How long does it take you to make a costume?

diplomacyman · July 2013

I ask because I seem to be getting slower and slower lol. I'm curious as to how different people go about it as well, I tend to start with an idea in my head like a name and a power and then try to make a costume that fits that concept as best I can, perhaps its easier to experiment about in the costume creator and mold a character out of that?

Interested to what different people say, at the moment I tend to just fiddle with a costume every now and then rather than flat out as I like to look at it again with fresh eyes the next day or so, takes me about a week at the moment which I expect seems forever for some people.

flyingfinn · July 2013

8-12 hours if i have well thought idea on my head.
But i usually just dig something from my 42Gigs of costume files...

The 1st costume is usually simple tights. With cape. And mask.

bluhman · July 2013

Anywhere from an hour to like a day's time. In the case of the latter, it's usually in pursuit of a really odd look that I haven't seen attempted before, including stuff like trying to make convincing octopi, goo people, horse-people, vehicle-people, or what have you. As you can see, these sometimes go through a ton of iterations.

thecobra22 · July 2013

I so want a goo character just not thrown anything together yet that looks gooey enough

if i get a good idea i could spend a few hours and just stay in the creator till im happy with it. sometimes i may go back to that character again for some minor tweaking such as a colour change or swapping a make do costume piece for one ive unlocked.

probably my most overall time consuming design was Desert Eagle . My original idea was an army themed character based around a big gun. so i had basic army green and brown camo pattern clothes along with the face/mask that Desert Eagle uses and then mechassassin gun arm. i called this character Calibre. i used it once at a contest but wasnt happy with it. so i went back to that character several months later after picking up the Dr Ka headgear. Then from there overhauled the character completely, keeping only the mask,with a new dessert camo pattern. And through combination of the eagle headgear,colors and gun arm got the fitting name Desert Eagle which tied together the 3 main features of the character.

drgmstr · July 2013

I have noticed a trend when I make simple costumes like casual wear, tights, etc. They take me less than 30 minutes to make. But have me working on making armors I could spend a whole day editing just one costume. I just enjoy making armors just that much. :biggrin:

rabenschwinge · July 2013

That depends on how exactly I know what I want. And how easy to find the parts are in the menu... Sometimes it can be painful and I gotta search a given menu three from times top to bottom to find it. Or to figure out that it is actually in a different menu.

Making a first version of a costume takes one to three hours. In some cases, when I did not know exactly what I want, it takes longer. Either way, I usually work over a costume the following days to make it actually round, the first version is usually not very good, more like a draft, or a sketch of a comic artist.

While I work on a costume I get stuck in ideas and biased by certain aspects of it, so that I need some distance to judge it objectively.

kelplankton · July 2013

Kinda depends.

If I have a clear concept in mind(something like "a robot with electrical powers, covered in armor"), and know what parts to use to do it, maybe 20 minutes at the most since I'll play with colors and sliders a lot.

If I just have a vague idea(something like "uh i dunno a character who does wind stuff") then it can take much, much longer. Usually not more than an hour though.

Either way, I usually tweak or refine their look after an hour or two of play.

chaosdrgnz43 · July 2013

When thinking of a costume for a contest, it only takes at least an hour. But if I'm making a nice costume for my chars, it takes at least 2-3hours.

tomaan · July 2013

I usually spend 2-3 hours on a concept and then tweak 1-2x a week for a couple of weeks.

All told...maybe 6-7 hours?

tigerofcachtice · July 2013

Interesting question and answers! My personal one is a little bit weird:

Almost always 45 minutes to 1 hour

I'm a regular in the Costume Contest Circuit and I do my best work in that time frame.

I think it's because if I have to spend more than 1 hour, it's because the idea wasn't clear.

And if that character concept isn't clear in the first place, then the rest doesn't matter.

If I spend less time than that, the costume isn't very polished, it's not well put together.

If I spend more time than that, I'm just adding erroneous bits, I dilute the design.

What gets me is how consistent that proves...all my wins are about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

cascadence · July 2013

Somewhere in between 1 hour to 8 hours lol. Usually the 1 hour costumes are the ones when I have a really, really clear idea of what I want to do and the costume pieces I want to use actually exist.

