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Step 5Roughing the body shape
The body is made from two rectangles; a left and a right. They join at the front sewed and I used a coat zipper (i.e. long, strong and coming fully apart) in the back so that I could get in and out.
The rectangles are obviously identical. One dimension is the length from knee to shoulder and the other is got by wrapping the foam around the mannequin and estimating - It's always better to have to much in this case. The body can be imagined as an upright egg shape - with the belly part as the widest circumference. When you cut it this first time, you need to be thinking about the two body halves making a cylinder with that circumference.
This is where the mannequin is really useful, you can wrap the foam around it and make just enough stiches in the foam to hold it in that cyclinder. Now you can start to shape it. Round the belly needs to be the widest bit, but it going to taper at the top and bottom and you can see how much by pulling the edges together and tacking it in place until you're happy with the shape.
Don't do this until you're pretty sure, but you're going to want to cut a dart out of the top and bottom on the front and back. Also to think about is that Carol has quite a butt, so if you imagine the dart coming quite low in the back and then sweeping out, that will give the desired effect.
Foam is pretty forgiving, it will bend and curve to cope with the darts unless you're cutting very sharp angles.
At this point I also cut the arm holes and a couple of darts under there too. This is harder to be sure of and in the end I just went for it. If you're worried, cut small. You can always enlarge, but you can't put foam back easily.
A note on the zipper. I've done a couple of costumes with zippers and it always makes them feel weirdly professional. Zippers are actually very easy to do, especially coat zippers that come totally into two halves. Just make sure that the halves will meet up right and sew them onto the back edges starting at the top. At the bottom (where they should still be the same height) cut a little semi-circle scoop into each side. This will give you a little extra flex and make it easier to get the two halves together to zip them up.
The rectangles are obviously identical. One dimension is the length from knee to shoulder and the other is got by wrapping the foam around the mannequin and estimating - It's always better to have to much in this case. The body can be imagined as an upright egg shape - with the belly part as the widest circumference. When you cut it this first time, you need to be thinking about the two body halves making a cylinder with that circumference.
This is where the mannequin is really useful, you can wrap the foam around it and make just enough stiches in the foam to hold it in that cyclinder. Now you can start to shape it. Round the belly needs to be the widest bit, but it going to taper at the top and bottom and you can see how much by pulling the edges together and tacking it in place until you're happy with the shape.
Don't do this until you're pretty sure, but you're going to want to cut a dart out of the top and bottom on the front and back. Also to think about is that Carol has quite a butt, so if you imagine the dart coming quite low in the back and then sweeping out, that will give the desired effect.
Foam is pretty forgiving, it will bend and curve to cope with the darts unless you're cutting very sharp angles.
At this point I also cut the arm holes and a couple of darts under there too. This is harder to be sure of and in the end I just went for it. If you're worried, cut small. You can always enlarge, but you can't put foam back easily.
A note on the zipper. I've done a couple of costumes with zippers and it always makes them feel weirdly professional. Zippers are actually very easy to do, especially coat zippers that come totally into two halves. Just make sure that the halves will meet up right and sew them onto the back edges starting at the top. At the bottom (where they should still be the same height) cut a little semi-circle scoop into each side. This will give you a little extra flex and make it easier to get the two halves together to zip them up.
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