Anna Valerious

Anna Valerious of Van Helsing
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Category: Fantasy

Inspiration: I so fell in love with this costume when I saw it on the Van Helsing website, before the movie came out. I ended up making it for Comic Con 2004. I still love the costume, even after the movie came out, haha.
As of 23 Feb 2004, I now have a wig for it so I don't have to curl my hair anymore! However - no pics. Will try to get those one day...

Favorite Aspect: The shirt. I have to thank Kent for the files with the designs for the sleeves and front, they made things so much easier! I made the shirt with a pattern. slightly altered to make the sleeves wider, and then tea dyed it to give it an aged look. The designs I did with a heat transfer. I love how it came out.

Least Favorite Aspect: The jacket, specifically the designs on it. On hi-res pics I could see there was a green, red and yellow all together on the braid, so I used 3 braids sewn together, and they ended up being too thick to do the pointy edges with. :\ I kept ripping it off and trying again, I finally had to give up and go with this. I still hope to remake the whole jacket one day, with thinner braid, and I think I want to go redder with the jacket. I dyed the velvet this deeper burgundy colour, and I like it, but I think I'd like it better red.
My corset isn't exactly accurate, either, if I'm going to be nitpicky. I wish I'd been able to get it closer, but I'm ok with it.

Easiest Task: Boot covers, boots. Although, first time I did the boot covers, I sewed all the rings onto the wrong side of one of them, so I had two left leg boot covers. Oops, haha. Easy to fix, though, just tedious, and shows that I wasn't paying very good attention!

Hardest Task: The jacket. Lots of work went into that thing! Two versions and I'm still not happy with it.
And curling my hair. I really hate curing my hair for this costume.