippers to all of the skirts
Finished!
The photo to the right shows the first time all of the Dragons tried on their costumes together, after this there were still minor adjustments to make but they were overall complete. The Bodices and Skirts were styles with 3D printed dragon horns (bigger ones to come for our lead), leggings and black heeled boots for our lead, and black character heels for our backups.
