Photo ref - costume?

[telophase]

I am fast coming to the inevitable conclusion that I desperately need to practice psinting fabric, especially gathered, pleated, folded, etc. fabric. Do any of you costumers/cosplayers out there have any good pictures of yourselves in lush costumes with lots of fabric, especially with big sweeps of gathered/pleated/folded fabric, like with bustles, trains, skirts, of the Victorian and Edwardian eras etc? (I'd ask for wedding dresses, but I really don't want to paint white right now. XD) Costumes need not be of the historic variety, as long as they have what I'm looking for - biiig areas of fold, wrinkles, pleats, gathers, etc. (And how many more times can I say fold, gathers, pleats, wrinkles, etc.?*)




* I believe I'm repeating that over and over mostly to ensure that no one says "Sure!" and gives me a picture of them as, say, Sailor Moon. Which does have some soft gathers in the skirt, yes, but not the huge areas I'm looking for.


ETA: I failed to make it clear why I was looking for pictures of people on my f-list: because I want to paint a copy of one of them for practice. I don't really want to grab a picture of a random person off the Web to do that, because I'd need permission to post it to DA and elsewhere online and I'm uncomfortable with asking a total stranger if I can do that.

Comments

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Take a look at becky_spence - she's a costumer, specialising in corsetry & Big Things (swoopy dresses, pirate coats etc). She has some wonderful pictures of stuff linked from her LJ.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

No help from me. I have cosplayed Kagome, Sakura (Tsubasa RC), and Sasami but nothing useful to you. I don't think any of my friends do costumes that are so fabric intense either.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I have a big folder of art references, and at least several images of costumes with big poofs. Most of them are screenshots from "historical" movies, though, so they aren't huge. Big enough to make out details, though.

What about other kinds of costumes with lots of folds? I went through a costume design phase where I was very into unstitched/untailored clothing like saris, so I have a lot of images of the various ways those were folded.

I could stuff them all into a .zip and either email or upload somewhere, if you'd like.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

That would be very nice. :D If it's less than Gmail's file size limit (either 10 or 20 megs; I'm not sure), then send it to me at telophase14 at gmail dot com. Thanks!

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

It looks like I lost a lot of stuff when I switched computers, but it turned out to be just slightly over 20MB and gmail wouldn't let me email it. I put it up on sendspace, but I can upload it somewhere else if sendspace gives you problems.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/s9t8vk

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Downloaded just fine! Thanks! :D

[chomiji]

How about good-quality Society for Creative Anachronism costuming? This site has pix from a couple of costume symposia and seminars, some with lots of heavy, luxurious draped fabrics, some with just interesting garment details that might be useful for fantasy/manga illustrations.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

What I was really looking for wasn't reference, because there's lots out there, but specific pictures of people that I could paint for practice, hence me asking for pictures from my friendslist. I failed to make that clear. :)

[chomiji]

Ooopf! Yeah, that does kind of change the situation. Sorry!

OK, I know a person or two I can ask about that. I'll get back to you if inquiries bear fruit.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Thanks!

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

Light blue 1750s sack back gown: http://www.pbase.com/briarrose/proofs_lia There's 8 yards of fabric in there, so if that's not enough, I'm afraid I cannot help you.
Goth-fantasy bustle gown: http://www.pbase.com/briarrose/proofs_merry_widow
Flemish Ren gown: http://www.pbase.com/briarrose/proofs__flemishpeasant (there are some nice pleats in the skirts of this one - more vertical or tubular than anything else, but very much what you see in the Flemish genre paintings)

These pics are copyrighted, but if you want to use them for something public, drop a note to the photographer, aurora AT liralyn-dot-com, and tell her I sent you... she's a good friend and would probably be more than delighted to help a fellow artist.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried a Creative Commons search? I've just discovered they have a search engine that will let you search flickr and some other engines for images with the appropriate licences.

Also, fyi. (http://mistressrenet.livejournal.com/195932.html)