Meteion was worked on alongside male viera for a deadline of June 2022. After a break from sewing intensive work, I decided to pick her up for three reasons: (1) to step up my sewing work and complexity, as well as cleanliness, (2) to explore beading, (3) to take all logistical lessons I’d learned from viera and apply them here. Thus, this costume was arguably more challenging and frustrating to work on than viera—but incredibly rewarding.

Almost every fabric piece in this costume was dyed in some way, from the dress fabric to the trims to the airbrushed legs. Additionally, I used a wide variety of 100% silks and cottons, as I wanted this to be as cool as possible in the summer con season, with the exception of the knit bird legs, as those needed to stretch.

First: the ultimate goal logistics wise was for all “loose parts” to not move—thus, everything from the caplet, to the brooch, to tabards, the vest, and even the belt are all rigged with snap mechanisms or some way to keep them in place. Additionally, I wanted at every point for pieces to be removeable in case of damage or cleaning—just like Viera—and this extended even to the “bird feet”. Up to this point, I had only seen anyone simply make a large boot and permanently apply a boot cover on top—I wanted this to be a combination of “false tights”, “boot covers”, and a separate, furry-inspired “claw foot”.

The dress pattern was a custom pattern drafted using a program called Sewist and altered; the “legs” are false tights and boot covers from an altered pattern (moved seams + fixed for petite) from Fabulous Cosplay Footwear. Everything else was self drafted.

The dress was custom dyed from stash fabric, and the sleeve was altered from a typical cuff and puff sleeve to a 6 part sleeve with a removeable elbow band and embroidered and beaded cuffs from dupioni and organza. It is fully lined with cotton for breathability and for the photos, a cheap, bought petticoat and bloomers were worn for added volume and protection.

The caplet is custom drafted and finished with a dupioni liner and hand sewn clasp.

The vest is a fully lined silk matka with custom dyed trims (3) on the back as well as a custom dyed liner.

The tabards include beaded taffeta symbols, ombre dyed dupioni, all lined on dyed cotton with two types of braided trims.

All leg armor is sourced from Dangerous Ladies, but as the first one to purchase it, I had to discover how to rig it.

For the legs: all leg armor snaps onto my “false tights” (airbrushed knit fabric for the “bird leg” part) using snap tape, and can flex and bend. These are serged for strength and custom drafted to my legs for a perfect fit over boots—stirrups hold them in place.

My feet are also airbrushed knit fabric, custom patterned, layered over Pelion flex foam and folded and pleated by hand to imitate the wrinkles of bird feet. All folds are hand-sewn together. The toes are resin pieces from aformentioned kit that have been wrapped with felt and hand-sewn in. They attach to my foot with elastic band stirrups as well as an elastic and snap combination in the back. In the event of a failure, they are hand-sewable to be repaired with fresh elastic or fresh snap tape.

I chose feathers rather than foam due to wanting a more “natural” look for this; all were sourced from Moonlight Feather. I was not worried about feathers falling apart, as none of this would be subject to getting “beat up” outside of the leg bands, which I will explain.

For the head wings, I used a buckram interior with wire on the outside, covered in cotton batting and navy mesh. After that, I clipped every single feather to a point—roughly 4-5 types of feathers—and individually glued them on in layers.

For the tail, I followed the same procedure as the head wings, but, to keep the tail from “sinking”, I made a worbla L shape support that slid onto my belt. Once the shape was finalized, a friend re-modeled it, as I ran out of worbla and wanted a second copy, and I printed it.

For the leg bands, due to how much “rubbing” they’d have, I made two sets: one “photoshoot” set, which is larger with fresh feathers and is cleaned up before major shoots, and a “walking around” set, which is smaller with feathers sealed with mod podge to prevent them from tearing easily. It’s very easy to swap them out—they’re both on strips of nylon webbing, which snap with snap tape to the top of my bird legs.

This project was alarmingly large for the tight deadline it required (I fully dedicated to it for around ~2 months, easily 3-4 hours a day), but I forced myself to especially focus on finishing garments cleanly—hence, everything here is lined and insides are fully serged. This was my first time beading, as I beaded every applique/symbol from the cuffs to the collar to the tabbards. It was also my first time ombre dyeing, as well as doing something as complex as these boot covers and plushie “feet”. The amount of pattern altering was also somewhat new to me for the sleeves.

For more details on the construction, you can find the build thread here.