Custom - Eumelia Eriades Bead Dress

My second five-inch-tall custom dress, based on the artwork of DukeWaxeye, who I met through ShareZone chat.

He was posting his art around the chat room and I was drawn to her bright design. I balked at his comment about being unhappy with her coloring! I told him immediately I thought her to be the highest quality piece in his gallery and then proceeded to stare at her. The biggest question from Mom was "why that one?", after all I do have a somewhat ridiculous stash of dress references already. The answer is that her design magically already follows patterns I have done previously, which allows for mashing things together for a final piece. The dresses that came together to create Eumelia are:

Everything was heavily modified to fit Eumelia's structure. The Split-Skirt dress contributed her collar, modified to be smaller, and the ruffley edging on the skirt. The Miniskirt contributed the structure for the bodice and cowl (vest collar really). The Ballgown contributed her flowing skirt with a modified hem. The sleeves are a 100% custom pattern, reverse-engineered by first creating the shoulder-to-armpit size, then out to the arm width, and then curling back up for the puff. The puffs are very rigid as to stop them from collapsing in on themselves. From there I made a herringbone tube downwards to finish the sleeves. I feel that the long part of the sleeves are too large for scale... but sadly making them wick smaller just made weird cones x_x and that was unacceptable. So, the sleeves are a bit roomy. The beaded bow on her back is also entirely custom, inspired by a very large Russian beaded bow pattern that I found through Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/pin/43319005…

After figuring out which dresses would be playing which part, I went bead shopping! I had DukeWaxeye there himself to help me pick out the shades, which was slightly difficult because he's not savvy on the rules for picking out beads. For instance, the shade of yellow I use in the final dress is not nearly as pale as the original art's yellow. This is a fault of bead-producers, I'm afraid, there's only so many shades of yellow that come in both size 11 and size 15.

As it turns out, Eumelia uses a lot of colors, and not just in that gradient skirt of her's. Glass seed beads threaded with yellow Japanese One G nylon (over 40 feet easily) make up the entirety of the dress. Silky peach, clear rainbow green, matte silver-lined orange, clear orange, silky yellow, and gold-lined white in size 11. Clear rainbow green, matte silver-lined orange, silky yellow, gold-lined white, and matte silver-lined green in size 15. The buttons are real gold and orange crystal Crystaletts from my friend Sharon: www.etsy.com/shop/YadasiBeads She's done mostly in herringbone stitch, with peyote on the back of the bow, and somewhat-basic threading for the vest collar / cowl.

I spent well over thirty hours in pattern creation for this dress. A lot of it did come from structure but it feels like the color coding was the most time consuming bit (excluding the sleeves). I thought I had the gradient down perfectly the first time, but stopped myself short when nothing was coming out like I planned. I went back and re-formatted the entire skirt so the gradient would look more natural. The top portion of the skirt has a "longer" gradient to help pull the appearance of ruffles and waves, the bottom focuses more on the gradient alone. Her original artwork is a chibi so I had requested extra sketches of Eumelia for better accuracy. The extra sketches are, to my knowledge, not officially posted anywhere, but they are included occasionally with the facebook progress images.

While difficult to see, the vest collar / cowl is asymmetrical to match the original art. The cowl is an added layer on top of the bodice to force the vest above the striped shirt. The detailing beads around the edge of the vest also highlight the solid lines used in her original artwork, including pockets and a line up to define the asymmetrical vest. This edging also forces the vest to be its own "layer" instead of just a coloring change between it and the skirt. The ruffle hems on her skirt create a double-layered effect as well. An extra line of beads between the puff sleeves and the long sleeves creates another layer, where without that line it looks like the sleeve just changes color.

Eumelia is permanently sewn to her mannequin / dress form and cannot be removed without excessive damage. This dress is not for art trade or sale and will be staying with me. DukeWaxeye has given me full permission to use this bead dress pattern to create future dresses and sell them without needing to compensate him in any which way.

Color Total: 7
Bead Sizes: 2
Size: 5 1/2 inches tall, 1 inch waist, 1 1/4 inch bust, 4 inches hem, 2 inches wide shoulders, 2 inch long sleeves
Size Bow: 1 1/4 inch long, 1/2 inch tall, 1/2 inch wide
Time: 34.5 hours