The 8 hours one, are the ones where concept is fuzzy or I want to build a costume around a certain idea (using certain powers for instance) or costume piece.

gillfignofigno · July 2013

The longest I've ever taken on one costume was probably close to 2 hours (The Magician). Average is 40 minutes to an hour from concept to completion.

riltmos · July 2013

It takes me about a week for me to come up with an interesting concept that can actually be done in this game due to all the costume limits. Then it usually takes me another 13 or so hours to make the character usually because I forgot a piece could not be used with another, or it looks terrible on the screen.

gillfignofigno · July 2013

flyingfinn wrote: »

8-12 hours if i have well thought idea on my head.
But i usually just dig something from my 42Gigs of costume files...

The 1st costume is usually simple tights. With cape. And mask.

I hope you meant 42mb of costumes, because at an average rate of 10 hours per costume it would have taken you over 662 years to make the over 580,000 costume files it would take to use 42GBs of storage space...

oniganon · July 2013

Like 4 hours maybe.

Takes me a while.

And if it's a toon I actually play, the costume gets tweaked over and over as time goes on.

As they say, an artwork is never really finished, only abandoned.

meedacthunist · July 2013

Usually slightly more than 30 minutes and never longer than 1 hour, unless I'm making more than one costume.

It helps that I never start making costume not having more or less clear idea about it. And that most of my costumes are very simple and not using all body part slots available. And usually have no more than two main colors + third color accent.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

jonesing4 · July 2013

oniganon wrote: »

Like 4 hours maybe.

Takes me a while.

And if it's a toon I actually play, the costume gets tweaked over and over as time goes on.

As they say, an artwork is never really finished, only abandoned.

Agreed on this... I've been "working" on some of my costumes for almost 3 years now!

Interesting to see the responses in here, good thread.

Mine vary wildly... I've had some churn out in 30 minutes that I'm happy with, and some that take days to reach their 'final' form. Just depends.

decorumfriends · July 2013

Somewhere between ten minutes and two weeks. It's very much inspiration driven.

decorumfriends · July 2013

oniganon homilies:

As they say, an artwork is never really finished, only abandoned.

Whoever said that was silly, and probably overworks the crap out of all their art. :biggrin:

One of the keys to art is knowing when to stop screwing with it.

gillfignofigno · July 2013

decorumfriends wrote: »

One of the keys to art is knowing when to stop screwing with it.

Coming from another artist, that's for sure. Look no further than George Lucas as an example.

chalupaoffury · July 2013

Oddly? My looks that win the most in ccs tend to only take me like 20 minutes. I never take long to make a costume though, because I intentionally go in with vague concepts and try to fill them out as best as I can within the tailor constraints. I find that the ones I actually do spend a lot of time on? Never win a darn thing, and never really get commented on.

There's a caveat. Whenever I'm trying to master a new style of costume? It takes me forever to make my first few, while I wrap my mind around the specific stylings of said theme. Example: I've always been horrid at retro, and about 2 months ago I finally set about trying to fix this. Crimson Falcon's first retro look was really simple, and took me like 10 hours. I've since gotten the idea down a bit better, and I can whip out a retro look in about 15 minutes. It's always worked that way, for some reason.

spiderdude4 · July 2013

Honestly, It takes me days and even weeks to get to that "Perfect Costume" area. And sometimes I never reach that place at all without help. I take most of my design ideas from deviantART posts and lesser known comic hero costumes. Usually I get the main design down, but when it comes to fine details I can get a bit nit picky (I.E Like say I got the suit but I can't find the right looking mask for it!!). This process does take a very long time to figure out, but this usually depends on what concept I'm working on.

I suck at heavy armors, but I seem to get tights and light armor down pat. I'm also what is known as a fashionista, My main character, Night Spider has had over 50 costumes since I started CO, and that's just the stuff I remember! :eek:

While my two other characters have unique looks that I have never needed to change, just overly fickle I guess.

lunaw78 · July 2013

No more than 1 hour! Sometimes even 5 minutes. And I really don`t make ugly costumes!

dr490nbr347hi · July 2013

That 'Perfect' Costume will take a long, long time. Hell, Some of mine right now I'm not entirely happy with.

Eh, The improvements come to you in time, I suppose.

jerax1011 · July 2013

I heard that Caliga made his account and his look was there waiting for him. *sage nod*

lunaw78 · July 2013

dr490nbr347hi wrote: »

That 'Perfect' Costume will take a long, long time. Hell, Some of mine right now I'm not entirely happy with.

For me it takes a matter of minutes if I have the ideea on my mind and the costume pieces!

lilsteffie · July 2013

Usually for me it takes half an hour to 2 hours. if i find that the idea isn't working i just scrap it.. that happens half the time -_-;;

How long does it take you to make a costume?

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