Cosplay advice?

[Tulips]

That right, I'm taking the plunge into cosplay and I've picked Rainbow Dash. Only problem is her tail.

I really want to have a fairly substantial tail (length as well as weight) with as accurate and appealing colours as possible, but all the synthetic hair I've found so far (in quantities large enough) are $40+ or cheap bad quality clip in extensions from unreliable eBay sellers. Does anyone know of any online stores I could buy from with decent shipping to Australia? I want to try and make this tail for under $40... and I definitely want to make it myself if I can, the ones I've seen for sale just aren't what I'm looking for.

I've already got a plan for my hair, I was going to bleach and go rainbow anyways and I've got a bit of a lazy mohawk going so I'm set. It's just the tail that's giving me pains! Oh, and don't even get me started on wings... I want to have blue feathered wings attached to a metal frame that allow the wings to articulate realistically Do I have the skill?!
Supanova is months away so I've got time but I feel like this may be a bigger project than I can wrap my brain around. Plus I've never cosplayed before, it's a bit intimidating... especially since I'll be going with my friends who are going to cosplay as Black Butler characters, we'll be an odd bunch! 
I'm excited though, my first convention... I can't wait! (I'm really hoping for at least a little bit of pony related stuff. I may not see Pony... I'd have a heart attack if I did, if she's officially released I'll go nuts hunting her down... but I'll have a killer time anyways)

So, any advice on where to source hair for the tail?

[Evening_Moonstone]

I can't offer specific advice on shipping to Australia, but I can suggest asking around on the cosplay.com forums:
http://www.cosplay.com/forum.php
There are specific sections for wigs, props, etc.  Articulated feathered wings sound very complicated for a first-time cosplayer.  My friends who did pegasus ponies used Fun Foam sheets and cut out wing shapes, which they wore on their backs. If you are set on fancier wings, look on the cosplay.com forums and see if anyone's done them before (maybe not for MLP costumes, but for angel characters).

I know of some great wig places, but I don't know about overseas shipping (you may want to look into extension hair for the tail, so you could get different colors as loose fibers rather than dealing with clip-ons).  You don't want clip-on extension hair so much as bulk hair - kanekelon extension fiber would work pretty well.  Something like this:
http://amphigory.com/hair_braid.html  I've worked with the silky braid before, but the jumbo braid might give you more volume.  Some people use a material inside the hair for big ponytails, like quilt batting, so they don't need as much hair around a big ponytail.

Best of luck, hope this helps!

[Tulips]

Thanks, I'll check out the cosplay forum

[lovesbabysquirmy]

You could always harvest and combine a few different Halloween wigs together... 

Amphigory is a GREAT site for cosplay. 

[KiwiSquirtBottle]

You may want to check out IKickShins.net or other sites that sell just loose hair -- making your own tail from this stuff should be alsmost as easy as making a pony's tail. I've ordered from them in the past and they were very fast and very nice to work with. They do ship international, too, but still could be cheaper if you find someone in Australia who does this same stuff. Good luck!

Also, you could do an order from Dollyhair.com, and piece together your own tail. 

[partypony566]

I don't know where else to get the hair but just wanted to say have fun at the convention and hope you get lots of pics!

[Tulips]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I'll have to check them out.
I had thought to do the Halloween wigs already but was amazed that none of the bargain stores seem to have any more than a few colours, why did I pick a rainbow pony? Lol
I'll be sure to get lots of pics, or my friends will and torture me by posting the worst ones to Facebook

Thanks

[AnnaPommes]

uhh, i know your pain. i did RD cosplay last year too. and ended up leaving the tail away, as it was a human-version after all .
butb for tails, i can really recomment wigs!!  they give the tail more of a shape thant simple straight hairsamples bound together.
my friend ona went a baby lucky leaf last year, i can try to find a picture of her tail. (was just the same as the wig)
and there are also rainbow wigs on ebay for a little amount of money, would that be an option for you?

are you a veteran cosplayer or new? if you are new, i suggest to make not-movable wings. "paperwings" has a really great feather wing tutorial.

[Tulips]

I've been looking for wigs but I can't find any nice looking ones for a good price.
I'm a brand new cosplayer, this will be my first time. It's a bit ambitious of me to want to make movable wings but I've got months ahead of me to work on it.
If I mess up the wings I'll just make some simple ones, annoyingly I can't even find feathers in the right blue that aren't horrendously expensive. Can you dye white feathers blue using food colouring or do you need to use a fabric dye or something?

[AnnaPommes]

i read you can dye them, look at cosplay.coms tutorial section. ^^
well, i would really tell you better not to work on them for your first costume, but i know how it is if you already have planned everything. so exciting!
i haven´t found stiff feathers in the right color either, just some cyanish. ^^" but if you find some, please show us where to buy!
sometimes, you can even buy ready made ponytails, the hair-style-kind, have you looked up if there are rainbows?
if you tend to buying just the hair (dollyhair,, for example) i highly suggest to give it sa little haircut. not in overall length, but that you layer it and thin it out a bit. that looks much betteer than if every hair has the same length . and is more authentical.

otherwise, some people keep thier braid, when they get a short haircut. if you want do dye your own hair anyway, why not looking for some realhar to dye with it too?
how long shall the tail be after all?

