Jessica Rabbit
(Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Heyya Everyone!
In this post I will be walking through the various stages of how I went about creating my Jessica Rabbit cosplay, from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Dress:-
In the film, Jessica wears 2 dresses; a pink sparkly one for when shes performing on stage, and a plain red one for the rest of the film. I always preferred her red dress, as I am not a fan of how pink looks on me, I also couldn't decide between keeping it authentic, or mixing the two. So in the end, I made 2 dresses; a sparkly, glittery red dress, and a plain red shiny dress.
Both of the dresses were made the exact same way, using my Butterick 4731 pattern. The sparkly dress was made with 2-way stretch red shimmer Spandex, and the plain shiny red dress was made using a 2-way stretch metallic Spandex/PVC mix - both off of eBay.
As the fabric was stretchy, I didn't want the dress to be too flexible and floppy, so I used a plain red 100% cotton fabric for the lining. This also made the dress a lot more comfortable to wear, especially in the heat.
I made the pattern up as normal, but I cut a large slit up the right side, to the top of where my hip starts. I also cut a small slit in the centre of the bust, and changed the neckline from a straight line to a sweetheart shape. I left the back of the dress sitting higher on my body that Jessica's, as I use an underbust corset to get her shape, and I didn't want it visible above the top of the dress back.
I tried the dress on to alter it, and had to do this about 3 times to get it to fit correctly, as the corset altered my shape so much. I ended up with 2 large darts in the back, and 2 inches cut off of either side of the waist.
Wig:-
My wig was a long, straight, auburn lace front with a centre parting. I put it on my wig head, changed it to a side parting and gave it a quick go over with my straighteners to get it all smooth [make sure your wig is heat resistant before going anywhere near your wig with straighteners].
Styling this wig was super easy, as Jessica's hair is straight with only a small kink at the front. I have seen a lot of cosplayers use a very curly wig for Jessica, but I'm not keen with the overall silhouette this gives, so I decided to go with the middle ground. I kept my wig straight, with a small curl at the bottom 1/4 of the length, just to add a bit of texture.
The kink was backcombed in using a thin teasing comb, then set with Got2B styling gel and spray, along with short blasts from my hairdryer on the lowest setting. I also added a bit of backcombing/teasing on the roots of the wig around the crown, because I am all about that volume! This was how my finished wig looked:-
Make-up:-
I love Jessica's makeup in the film, and I couldn't decide between doing it exactly like her cartoon makeup, with rounded shapes and minimal shading, or a more realistic version, using all the same colours, but with regular makeup techniques.
I tried them both and prefer the realistic version, as it gives a more flattering look to my face - it's much less harsh. Plus the realistic version only takes 40 minutes to achieve, whereas the cartoon version took over an hour and a half.
Finished Cosplay:-
Once my dress was finished, my wig was styled and my makeup was done, this was the finished look altogether:-
I hope this was helpful to some of you, if it was please tag me/show me your finished costumes, as I love to see them! If you have any other questions about the construction of this, please leave me a comment and I will help in any way I can.
Much Love,
Sabrina
xXx
I loved this film as a kid, and wanted to look just like Jessica when I was older; however I grew up looking just the opposite, with a small chest and chubby midsection. However, I have learnt a lot doing cosplay, and there are many ways to alter your shape to best suit the character you dress as. This is completely optional, as you do not need to look exactly like the character to cosplay as them, it's all about having fun and bringing the characters to life - however I have always loved that burlesque hourglass shape, so I try to work it into as many of my costumes as I can.
I really hate making corsets, and will never make another one until the day comes when a costume desperately requires a unique one to be made. This is not that day, so I used my usual cream steel boned underbust corset to pull in my waist, and paired it with my favourite strapless push up plunge bra, along with some silicone cleavage enhancers which I put at the bottom of the cup to push my chest up. The final touch was to contour my chest to add in a few more shadows.
Final thing to do was to find her gloves. Finding long gloves in purple proved quite tricky, especially as I have quite long arms, so they very rarely reach over my elbow. I bought a pair of white satin opera gloves which fit beautifully from Harlequins, my local fancy dress shop - and dyed them violet using a dye for synthetic fibres.