First Ever Cosplay - The Hard Part

This is how I made my cosplay Dalek costume for Fan Expo 2013 The Gathering of Dalek Guiness World Record attempt. My purchases, prep and decision-making is described in my blog post, First Ever Cosplay - How Did I End Up in This Mess? 
My first step was to cut 20 of the 3" white Styrofoam balls in half [10 rows of 4 balls each = 40 half balls]. Most of them cut fairly easily, but some seemed to explode bits everywhere. It took about 15 minutes. I then placed half of them in a cardboard pop box so that the low sides would keep the balls in place even with the spray blowing pushing them around. I gave them one thick coat of matte black spray paint and then painted the second half of the balls and the whisk and mini plunger. I had only purchased a small can and ran out of paint without doing a second coat. If I ever do this again I will buy a full-sized can. They dried in about 15 minutes in my open garage.

I scoured the internet trying to find a skirt pattern that would work considering I had only purchased a single curtain to use as fabric. I wasn't that successful because I didn't want to use elastic for the top since I've never sewn an elastic waist and didn't feel comfortable trying for the first time. I ended up folding the curtain in half and cutting one size down to half my waist measurement plus approximately 2-3". I held the piece up against myself and figured out the length I wanted [just below the knee] and added about 4" so I could hem the bottom and leave some fabric at the top to thread a ribbon. I pieced together the 2 pieces of fabric and sewed the two sides together. It took about 20-30 minutes for each side. I had to hand sew the pieces because my mom gave away our sewing machine and I couldn't get a hold of another one. The last step was to thread a piece of black ribbon - about 12" longer than my waist - through the top. The top already had a seam because that was where the liner met the heavy fabric of the original curtain.
I grabbed my red ribbon and pinned it to the skirt in order to mark the 10 necessary panels. The two seams would be covered by ribbon and then 4 pieces of ribbon divided each side [front and back]. I tried to sew them so they would still look straight even when the top ribbon tied [and thus bunched] the skirt around my waist. It took about 1.5 hours [though I was watching TV and playing Farmville so this may not be accurate :)].
After the red ribbon was done, I hemmed the bottom of the skirt. It took another 30 minutes.
Last ribbon step for the skirt: I added black ribbon around the bottom of the skirt to hide the hem job and give the skirt a proper base. I did 2 rows and it took about 30 minutes. This was the beginning of the second week working on my costume.
Very last skirt step: attaching the balls. I figured that a day of cosplay would be hard on Styrofoam balls so after quickly [I was really tired - very long work day] planning out the position of the balls, I lightly glued them down [almost running out of glue gun sticks] and then ran some thread through them a couple times so they would stay put and not fall off. Any black paint that chipped off, I covered the spots in permanent black marker to blend in. This took about an hour over a couple week nights.

The top:
I had bought a red tank top to go with the skirt. I thought about leaving it blank, but decided to make a Dalek-like pattern. I looked at various cosplay tops on Google, as well as pictures of Daleks. I thought about doing a full pattern on the top, but in the end, the material was way too stretchy to adequately sew on un-stretchy ribbon/scrap fabric. Instead, I added a red, medium-sized rectangle of scrap fabric to both front and back and cut two ribbons to use as waistbands to give more definition to the top. If I find some energy I may sew more red ribbon to the edges of the rectangle. It took about 45 minutes [planning and design, reworking the sewing after trying it on] over the course of an evening.

The neck piece:
I noticed that a lot of Dalek hats/cosplay had some rows of black to give the Dalek costume a neck. I used an old black pillow case and cut out six strips on a curve so that it could go over my head to cover my chest/shoulders. This was fairly quick once i figured out how to layer them like I wanted. It took about 20 minutes. I've noticed that the edges are fraying and you can't really see the three definite rings, so if/when I find some motivation/energy I may try to add definition either through a hem on each ring or by sewing more black ribbon on.

 The last step: the Dalek dome.
I needed to find a bowl that was large enough to rest comfortably on my head and hold up my Dalek eye stalk flashlight and my two antenna shot glasses. I went back to the dollar store and found what I thought would work. I covered the bowl with the last of the red curtain fabric [using glue to attach it] and then glued down the plastic shot glasses on the top. I covered the base of the eye stalk with fabric and glued it down as best I could, trying to rest it on the rim of the bowl to give it some extra support. I added some leftover red ribbon to try to hide the seams. Next time I would probably try to take more time and cut the fabric more carefully so I didn't get some really weird and ugly folds/seams. It took about an hour.

Wearing the dome, I realized it's very, very heavy at the front with the flashlight - which I had considered, but rejected when I initially bought the flashlight [I guess I got caught up in the excitement of the moment]. In order to be able to wear the dome for the required 10-15 minutes I will have to wear a baseball hat backwards to support the front.
I decided to make a plan B. In about 5 minutes I made a headband out of my scrap red fabric and added two shotglass anntennae to it. It looks good and if I decide to cosplay for the entire day this will work well. I also cut out a rectangle of fabric to attach to the headband and made an eyestalk out of a spare half sytrofoam ball, two shot glasses glued at the bottoms and three pieces of ribbon. It looks okay and I'm now considering replacing the flashlight with a version of this, using construction paper instead of ribbon so the three rings are more 3D. The replacement would mean I probably wouldn't need the backup or the baseball hat.

Overall, it took about 430 minutes [around 7 hours] over the course of about 3 weeks. It also cost around $70-80 including tax.
I plan to straighten my hair day of and wear plain black flats. I will have capris underneath the skirt and carry a tee [Dalek-themed] in my bag in case I get tired of cosplaying.

I think I'm ready for Fan Expo and the Dalek gathering. I'll post some pics after the event - I need to get there early on the Saturday to register and check out all the other costumes :).