Sakura - Wings - CardCaptor Sakura

Part 2 of my Sakura (1st Opening outfit) posts: lets talk about wings! If you want to see how I made the outfit, go here!

Once again thanks to EleventhPhotograph for the photoshoot. I really love the above shot! It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.

This was an exercise in perfecting the foam wing style I had used for the Kero and Suppi gijinka costumes. Since I already knew what I was doing, this time around involved a lot less trial and error.

I like making foam wings this way because they are sturdy, and they aren't likely to get too damaged in crowded convention spaces. They are also fairly light and not horribly uncomfortable. I like the cartoon-y style of them as well. 

I traced out 4 wing shapes on the foam--2 for each wing. I cut these out with a pair of scissors.

Pairing them up I cut off the corners so they would be more rounded along the edges. This will help them fit into the cases better.

Using the same pattern as the wings I cut out my four pieces of white fabric. I made these about 1/4" bigger all around (+ seam allowance) to account for the depth of the foam.

I sewed the wing cases right sides together, trimmed the excess seam allowance and then flipped them right way out. I left a large gap along the base that extended up along the top edge--this is so I could get the foam wing inside the casing. Because of the friction, the foam really doesn't like to go into the case easily, so it takes a lot of patience and just a touch of brute force.

Using a heavy gauge wire, I created a wire base for each. You can see each wing has a wire base that is made of one continuous piece. The two "antennas" support the wing, the u-shape at the bottom is where the wing is attached to the base. Note how I bent the cut ends of the wire into little loops--this is so it wouldn't stab through the foam or fabric.

After taking some measurements and figuring out the spacing I began to pattern the harness. This was a bit tricky, because it had to fit under the pink dress, but sit high enough on the back so that the wings would sit above the dress' neckline. It also had to be tight fitting so that the wings wouldn't be droopy (a problem I encountered with Kero).

I cut a base plate out of styrene plastic. It was simply a rectangle with rounded corners--again so it wouldn't stab through the fabric cover later. The wires were attached to the base plate with copious amounts of hot glue. The nice thing about styrene is that hot glue bonds really well to it.

On the fabric covering I carefully measured and marked where the holes needed to be for the wires. Before sewing anything together I used the buttonhole function on my sewing machine to create small openings with finished edges for the wires to stick through. Then I sewed the styrene base plate into the fabric covering.

Once the back plate was finished I added a waistband and shoulder straps. I fit it on her so the shoulder straps would be tight, and allow the back plate to sit at the proper height. The straps were made to be a fixed length. The closure was a set of bra hooks on the front of the waistband, so it is easy to remove the wings for important daily tasks--like sitting.

We tested the wings with the dress. You can see here they are really droopy. Once I was satisfied with the fit I used hot glue to attach the foam wings to the wires on the inside.

Once the wings were actually attached to the base I could adjust the height that the wings sat by bending the wire at the base. Because the wings have weight that is sticking out from the body, even though they are really light science & gravity mean that they will be heavier the further distance the weight is from the base. As such, when you put them on, gravity causes them to pull and tilt the base plate slightly, which makes them look droopy and sad. You can see in the picture on the right how the base plate is pulling away from the back ever so slightly, but it is more than enough to make the wings droop.

While this problem is partially solved by making a tight fitting harness (minimizing the amount the base plate will tilt), to counteract this you simply have to overcompensate and position the wings pointing extra up to counteract the downward pull of gravity. This is so that when they fall to the position they want to sit at, it will be the position you want. Note the difference between the pictures above and below--in the second picture I have glued them internally and positioned the wings to point extra up. Now they don't look so sad.
The reason why I love making wings like this is because they are adjustable. You can bend the wires to suit your needs--whether that means you want to make the wings more open or closed, up or down.

My friend Alli (who helped me on my Asuna costume the previous year) helped to finish them off by neatly hand stitching the casings closed.

And then they were done! >:D

Toothless - Kigurumi - How to Train Your Dragon

Jumping up the schedule by popular demand: Toothless! I made this Toothless kigurumi (onesie) to wear to Atomic Lollipop this past July. To be honest, I had been contemplating buying a kigu for the longest time, but I had never seen a design that I really loved. So long story short, I decided to make my own. I picked Toothless because I really love the movie How to Train Your Dragon--Toothless is the most adorable dragon ever. Of all time.

