December Update

Hey all! I'm back from vacation now. I had a blast in Japan visiting with Alex! ;D Super times in Fukuoka, Beppu, and finally seeing Mt. Fuji. Lots of great adventures, and I have mixed feelings about coming home. (I would just like to be on an adventure forever.) And I also I bought more fabric, but that's hardly a surprise. I'm pretty sure I qualify as a hoarder.

I can't believe it's December already? And yes, I always say that. I like to think that it's a good thing that I always think time is moving so quickly--I usually attribute it to that old saying, "time flies when you're having fun". But every once in a while I feel as though time is slipping away through my fingers and I'm not doing something worthwhile. Being in job limbo for a while has been a bit disheartening. I guess I just sometimes feel like I'm not a productive member of society. Or maybe it's just that job hunting is generally super depressing. Well, no need to burden you with all my negativity. But the "real job" hunt continues.

In the meantime, I will most likely be working on a collection of accessories that I will be selling. Still prototyping, but I will most likely have something real soon! (And yes, I realize that was super vague!)

In recent and super awesome news, Mike--a.k.a. EleventhPhotograph's cosplay photography book is out now! Super cool! :D And I don't think that just because there are a few pictures of me in it. So many talented cosplayers and tons of great shots! Proud of him! Was glad he was able to drop off my copy before he moved back to Japan.

I've got a few secret projects to start on in the elf workshop. Apparently Christmas is this month? And I've got fabrics for my next cosplays in hand. I can hardly wait to start working on those.

As for upcoming blog content: The last Sakura post will be up this Thursday (so, tomorrow), ending the unnecesarily long and drawn out Sakura post saga. Then there will be a few not-cosplay/small projects to finish off the month of December. The new year will kick off with Vaporeon--bringing us up to date with current costumes--followed by any secret Christmas projects. Afterwards? Who knows?

That's all for now!

November Update

Salutations! It's November already? I'm on a pretty short turn-around between trips. I got back from New York on Thursday and I leave for Tokyo today. As I mentioned, there will be a 3-4 week hiatus from blog posts while I am in Japan, as I will not be bringing my laptop with me. Regular posting will resume on Dec 2nd. 

I had a pretty decent Halloween this year. Blayke and I carved pumpkins, watched movies and hung out with some friends in the evening. As usual, the weather was not the best so my friends and I decided to skip Church Street festivities. I wore my Toothless onesie so I could be extra cozy. Blayke made his first costume. It's Mister Chief. 

My New York trip yielded excellent results in the fabric shopping department, though my wallet is hurting from the steep exchange rate. I have the fabrics I need for my next 2 costumes as well as my accent gold fabric for Sakura.

I won't say what these all are for (the fabrics on the right here are for a secret costume I've been working on), but you can probably make an educated guess what the green jersey fabrics below are for. ;D The pretty buttons are going to be used on my next tailored jacket, whenever I get around to making it.

I saw some great shows in NYC--Shear Madness, The King and I, and Kinky Boots. I definitely recommend Kinky Boots. (Though Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder is still by far my favourite Broadway show I've seen.)

To follow along on my Japan adventures, be sure to check out my Instagram and Twitter!

Sakura - Wig, Hat & Accessories - Cardcaptor Sakura

Part 3 of Sakura (1st Opening outfit)--lets talk accessories! The details are really what make this costume. If you want to see how I made the wings, go here! If you want to see the rest of the outfit, go here!

I entered this costume in the Friday night Workmanship Competition at Anime North in 2014 and won an award for Best Accessories in my category. That was pretty cool. It was my first (and so far only) time entering in a competition without a stage presentation component.

Once again, thanks to EleventhPhotograph for the photoshoot. I really love this black and white shot.

First we'll talk about the wig. I started with EpicCosplay's Aura in cocoa brown. I think this colour works really well for Sakura, it's not too brown or too blonde. It's almost a bit reddish. I think the colour works well on both my sister and myself.

Since I was doing a costume of hers with a hat, I didn't bother to add her iconic pigtails that she normally wears, because they wouldn't be visible. This has influenced my costume choices for my subsequent Sakura costumes to only be ones where Sakura is wearing a hat. Because this means I don't have to go back and fix the wig. And also because her costumes with hats are ridiculously cute.

As you can see the wig was pretty long. I purposefully picked a longer wig because she has those two small sections of longer hair in front of her ears. It is much easier to cut a wig shorter than it is to add in longer wefts.

I started by trimming the bangs. Using clips I separated off the different sections of the hair. The longer pieces were separated from the sides and the bangs. I left the long wisps at the original length, and simply thinned them out a bit. The sides were thinned and layered and trimmed to length. Then I trimmed the back of the wig.

The last step was to style the front of the wig to give the top that volume. I pulled sections of the hair up and hair sprayed them at the base. Then I used a blow dryer to set it. I made some shorter bits stick up while the rest parted and fell to each side. This created the look of her cute bob at the front.

Next I started work on the hat. Since I had very limited pink fabric left, I made a mockup. The hat's construction was pretty simple. The pattern consisted of a circle and a rectangle. The rectangle was the length of the circle's circumference.

First I rolled over the channel where the elastic would go later and ironed that. I didn't stitch it down yet, but pre-ironing saved me a ton of headaches later.

The next step was to sew the rectangle to the top of the hat, right sides together. Then I sewed the two ends of the rectangle together and then top stitched the channel for the elastic. I left an opening in the channel so I could feed the elastic through. The elastic both gathered the hat and helped it to stay on. When I was satisfied with the fit, I sewed the elastic ends together and closed the channel opening.

Lastly the bow was attached to the hat. Credit for completing the finishing touches goes to my friend Alli who handcrafted all the bows and hand stitched them on.

Instead of constructing socks and gloves I bought them, and made ruffles to add to them to help them match the rest of the costume.

Like the hat band, the ruffles are simply rectangles with a channel on on side for an elastic, which cinches them to fit and gathers them into a ruffle. These were tacked on to the gloves and socks.

Little red bows were also added to the gloves.

The shoes were an extremely lucky find. I managed to find flats at Ardene's in the perfect shade of red. They matched my red fabric perfectly. I added the bows to the toe. This is not 100% accurate to the design, but I didn't feel like adding straps to the shoe--I was worried it would make them uncomfortable. The bows were hot glued on.

I paid attention to the details so that everything would match perfectly. I wanted to do Sakura justice, and I think I achieved that. :)

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