Martia: Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country Cosplay

Before I get into the details of this particular cosplay, let me apologise for the recent neglect of my Star Trek Blog. A combination of other assignments, work and even a little laziness all intervened. If ever there was a time for me to be Trek blogging, it has been the past 12 months; with Star Trek celebrating its 50th anniversary, my trip to the Vegas convention and the new details of Star Trek Discovery coming in thick and fast. My thoughts on the aforementioned will be blogged in the very near future.

For this year's Destination Star Trek Europe (not as glamorous as it sounds, it's being held in Birmingham, UK), I settled on my new cosplay, that being Martia the shape shifting villain from ST:6. Deciding on who to dress as is a tricky business, it can make you indecisive, especially with a huge universe of colourful characters to choose from. My choices have always been fairly limited however as I have to lean towards characters with a suitable flamboyance to amalgamate with a Drag Queen. Most of my favourite Star Trek gals pretty much live in their all encompassing Starfleet uniforms which stretch from their neck to their toes, a look that covers my albeit fake curves. With the exception of the ultra fitted costume of 7 of 9, the uniform jumpsuits can give a frumpy look, not to mention that in a uniform, you're in danger of blending in to the crowd at any given Trek event.
Despite Martia being covered in fur from head to toe, I was drawn to her because of her exotic look, elaborate feather hairstyling and dramatic make up application.

Martia in Star Trek VI

What became apparent very quickly is that images of Martia are either scarce or lack detail. Many of the images of her on Google are low resolution, grainy screen shots from the movie or do not show her costume in its entirety.  Add to that, there is not a single shot in the movie where you see a full length uninterrupted clip of the character. The most useful image I found was in the book 'Star Trek Costumes' by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, a must-have publication for any Star Trek cosplayer! I drew a series of sketches where I guessed at certain elements such as coat length, sleeve openings (was it in fact a coat or a shawl?) and her shoulder pieces (was that in fact a separate cape or part of the coat?). With character cosplay, the goal is to get your outfit looking as close to the screen seen costume as possible, so I'm happy to take artistic licence as long as it resembles what I see on TV. Fortunately, Martias costume was made to look 'rustic' as though as it was hastily mashed together in the freezing wilderness, made for survival rather than for fashion. I began collecting fur samples from anywhere I could find them, as long as they didn't have an Earth animal pattern on them, I snapped them up. I was advised by my costume maker to keep the fur of the body suit thin so that I didn't over heat, but as usual, I ultimately went for the closed fur I could find to the onscreen patterning and colour, rather than a thinner alternative (my costume maker helped keep it cooler to wear by not lining it).

Collection of (fake) fur samples for the costume

After watching clips from the movie to see how the costume moved, he decided that she was indeed wearing a full coat with wizard sized sleeves (which is what was giving it a cloak look) and that the shoulder fur was actually an unused hood (understandably unused as it would have interfered with her elaborate head piece). I found a heavy brown knit fabric which was perfect for her scarf and used the same material, turned inside out to give a slightly different colour and texture as a belt to tie the whole outfit together.

One element which is always difficult to solve with futuristic costuming is footwear. Present-day earth shoes aren't often suitable and my costume maker had previously done a wonderful job replicating 7 of 9's footwear, where he covered a pair of heels with the jumpsuit material. We discussed using a similar approach with Martia's snow boots but eventually decided that a high boot would just look like cheap 'boot covers' which are a 'fancy dress shop' trick to keep a costumes cost down. After scouring the internet, I actually found real goat hair boots in Hungary which, although not quite as high as the onscreen pair, they looked like they fit right in with the snow planets Eskimo look. They are the only part of the costume which are shop bought and not hand made.

Store bought winter footwear from Hungary

I always knew that Martia's headwear would be the trickiest aspect of the costume  It is very stylised and the front feather skull cap fits and frames her face perfectly. To achieve this smooth fitted look, I took a polystyrene wig block which was roughly the same size as my head and made a Papier mâché 'hat'.

Drying Papier mâché, it's a waiting game

To be sure that the piece would mould to my head without gaps or lifting up, I did the Papier-mâché in two stages. On top of the first dried layer, I glued a network of thin garden wire and sandwiched that with a second layer of paper and PVA/water solution. This would later allow me to bend the head piece to the exact shape of my head and face.

Wire network on the first layer of Papier mâché

I found feather pads (on eBay, but they're available in well stocked haberdashery stores) that are usually used as hat fascinators. I bought two Grouse feather pads and three Pheasant feather pads and then used my glue gun to thoroughly stick them to my skull cap. I then lined the skull cap with tights material both for comfort and to soak up any moisture from perspiration (I left an extra strip of lining material poking out from the back of the skull cap which I used to sew to the inside of the wig).

Feather hat pads used for the forehead appliance

Feather trimming (in red and ginger colours) was plucked and individual feathers were pinned into a dark brown wig.

