Petrine (Fire Emblem POR) Progress

Honestly, I though busting out this armor in a limited time would be a pain in the ass, but it turned out not as bad as I thought. I finished it all in about a week, and I’m really pleased with it. That being said, this is the THIRD incarnation of this armor, after too successful-but-not-pleased with tries. Finally, I gave up and decided to work with a whole new material– EVA foam. Cheap, inexpensive, and heat-malleable (which I didn’t know).

So, I went out and bought a pack of ‘High-Impact Flooring’ at Walmart.

I cut my shapes out– freehanded, like always, HA. Once it was cut out, I stuck it on a cookie sheet in the oven, set at 350 degrees. Have to be carful though, cause it can catch on fire or melt if left in there too long… >.> Once it comes out, you can shape it. You can see this here, where I pressed the chest piece against my dressform.

You can get a really nice, rounded edge!

I then spray painted everything black and sealed it with layer upon layer of gloss.

For the trim, I used plastic tubing (you can get it by the foot at Lowe’s/Home Depot for really cheap), cut it in half (this takes patience) and then glued it to the armor after spraypainting it.

 

Trying to figure out how to attach everything to me was a pain. It’s a system of straps of velcro and D-Strings. I might get around to posting pictures of it. Maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

Scarlet Witch (Xmen/Avengers)

People prolly didn’t even know I was working on this! I really didn’t say much about it and I posted almost noooo progress pictures of it. I won the Bishoujo style statue in a raffle, and I just fell in love with the design! *_*

 

Cost– About $75

Red Vinyl– $18

Pink Spandex– $12

Red Velvet– $10

Wig– $32

Glove pattern– $2

This costume was a lot of firsts for me! I sewed vinyl, a bodysuit and made gloves! How exciting!

 

I made the mask like half a year ago, when I first started this project. It’s literally been laying around for that long, collecting dust. HA HA HA! It’s made from leftover Sintra from my T-Elos costume, heated up in the oven and shaped. It glues pretty easily to my forehead, and is quite comfortable, considering.

The bodysuit was made from the red Vinyl I got. I wanted 4-way stretch, but could only find 2-way stretch. It still worked out well in the end, even though I had to make it twice since I hate the first one! I patterned the think out myself. It has two seams up the front through each ‘boob’ and two on each side, and then a zipper in the back. It has to be held up by clear bra straps, since it slips against the spandex of the bodysuit.

The bodysuit was made from 4-way stretch pink spandex. I used a Qwiksew bodysuit pattern and a zig-zag stitch. I think I could tighten it up a little bit, but I’m pleased with the result.

The gloves were the worst part of this whole costume. Just a mess all around– I probably made three different pairs. The pattern wasn’t hard, but vinyl was NOT the ideal material, lol! I eventually got a decent pair out, though I STILL want to re-make another pair. It was hard shaping them to contour my wrist and arm to get a tight effect.

The boot covers though, were super easy. I used an old pair of my boots as the base. They were patterned by me, made from vinyl and have a zipper running upside down the back to zip it closed. The folded over part is actually craft foam covered in vinyl and then glued there.

The cape is crushed red velvet, and again, patterned out by me. It just kinda of wraps around me, but I’m still trying to figure out a way to fix that. Lol.

I LOVE MY WIG. It is EASILY my favorite part of the whole costume. Y’all might not know this, but that’s what my hair looks like when it’s long. *A* I miss is SO MUCH! I got it at a local wig shop, and I didn’t have to do a single thing to it!

 

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I can’t wait to wear this again. Intitial reactions were great– “YOU ARE THE BEST SCARLET WITCH I’VE SEEN”– so I supposed that I did my job well! Aside from being a little toasty, it’s very comfortable for the most part– I can sit very easily and stand and move around easy, and most important of all– go to the bathroom if I have to! This was a costume well done in my opinion!

 

Ibuki Test Shots

AND FINALLY! Some test shots of the costume. I’m still trying to get those damn ponytails to stand up. It’s a work in progress. AND, I AM  wearing undies, believe it or not.

Ibuki’s Wig

I decided to devote an ENTIRE post to how I did Ibuki’s wig. It was an involved process, and while it only took two nights to finish, I felt like it was an enternity, and I was ready to pull my hair out, scream or cry. This wig…. gave me a complete meltdown, to the point where I was like, “Am I even good at Cosplay? Should I keep doing this?” Stupid, yea, but I was in the heat of the moment and extremely frustrated! Not to mention Josh giving me a complete TROLOL face when I asked him how it looked. I mean, SHOT TO THE EGO, MAN.