[Tulips]

I want the tail to be 20 inches at least.
I could look around for real hair and dye that, that's certainly an option... I might check that out but I'd need to bleach it first lol unless they're platinum blonde. In fact, I grew my hair for several years before I cut it back short again, but I'd bleached it and it was so beautiful that I actually kept it and set the base in resin. It's two shades of golden/honey blonde fading into my natural brown. I could have used it but it's a bit short and I like to keep it blonde/brown, weird lol.

Hopefully I'll be able to buy something in stores, even if its a bit pricy at least I can see it in person and not pay shipping, heh.

If the wings turn out okay I'll post and show them off

[Evening_Moonstone]

Just as a voice of experience - several months is probably not enough time to make complicated wings if it's your first try, and you have other obligations like school or work.  Even a simple costume done well can take months and months of time to get finished.

If I were in your horseshoes, I would make a set of simple ones first, so that you at least have *something* that you can use.  Get every other aspect of the costume done.  *Then* start on difficult wings.  If you don't get them done, you can keep working on them for next year's convention, but you're not going to be up all night before the con trying to get something done that you may not be happy with.  You have your original wings to go back to!

I would also recommend looking into a wig for RD.  I know you talked about dyeing your own hair, but I've heard lots of horror stories about dye jobs that go poorly.  Also, the color will grow out/fade, and you'd have to do it again the next time you want to wear RD.   I know there are lots of threads on cosplay.com about Rainbow Dash wigs, and some people go with a white (or platinum blonde) wig in a style they like and use Sharpie markers to hand-color the sections of hair into her colors.  Time-consuming, but once it's done, you can have RD hair whenever you like.  You could do a tail the same way.

You may also want to save working on the tail until the very end of the cosplay.  I've not seen too many pony cosplayers who make the tails, and the costumes are perfectly recognizable without them.   Ears seem to be the biggest thing that make you look like a pony.

Just another FYI - if you get a wig and want to dye it, you can't use regular hair dye (unless it's a human hair wig).  You will need to use Sharpie marker dye or another type of artist ink (there are several guides on cosplay.com about this as well).

Best of luck, feel free to message me with questions.  I've been cosplaying since 2001, and I have made a ton of mistakes and learned quite a bit since then.

[Tulips]

Oh thanks for the tip about sharpie marker/ink, that sounds like a much cheaper option

The convention is 6 months away, if I can't make the awesome wings soon I'll make some simple ones... though I reckon 6 months is plenty of time. Other obligations? I'm in my final year of studying Fine Art at University (can't say I qualify as an artist yet but I think I can accept this cosplay challenge), I shouldn't have free time and yet I still find time to waste online, as well as work of course.

And the hair, I wasn't actually doing that for cosplay. I'm seriously bleaching my hair and dyeing it rainbow just because it's awesome, lol... that it fits in with my cosplay plan is just convenient. It'll grow out but I'll just rebleach and dye as it fades, I'll have plenty of time to perfect the colours and do last minute touch ups.

Hopefully my first attempt won't be a flop, I'll take advice but be ambitious

[Dragonflitter]

For my Rainbow Dash cosplay, I was it putting together around Halloween time and scavenged a lot of stuff from Halloween stores (and the Halloween section of Walmart/Target).

For wings, I found really nice angel wings that actually are made of fabric, not feathers, so they end up looking a lot like the cartoon wings! Cuz using bird feathers, I think, just looks like you're wearing a dead dyed goose on your back...

I got some sky blue fabric to cover the white fabric angel wings and ta da, FiM pegasus wings!

For the tail, I cheated a bit. At the time, Walmart had a bunch of hair stripes in the Halloween aisle that were made with wig hair and attached to a clip at the top. You could clip it in your hair and it looked like you had a stripe of color in your hair. They had a BUNCH of different colors. I bought a red one, orange, green, blue, and purple one... and then used a big rubber band and wrapped it around all the hair clips together. Looks like an instant rainbow tail!

They didn't have an yellow stripe BUT I learned by reading online that permanent marker easily and permanently colors wig hair, and once it dries it doesn't get all over the place. And it's a lot easier than dying wigs! So I just bought a white wig stripe and colored it yellow with a permanent marker.

You could just buy a white or blond wig and color all the rainbow stripes you need! Any office supply store (or Walmart) will sell a huge selection of permanent markers in any color you want.

Just some ideas to get you going! ^_^

[Tulips]

I'll probably go with the permanent marker idea for the tail, and I'll play about with different wing ideas. I just wanted to post a pic of my hairstyle at the moment, which is a preview of what I'll be like cosplaying... bad pics and my first attempt at dyeing a rainbow (with a friend's help) so the green is a bit bigger than rest of the colours. I'll grow it out a bit and either cut and bleach/dye again or keep the length and bleach/dye again, by the time the con is here my hair should be twice the length... Anyways, lame pics! 

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It's a bit of a mohawk, it looks a little weird in the last pic but in person the curve looks natural... or at least that's what people tell me, maybe to avoid me going emo over a bad haircut. I've been getting compliments everyday since I did it, lol, so I guess it's fine.