Feather trim used for hair detailing

Finished forehead piece before the hair is added

Mock up for positioning before and gluing begins

The head piece on its work block

The finished head piece

The final touches to this cosplay was a pair of prescription contact lenses in Angel Yellow and a light-up fake cigar (available from most good joke shops).

I hope this blog has helped, inspired or interested you. Enjoy your next Star Trek event and say hi if you see me over heating in a corner somewhere! Keep Trekking.

The finished article.

(PS: join me for more Trek talk on Twitter @themistyshow and Instagram @themistychanceshow)

Creating 7 of 9 for a convention

It's rare I go to a convention these days without Cosplaying. The women of Star trek are legendary and plentiful but for a Drag Queen, the glamorous females in Trek shows are few and far between. They may be beautiful, but more often than not, they are neck to toe in boiler suit like uniforms. For a Drag Act, it's all about exaggerating those feminine features like curves, lips, legs and eyes so my Cosplay options have always been rather limited. It was inevitable that one day I would have to tackle the Seven of Nine look and decided to do so for Destination Star Trek Frankfurt. It was a time consuming and expensive process, but here is the final result and how it was achieved...

As with all my Trek costumes, it starts with images and screencaps of the outfit in question, and where possible, stills of the actual screen-used garment in it's natural state without TV lighting and colour tampering. Usually I find these images on auction site archives where the original outfit has been sold after production had ended. These kinds of sites carry detailed pictures taken from all angles and close ups of seams and linings.

Seven's catsuit was relatively easy for the costume-maker to replicate but it was the under-garment which gave Seven her ribbing which was the fiddly bit. Again, the corset had previously been sold at auction and images were plentiful...

 

Front and back view of 7's under-garment

Whilst visiting the First Contact Day event in Leicester, I browsed a fabric shop as a Drag Queen would and spotted a stretchy blue matt Lycra with a sparkly fleck running through it. It immediately reminded me of Seven of Nine's outfit and so I bought up enough to one day have the costume made. It sat in my dressing room for over a year until I decided it was time for a new Cosplay. Below is the design sheet which I sent to the costume-maker (along with a few clips on DVD of the costume in use on TV so he could get a feel of how it moved and creased)...


Seven of Nine mood board (the text description of detail was taken from the auction of the original outfit)

One of the most difficult aspects of the 7 of 9 costume is the facial implants she wears.  I thought I had found the better quality ones available online and ordered them (£16 for the eye piece and the cheek star), but when they arrived, they were lacking in detail and the paint job was basic. I decided to have a go at making my own and created some clay replicas, followed buy a mold and ultimately the latex prosthetics. I finished them off with a four-colour paint job and sponge texturing and was very pleased with the result - so much so that I now offer them on my eBay. The hand-piece was a lot of trial and error, but I found the best result came from cutting the tips off rubber Halloween witches fingers, popping them on the ends of my fingers and painting liquid latex over them and down and around my hand. After two or so hours with a useless hand held in the air drying, I peeled off the latex and finger tips and treated it to the same paint job as the face pieces.

One of the things which I've noticed other Seven of Nine Cosplays lack, is the unique built in footwear that is seamless to the costume. I can understand why people struggle with this as it requires very exact measurements of some very unusual places. No matter how we tried it, we couldn't get the fabric to sit tight around the ankle whilst the shoe was pulling on it and I really wanted to get that 'sprayed on' look for the costume. To get around it, we cheated a little and separated the shoes from the jump suit and opted to cover them with the same fabric. This was achieved by painting the shoe with PVA glue, stretching over the fabric and jamming the excess between the shoe leather and sole using a  screw driver. Unless you're planning to end up with your ankles up the side of someones head, then the join between costume and footwear is virtually undetectable (plus has the added benefit of being able to take off your shoes when you've been on heels all day, which I found a great relief).

In my regular Drag work I prefer hair which is high, big and bold, however, Jeri Ryan has quite a natural looking style, a simple French twist and cow lick quiff. As a man, using my own hair was out of the question (I have none!) so the front hairline of the wig had to be a very high quality lace front one. I found that the colour 'Honeysuckle' was a perfect match for Jeri Ryan's natural colour.  The wig was done by a professional wig-dresser from a selection of screen captured pictures.

All in all, the whole look was very successful, especially enjoyed by Gates McFadden (Crusher) who asked for a picture which she later Tweeted, Marina Sirtis (Troi) who complimented me on my Camel's Toe or lack of, and Connor Trinneer (Tucker) who wolf whistled at me from his signing table!

The cost of the combined ensemble was approximately £350.

So, what's next for Misty in the world of Star Trek Cosplay? Well, I'm inclined to bring back the big hair and wild Gagaesque wardrobe so my initial thought is Lwaxana Troi.

See you in Space Trekkies!