Cuddly Bumble Bee!

This is Bumble Bee's soft & fuzzy look.. for not looking like a scary nasty thing with a pain causing tail ;p

Aim here was to avoid the 'sexy' Bumble Bee looks of costumes common for a Bumble Bee, and aim for something with a bit more humor.. and besides.. Bumble Bees are not Wasps.. they are sorta furry..

Fitted sheer short armed top, opera gloves, and a furry black & yellow padded torso, leading to super padded short shorts.. keeps the Bee part sorted, while the tights, and boots mean you've never gone too far from the costumes you promised to avoid ;p

Tavern Wench Harley

Well.. here we have Harley's outfit for when she's serving up beer down at the local ale house.

Peasant type puffy loose cotton top, with a corset over an almost indecently short skirt, and stockings attached to shorts via lacing.

Red / Black theme is maintained, with the crossover point occurring under the skirt, with the red/black reversing for the shorts underneath.

Corset kept simple, red one side, black on the other, with opposite contrasting piping/binding for highlights.

Lacing, eyelets and piping on the stockings & shorts reversing the red black theme on each leg to draw attention.

Office Harley

Here we have Office Harley, or should that be Casino Harley? I guess it depends if she wears a top under that jacket or not.

This one has the red/black split where it's expected, a straight skirt & jacket replaces the traditional cat suit, and the collar is shrunken so as not to overpower the jacket.

It's one of the few designs that don't involve gloves, and has no head piece.

The idea is for the jacket & skirt to be business like, but for the jacket to close with about an inch of so gap down the front center. Then either to wear a white t-shirt underneath, or not, depending on how daring Harley is trying to be.

Stockings nothing new, just keeping the color scheme going as expected.

Pearly Quinn

This is Pearly Quinn, it's Harley's Outfit for when she goes up to London, because of course, all Cockneys dress exactly like this.

We have the street urchin like soft padded floppy cap, deliberately puffed up & set slightly backwards to the side. Then there's the collar, here the traditional collar is shrunken, and set onto a black undercollar for contrast.

The arms are a wide fish/whale net, with simple elastic cuffs, and lycra triangles to take it up over the shoulder top, to connect to the base of the collar/shoulder straps.

The main dress is intended to be a comfort fit simple affair, with multiple layers of gather at the base, pulled up at the front of each leg like little nested tent awnings, soft of royal-court-marie-antoinette influenced.

Lastly knee high fishnet stockings to balance out the arms, and ankle boots with nice pantomine-esque turned down collars.

The red black split is kept central on the torso, where it would normally be, but the twin color theme is played with a little within the gathers to give it a little interest.

Harley Quinnatrix

So for a nice change of scene, here's Harley Quinnatrix, she wears this outfit when going to those special clubs, and when the joker has briefly captured Batman & Robin, before they escape.. again.

Especially proud of the hood for this one, coordinated red & black cyber goth style hair braids emerge from little hair tubes protruding from the top of the hood.

The neck loses the rounded ends to the points, going back a bit to becoming a bit more of a collar, with studs around it.

The red / black vertical crossover here happens only via the hood & undershirt, making this possibly the highest point of any of the Harley designs.

Shoulder straps use the double eyeletting as design and practical for the fastening behind, cuffs use them just for design features.The 3 buckle straps across the abdomen to cinch in the waist a little, and add yet more buckles to add yet more eyeletty goodness to the outfit.

Whip is optional.

Formal Harley

So here we have "Formal Harley", the sort of thing she might wear to the evening party later on, while delicately carrying around a cube of cheese on a cocktail stick, slightly resembling a little hammer.

The Red/Black quartering is preserved from the original, the neck frills shrunk down to be like a small necklace, extra credit if this could be shiney/sparkly.

Mismatched Long Opera gloves to balance out the dress, along with mismatched stockings to preserve the overall red/black zoning.

A belt hides the horizontal transition point, and the diamonds are kept low in both the red sections, the ones near the bottom meant to be almost like a logo near the ankle.

Lastly the skirt part of the dress is long, narrow, with a decent slit up the side to keep Joker happy, and for a little mobility.

Variations on a Harley Quinn

I went as 'bat-thing' to the party, so my partner had to go as something vaguely related. Poison ivy was a little revealing, Cat Woman a little too plasticky, and although leaving the Bat-Universe would offer a few more options, there was still Harley Quinn to look at.

This first design is based on the cartoon version with the quarter red/black layout, but with the addition of an alternate red/black layered skirt, and corset.

The arms/legs are intended to attach to the torso part with suspender like clips, showing a little more than the original catsuit would have, without getting too far into 'naughty'.

Cuffs & Anklet ruffles finish the look, along with the diamond pattern put on display on the top skirt.

What's this then ?

Last year, I attempted the creation of my own Halloween costume, and while doing so, drew up various other options, that I thought might be fun to put up online. As costume design doesn't really fit within the stuff I'd put on my other blogs, I thought I'd collect it here.

In general I just sketch bits over mannequin line art, there's a few base images out online for non-commercial use, and I find them handy to use to visualise how the costume can look. This can lead to the costumes looking a bit transparent, but you just have to ignore the model outline under the clothing.

The first base used here is by 'faith-npp32' from deviant art, here
I also like the bases from Sam Hope, here