ANYHOW. We saw the reference pictures in the first Ibuki post. I’m too lazy to repost. Some pics she has three pontails, some too— I went with the statue, which sported two, thicker ponytails– less work, right? I WISH.

I bought a fairly cheap wig at a local wig store– no point in buying online when I can get a black wig right near me. The downside to buying a ‘real everyday wig’ is that they are severely thin when compared to cosplay wigs. But, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make when the wig was only $25. So, I stubbed the ponytail and that was that!

I went through an unsuccessful night where I tried to use loose fiber, and wrap it around craft foam and glue it. God, it looked AWFUL. I completely scrapped and started again. This time, I went with working with wefts. I really didn’t want to sew some up tho, so I went out and bought some hair weave from the same store. It ended up being PERFECT and heat resistant– TWO GREAT THINGS!

This time, I made a form with some leftover EVA foam that I had laying around:

I prolly could’ve made the form a little thinner, since I really didn’t think that the hair would create as much volume as it did in the end. OH WELL

After this form was made, I went about wrapping it in hair wefts and gluing them there. I was able to use hot glue since they were heat resistant. When the forms were completely covered, they were glued into the wig with MASSIVE amounts of hot glue, and then covered in the cotton fabric.

 

Sadly, this is were the easy part ends. I CANNOT GET THE PONYTAILS TO STAND UP. I’m still working on it, lol.

The bangs were actually fairly easy– floral wire covered in several hairwefts and glued to the underside of the wig. I’m talking MASSIVE AMOUNTS of hair glue, gel and spray to made these babies rock hard. I suceeded, lol.

The wig is GODAWFUL heavy, so I prolly won’t be able to wear it for very  long, sadly.

Ibuki (Street Fighter) Progress

To be honest, I don’t even remember or know how this came to be started. It’s kinda like, I bought the fabric on a whim, and came home KNOWING it was going to turn into Ibuki. Then I remembered her hair. I’ve always loved her design though, and I’ve been trying to get my little sister to cosplay her FOREVER. Sadly, she won’t. So somewhere along the line, I played with the idea of doing her myself…. and here we are!

Again, I wasn’t planning on doing this until later in the year. This always seems to be the case, doesn’t it? But a trip to Joann’s, a 50% off coupon…. and I came home with the most PERFECT FABRIC EVER. For those who are clueless, here’s a picture:
Most of her references look like this, and honestly, aren’t very good as a reference pictures. You really can’t see ANYTHING. =.= So, I kept looking around and found a very nice statue to work off of:

 The fabric that I went with is a simple, soft ivory cotton. It was super easy to sew with, and I was extremely happy with it! It’ll breathe nicely out in the hot weather. I patterned out the whole thing myself, and honestly, it was really easy!I had no problems with it at all! It’s double layered, so it wouldn’t be see-through and look real thin. The back of the pants are actually sewn to the shirt, and the front part of the pants velcro to the shirt. So, if anyone decides to… ‘untie me’, those pants are going no where! HA!

The gloves I debated for awhile before I started them.Every reference I found, the gloves were different. You can see in the first reference above that the gloves don’t cover her palm, but in the statue, they do. It was really inconsistant. Finally, I decided to go with the ‘covered palm’ version. It’s much easier to wear, lol. They were made from craft foam covered in brown pleather.

The wig. THE WIG. FUCK THE WIG. I’LL POST A WHOLE POST ABOUT IT.

Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice Cartoon)

When I was a kid, the Beetlejuice Animated Series was one of my FAVORITE shows. Deciding to cosplay Lydia was actually a very last minute decision!

 

Cost– About $45

Red Cotton– $7

Purple Canvas– $7

Black wig– $27

Black 3-D Fabric Paint– $2

 

 

This was actually a very simple costume to make! The poncho was very easy to pattern out! The red is a simple cotton that I bought on sale. The purple was a lightweight canvas material that was also on sale as well.

The black spiderwebbing was drawn on with 3-D fabric paint.

The black suit underneath is the suit that Josh used for his old Gene Starwind cosplay.

Lydia Deetz is complete!

I’m glad to announce that Lydia Deetz is complete! Well, mostly! All I need to do is a final styling to the wig, but that’s little stuff!

 

I’m pretty happy with the way that it turned out! I feel like the construction is really good, and it just turned out great!