Costumes for Timmy the Monkey

[Christine]

Thinkgeek.com which sells lots of neat geek stuff, announced that it was looking for costumes for its mascot Timmy the Monkey to wear to San Diego ComiCon. Since I have almost no sewing skills, I immediately signed up.

Although Timmy is officially a boy monkey, the costumes I wanted to make were female characters, so Timmy's going to be doing some drag.

The first costume I'm working on is Kaylee. I have the shirt made and am now working on her jumpsuit. If one doesn't look too closely at the slightly uneven hand stitching, it doesn't look too bad.

I'll be posting photos soon.

www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2010/05/timmy-needs-costumes-pls-halp.html

[Christine]

Coveralls for a monkey are a bit of a challenge. First attempt failed since the monkey's feet are twice the diameter as his legs. Pants legs were too narrow to easily get over the feet and the fit wasn't quite right.

Modifications are being to the design and I'll try again.

[Christine]

I'm almost done with the Kaylee costume for Thinkgeek.com Timmy the Monkey. Coveralls are done. Shirt is done. Wig is done. Umbrella is almost done.

The wig and the umbrella were the two big challenges. I used brown yarn for the hair, tying small sections of it together in a long row. This formed the 'part' in the center of Kaylee's hair. I did a chain stich crochet in a circle and attached to hair to that, in order to keep the wig on the monkey stuffed animal's head.

For the 'fabric' section of the umbrella, I used a coffee filter. Its already a nice round shape and has creases in it that lends itself to folding up into the umbrella. Finding something to use for the ribs of the umbrella was also a challenge. I found very thin straws that worked very well. I cut the top half of them lengthwise, to attach to the center ring. The center ring was made from a piece of a regular straw. The handle is a narrow dowel rod. Everything is glued together.

I'm now waiting for the glue on the ribs to dry, then I'll attach the handle and paint the top.

I think its turned out fairly well. Hopefully, the Thinkgeek.com people will think so, too.

Once I finish with the Kaylee costume, I'll get started on Slave Leia.

[Christine]

Photo of Timmy as Kaylee

s48.photobucket.com/albums/f243/greencat336/Thinkgeek%20Timmy%20costumes/

[Christine]

Making an umbrella from scratch is proving to be beyond my meager skills. I've made several attempts and just can't seem to make it work. Therefore I shall buy a doll umbrella and modify it.

I've started the Slave Leia costume and its going well so far. I have the wig done and the gold bikini started.

Once I get the Slave Leia done, if I have time, I want to make a Wonder Woman costume. Classic Linda Carter Wonder Woman, of course.

[Christine]

The Slave Leia costume is basically done. I'm making a few little tweeks to it, but it looks pretty good. This was a fairly easy costume to make, maybe because there isn't much too it. Felt for the bikini, which I painted gold with fabric paint. Gold ribbon was glued on for the straps. The skirting is just a wide ribbon. Although the actual costume uses a reddish-brown fabric, I thought the dark red color looked better with Timmy's brown fur. The armband is gold wire with more of the gold ribbon woven onto it. The wig is just brown yarn.

s48.photobucket.com/albums/f243/greencat336/Thinkgeek%20Timmy%20costumes/

[Christine]

It turns out that my costumes (and all the other ones made for Timmy) didn't make it to SDCC. The package with the costumes and other various Thinkgeek.com items went astray and didn't make it there. Its very disappointing. However, Carrie Gouldin, the nice person at Thinkgeek.com who was co-ordinating the Timmy costume project, said that all the costumes are going to be displayed in their office and pics of Timmy in his costumes are going up on their website.

www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2010/07/toasters-wookiees-and-102-phot.html