Ariel Dresses

Mermaid Ariel Tutorial

Disney Dress Tutorials for Not-So-Grown ups

s an avid Disney fan, one of my dreams is to make most of the iconic costumes worn by the princesses and heroines of Disney films. However, it seems that most of the patterns and tutorials available are only for kids, and not many are screen-accurate. Finding patterns for adults (that aren't horribly skimpy) can be difficult, and tutorials are scattered far and wide on the vast expanse of the internet. But never fear! I have collected the best and most accurate tutorials I could find just for you lovely folks!

If you're looking for a specific character, just press Control and F at the same time to search.

This will be an ongoing collection, as I'll add more as I find them, and if you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments! You can also follow my Disney Costume Tutorials board on Pinterest, if you like.

(All screencaps found at the wonderful disneyscreencaps.com, which I highly reccomend for all your Disney screencapping needs.)

Ariel from the Little Mermaid (1989):

The mermaid fin! Last summer, after a few beers, I ended up purchasing a monofin on eBay. My monofin came from FinFunMermaid and it’s the adult sized ‘pro’ version. It’s actually surprisingly easy to swim with, but when maneuvering in a full tail across sand it gets a bit awkward. Also holy crap does it accumulate sand when in the ocean.

Once I had my complete shape, I drew a little V by my ankles to separate the colours, with the emerald green spandex being the majority of my legs and then lime green for the tail. Everything got cut out and then assembled with a straight stretch stitch and serged on the inside. The waist was a bit looser than I’d intended, so I ended up putting it on inside out to re-mark where I’d prefer the seams and then stitching it up again.

I should point out that the blue monofin showing was irritating me, but that gap needs to be open for water to flow through and not weigh down the tail. I ended up stitching some lime green spandex straight onto the monofin so that it would blend in. You’ll be able to see later when the tail is wet! It was a lot easier than I thought it would be getting this together, so I set the tail aside to get started on the shells for the bra. I still had padded hip fins to do, but the shell paint would need time to dry and then cure in the oven.

I picked up some porcelain acrylic paint at Michaels and started painting my shells. I did a few coats of light purple on the inner parts, then used a darker purple along the outside to blend into the lighter center. Once I was happy with the colour I brushed on some lilac AB glitter and then popped them in the oven to cure as per the directions on the paint.

The bra was an easy thing to do as well, I took purple lycra and stretched it over the cups til it sat like the bra fabric did and then hand stitched them over the cups. I found this way preferable to machine stitching as I didn’t have to worry about the underwire, and it didn’t leave a visible seam on the cups. The sides were just covered with more lycra and then zig-zagged on. The straps are done like a spaghetti strap, but I left the tubes wide enough to feed the actual bra straps through.