Behind the Scenes on the April Fool's Prank! (Patreon)

Oh my god, you guys have no idea how hard it was for me to keep quiet about this!! I love sharing work-in-progress photos and behind the scenes content with Patrons, and giving you early access to photos, and it KILLED ME to not be able to do that without ruining the prank. But now the curtain is lifted!! I hope you guys enjoyed it!

The Plan

Usually these April Fool's group pranks are invite-only Facebook groups, and I've been lucky enough to be invited to the last 3 or so. This year's prank was for everyone to release Nurse Joy & Officer Jenny costumes (from Pokemon) on April 1 and talk about going to a "family reunion," since all Jennys and Joys are cousins in canon. 

I've been thinking about making Officer Jenny for a long time, so this seemed like the perfect time to follow through. However, I've had a lot on my plate these last few months, and I didn't want any of my other projects to suffer if I prioritized this.

So.... I asked Morgan to be the Joy to my Jenny and come over to make a costume in a day with me. You may remember that I made my Leia costume in a day. I wanted to do something similar here: Dedicate one full day to the costume, so that in the grand scheme of things I wouldn't lose much time, but I still get to participate in the prank. Morgan agreed, so at 9am last Wednesday, we started sewing!

The Costume

First, I used a thrifted button-down and pencil skirt, as well as some thrifted bedsheets for scrap, to pattern out the blouse and skirt. (I had originally bought the shirt and skirt years ago hoping to just modify them into an Officer Jenny costume, but I thought that would look sloppy, so I decided to sew the costume from scratch.)

I made the skirt first because it was "easy," and then proceeded to screw it up twice, do a lot of stitch pulling, and finally finish it around lunchtime. Whoops.

In comparison, the top went relatively smoothly — it just had a lot of pieces! I spent hours just making all the little details, like the pockets, cuffs, collar, and peplum. When I finally put it all together, it was a dang good fit for how quickly I made it (although it doesn't quite close over the bust underneath that blue triangle... ugh, boobs make patterning so hard.)

(There are so many different closures on this shirt... phew)

By the time I got the top done, it was past 10pm, so we were trying to wrap up. I made the hat to perfectly fit my head, which of course means it was too small once I was wearing a wig... Smart, Ginny.

The hat is craft foam with fabric glued over it, basically! I tried to spray paint the star emblem (I decided to be a Viridian City Officer!) using my lazy spray-paint-without-leaving-the-apartment method, but it was literally snowing and the paint wouldn't stick, so we called it a night just before 2am.

The Shoot

We reconvened two days later, on Friday, for the photoshoot! I set up my white backdrop and my ring light (thank you, Alex!!) and we got some cute photos!

I was so pumped about the photos that I edited most of them that night!! I have more to share than the ones I posted on April 1, don't worry.

I'm so glad I made this costume, and really happy with the final product! I realized the other day that even though I've made three new costumes so far this year, I hadn't shot any of them yet until this shoot. I'm so relieved to have some new stuff to show! I'll probably be bringing Jenny to some cons, because she's pretty comfortable, plus I think I can get away with using my own hair... nice!