An added bonus here is that because it was summer, all this fleece was on sale! Definitely worth it with the amount I had to buy. My recommendation is to never under any circumstance buy fleece in fall/winter. You will pay 3 times as much as you do in summer. For reference, I bought my fleece at Fabricland in July for 6$/meter, now (September) they are selling the exact same product for 17$/meter. Yikes!

I looked at kigu patterns online, but eventually decided to draft my own from scratch. It took me 2 tries to get the onesie itself looking how I wanted it and 5 tries to get the hood right. Lots and lots of mockups.

Below you can see the onesie version 1 and 2 side by side. The first sleeves totally didn't work, and my hood problems were always that it was too big and floppy.

 After finally getting a pattern I was happy with, I moved on to cutting out all the pieces. Here are the hood pieces complete with fins, below you can see the wings and tail.

I changed my initial design for the sleeve, ending up with a sleeve style similar to my Katamari cousin pattern. It is a mitten sleeve with a slit on the underside of the sleeve to slip the hand covers on and off. This means the sleeve top is made of one piece, and the under sleeve is made of 2 pieces.

The bodysuit is in 2 pieces, with each half (right and left) being cut on the fold along the sides. (Meaning there are no side seams on this garment!)

On each of these I first sewed up the leg and shoulder seams, then I basted the center back-crotch-front seam, stopping where the opening for the buttons would go.

I hemmed the edges of the opening, then the sleeve top and bottom pieces were sewed right sides together then flipped right way out. I made sure the hand cover was on the outside.

 I sewed the wings and tail fins right sides together, then clipped the excess in the corners and flipped them right way out. I top stitched on the details. (Not pictured here is the red fin!)

It took much deliberation, but I decided to line the hood in pink, to look like the inside of Toothless' mouth, as opposed to making it black to match the rest. I sewed the hood lining together; first I stitched the whole front together, then the back, lastly the side seam that divided the two.

I sewed all of the fins right sides together, then clipped and flipped them right way out. I made a whole bunch of triangle shaped ones in varying sizes that would go up the center back seam. 

Carefully spacing the spines, I sewed the 2 tail pieces right sides together, then flipped it right way out. (I had to make sure the spines ended up on the correct side during this process.)

 Next I attached the front pieces of the out hood together. While I was at it, I put two small spines on his forehead in the center seam. While looking at reference images I carefully arranged the fins around his face, pinned them in place then sewed the side seam, completing the outer hood. The reason why the hood is made of 6 pieces is partially because it made the shape better, but also because I needed seams that I could easily attach all the fins/spines into.

Next was detailing. Using leftover green fabric from Isabelle, I cut 2 ovals. Using black fabric paint leftover from Vaporeon I painted on the pupils. I pinned the eyes in place and then zig-zag stitched around the edges. This made the fabric ripple a bit, which I am not so happy about. I also zig-zagged on some nostrils while I was at it.

 Right sides together, I attached the hood lining to the outside along the front edge.

Blarg! What is this monstrosity? Looks like Dr. Finkelstein. D; The hood was not so thrilling at first, it took some cleverly hidden stitching to keep the lining tacked in its proper place, because it wanted to curl outward. Pulling the hood lining back inside the hood so that the outside over-hanged slightly I pinned it in place. Then I stitched the two layers together along the lower edges of the eyes and on the sides of the hood opening. Trust me when I say this helped a lot.

 Next I put cuffs on the pant legs. I also sewed the arms into the armholes at this point.

 With some difficulty I put a rectangle on each side of the opening for the placket.

I painted the viking skull on the red fin with white fabric paint. Way cool! Once this was dry I hand stitched these directly to the tail, which I had stuffed by this point.

Then I marked for the tail placement and spaced the spikes in the back seam according, picking it out to put the spikes in, and then going over the whole thing with a permanent stitch. 

 I measured and attached the wings, which were then tacked up with velcro so that they wouldn't flop down.
I pulled the kigu over an ironing board so that I could pin the tail to the back without accidentally catching the front. Making sure the tail was extra stuffed, I pinned it in place, then stitched around the raw edge with a zig-zag stitch to keep the tail firmly in place.

