Body Forms
This is something completely different. I've made body form patterns for various body sections to help with draping and visualizing pattern making ... and I've made them such that you can cut them out of paper card and assemble them at home. So far I have:
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Breast Forms
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Head Forms
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Body/Dress Forms
Breast Forms
This is an indispensable tool if you're interested in modelling bra patterns by hand. You simply assemble the form, draw your design lines on it, cut it out and trace off the pattern ... suddenly one of the hardest patterning jobs became the easiest. But wait there's more: I've included three different breast profiles ... a low for smaller AA-A cups, a medium for regular profiles and a high which tends to be more appropriate for implants. You could also use these forms if you want more extreme breast shaping on your body form or for making cosplay armor!
Head Forms
The head forms are designed to help you with things like hat making (millinery), mask making, cosplay, hoods, head dresses for things like cabaret and any other creative endeavor that might benefit from having a realistic head shape you can make and cut up again. If you are looking at purchasing the head form then take a look at How to Make The Head form.
Dress Forms (Miyumi & Mei Mei)
A dress form is a true to scale body shape made out of paper card that you can use to drape a pattern. It's certainly not an easy project as it can take some time and patience to complete, but where else are you going to get a pattern to make a body form at home? Below is a table of each Miyumi body form I've made ... each has a name and meaning rather than a size ... The size chart for Mei Mei can be found here.
Before you purchase a dress form, I recommend you take a look at the instructions on How To Assemble Miyumi (the first body form) and How To Papier Mache Miyumi ... just to make sure it's something you can do! They aren't easy!
Each body form comes with 4 wire sizes of breast forms in three different profiles that are common for that body form's measurements ... if you want sizes outside the common range there's also an optional breast forms bundle above of 12 wire sizes in three different profiles.
The different sizes are shown below. These are an update on the original Miyumi in that they are more flexible on assembly if you don't cut as perfectly ... now the curves will still fit if you aren't accurate (but remember the alignment arrows are still set up for perfect cutting so might not align if you aren't!). This is why a fixed paper pattern can vary in dimension too!! ... as you slide along the length of a curve you can actually increase or decrease measurements significantly ... on the bigger sizes that change can be considerable if you don't assemble perfectly! ... but at least this time it'll still go together ... whereas on the original Miyumi it was more difficult.
The Waist template for doing the paper mache can be found on the Papier Mache page.