I only have 1 wig for both of my Sakura costumes. So I decided that I should turn my sailorsuit outfit into another character, so I could have a pair of costumes to wear with my sister's Sakura (1st opening outfit). It was a bit of a no-brainer to make it into a Tomoyo costume--she's one of my favourite characters in the series!
Transforming a
Sakura costume into a Tomoyo costume was fairly easy--they both wear the same uniform. It was simply a matter of changing the wig and accessories.
...Now, saying that is the easy part, but the real problem was figuring out what colour of wig to buy!
Edit: Special thanks to EleventhPhotograph for the fall photoshoot. The pictures have now been added to this post!
I looked through hundreds of reference pictures and eventually put together the above collage to pose my question to the wise sages of the internet--my facebook fans.
I knew I wanted to go curly like the manga illustrations, but the discussion eventually decided on purple-black as Tomoyo's hair colour/the colour that would look the least weird as a wig. The trick was then finding a wig that reflected that choice. After much searching I managed to find Arda Wigs'
Luthien in
Dark Purple, which looked perfect.
I must confess, I had not bought a wig from Arda before this because they are a bit more expensive than other sellers. Their quality and colour selection is top-notch, but I just couldn't afford it in the past. Before they had their
Arda Wigs Canada store, their shipping prices for Canada were
outrageous. (Approximately 20-25$ for regular shipping--no tracking, not fast--on a 30$ wig was not in my budget back then. Still not really in my budget.) But the new store has made things much more affordable for Canadians, even if they don't have as large a selection in stock as the American counterpart.
The wig arrived and I gave the bangs a trim. I made the blunt bangs a little rounded so they would look softer on my face. (Blunt bangs are not the best on me.)
I had to take Sakura's sailor hat and enlarge it by an inch, because it would not fit over the extreme volume of Tomoyo's hair.
As you can see the wig is a blend of black and purple fibers.
I had to add a comb into the front hairline because this wig is super back heavy, and does not fit super snugly on my head. (Most wigs are too big for me because I have a small head and short hair.) The comb hooked into my bangs which I had tightly french braided horizontally along my hairline. It meant that the wig wouldn't slip and slide around all day. I sewed in the comb by hand with some heavier thread.
I may trim the bangs just a touch more, but I think it looked pretty good. Fluorescent lighting does nobody any favours (as you can see right), but I changed how I did the makeup for this costume and it turned out much better.
As for props: I kept Kero with me (Sakura had her hands full with the Clow wand) to make myself more recognizable. My Sakura had dance rehearsals all day and wasn't at the con until 3pm, so this turned out to be a good idea. We attracted tons of photos as a pair in the afternoon, but I was not so recognizable as a solo costume.
My favourite ancient relic of a prop is a disposable camera i had leftover from the 90s! I used it to take pictures of all the Sakuras at the con.
Still waiting on photos from our professional shoot from AN... hopefully they will be done soon...
As I may have mentioned before, Tomoyo is one of my favorite characters from the show. What is less well known is that Tomoyo was my
very first cosplay.
Ever. I'm still looking for the photographic evidence but I know I put that costume together for Halloween way back when I was in grade 5. It had a horrible blue wig that we got at Shopper's Drug Mart in the Halloween section. It was awful and itchy and I have thrown it out since then. I even made my own camera. Out of tin foil. It was pretty impressive. ;D We all have to start somewhere?
Today marks my 5th Blogiversary! 5 years of blogging, this must be some kind of milestone? Wow! :,D When I started this blog, I didn't know how long I would stick with it. It was a huge undertaking to start documenting all my costume making progress and some of those write-ups take me practically forever, but over the last 5 years I've had such wonderful support from my fans. Whether there are 10 people or 200 who follow regularly, you guys are my motivation to continue sharing what I learn on every costume journey. I believe that knowledge is for sharing, and so as long as there are those who want to learn, I will do my best to keep writing for you guys.