Lastly I added buttons and button holes to the front!

1 excellent kigu that made everyone at APop jealous. Sorry all! This kigu is one of a kind, but if someone were to commission me, I might consider making a second one. But not right now, because fleece is crazy expensive again!

Kero & Suppi - Wings & Aprons - Cardcaptor Sakura

This is part 3 of Kero & Suppi's posts: lets have a look at the wings and aprons. On this costume the wing rigs are built into the aprons. (As opposed to on my Cosmo costume, where the rig was hidden under the costume, this rig is incorporated directly into the apron.)

The apron part was really easy, figuring out the wing rig was a little more tricky.

Check out Eleventh Photograph's Otakon gallery for more pictures of Kero and Suppi (and other awesome cosplayers!)

For more Kero and Suppi, see our Wigs & Ears and Shirts & Shorts!

I started by making a paper tracer for each apron. I held it up to myself until I was satisfied with the shape, then cut out 2. The 2 layers were just for extra sturdiness.

I applied my contrasting bias tape trim around the edge of each apron.

This red is the leftover fabric from my red panda bag. :)  (Which is still for sale, if anyone is interested.)

I then made two strips for the tie at the back. (I should have made mine a little longer.) These were narrower at the base where they attached to the apron and then widened partway. On these I marked 2 stripes going down the center. Along my marking lines I used my sewing machine to embroider a tight wide zig-zag stitch. This was much cleaner than attempting to paint the stripes on.

I made the 2 shoulder straps, marking where they needed to attach at the back and how long they needed to be. They needed to be fairly tight so the wings wouldn't droop, so I ended up having to tighten them later...

Then I cut out the pieces for the applique design. Suppi's symbol is based on the one from his "big form", Kero's is a simplified version of his sun symbol. (Meaning no wavy lines, as they would be impossible to do at this scale...)

Using a tight zig zag stich, I carefully followed the edges of my cut outs. For Kero's I did the pale star points, the inner lines and then the yellow star outline. For Suppi's I started with the inner circle, then the butterfly and lastly the antennae.

Once the apron bases were done, I started on the wings. Like many parts of this project I started with a paper tracer which I sized up to the actual person before cutting anything out.

I then cut out the foam bits (double thickness for all wings), followed by the cover pieces. For the covers I made them slightly larger (by about 1/4"), as they had to go over an object with thickness.

I sewed the covers right sides together, leaving myself a large gap at the base through which I could stuff my foam cutouts.

On Kero's wing cut outs rounded out the edges, so they would fit the case better and look less blocky. Even then it was a struggle to get the wings in.

Then I started to work on the rigging. Kero's wings were sort of the trial and error run, before I figured it out and streamlined the process for Suppi's. I started with a piece of wire (1 for each wing) that I bent like in the picture above left.  These would slide through the opening in the base, up in between the 2 layers of 1/2" foam where they would be secured later.

I then cutout a back panel, using the fabric matching the shirts. The whole back piece would be made of styrene panels secured inside  a fabric casing.

I slid the wires inside the wings and placed them on the back panel to see how they would sit together. I marked where I needed to put the holes for the wire to stick out of the back panel. These holes I did in the same style as normal button holes. These were only on one side of the fabric cover.

Keeping the wires the same distance apart as on the panel, I marked and hot glued the wires down to my base pieces, made of rectangles of styrene.

Unbending the ends of the wires for the time being (they were bent over so they won't poke holes in the foam wings), I slid them between the 2 layers of fabric and out through the holes in the back panel. When in place I stitched a line  along the bottom and top edge of the panel to keep them from sliding around.

At this point I re-bent the ends of the wires. Then I carefully marked and hot glued the wings to the wires.

Then I had my friend Alli assist me by tucking all the covers underneath and hand stitching them together to finish them at the bases.

Lastly I made the 2 swirls for Kero's wings. This was simply 2 ovals of foam that I made cases for. When they were together I stitched the swirls directly onto them, through the foam layer, giving them the plush look.

These were a lot of fun to wear, though mine kept sliding down at the back. This could have been fixed by making my back panel bigger, as my sister did not have this problem at all.