Toph (Fire Nation Disguise) - Shoes - Avatar: The Last Airbender

Part 3 of my posts on my Toph Beifong costume! If you want to see how I made the wig, go here! If you want to see how I constructed the clothes, go here!

It is interesting to note that ordinarily Toph goes without shoes because she uses her Earth bending power to "see" with her feet in place of her eyes. In order to remain incognito she wears shoes with this outfit (though in a comedic moment in the show she punches the soles out of them). I obviously need to wear shoes with soles though, so that's what I did.

Let me just preface this post by saying that these were the most comfortable shoes I have ever had the pleasure of wearing for a costume.

My friend Danni was kind enough to lend me a pattern she had recently made for a pair of curved toe boots. From that I was able to modify this pattern.

It took 2 attempts with the mockup to get it right, but I managed to come up with a pattern I was satisfied with.

These were patterned with so that they would fit both my foot and a thick gelled insole. This extra padding was what helped make these shoes super comfy to wear.

I bought real leather for these shoes, because it would hold up to wear and tear much better than fabric, and I wanted these shoes to be comfortable. I picked a very thick leather for the soles, and a softer leather for the top.

Here you can see the pieces laid flat before I sewed them together. The curve in the side pieces is what pulls the toe of the shoe up.

I finished the edge of the top piece, then sewed the side pieces to the top piece.

Using a leather punch, I pre-punched holes in the sole of the shoe that I would use to hand stitch the sides to the bottom. The leather on the sole was much too thick to hand stitch through.

Carefully tucking the seam allowance as I went and using a strong thread and leather needle, I handstitched the rest of the shoe to the sole.

I started at the pointed toe, and worked my way towards the heel. I stitched both sides of the shoe at the same time (alternating doing a couple stitches on each side). Each side had a separate needle and thread. By doing it this way, I was able to easily get my hand in to access the area I was stitching. 

Once I got to the center back, I tucked the excess leather to the inside and stitched the center back seam.

Then I folded over the top edge and top stitched it down.

The last step was to add the strap across the front. Which was attached with a piece of elastic on one side so I could easily get the shoes on and off.

Before wearing them I inserted my nice gel insoles, which helped to make these extra comfy to stand/walk around in for long periods of time.

Overall, they were not too difficult to make, but they did take a fair amount of time. They held up really well at the con though, so I am glad it was worth it.

I'm looking forward to wearing this costume again in the future!

Toph (Fire Nation Disguise) - Outfit - Avatar: The Last Airbender

The second installment in my series of posts on my Toph costume. If you want to see how I created the wig, go here!

Toph Beifong is one of my favourite characters from The Last Airbender. She is so very sarcastic and a genuine tough-guy. A welcome addition to the group dynamic in season 2. I've always wanted to do a costume from this series, but I had never made time for it. I really love the Fire Nation outifts the best aesthetically, though I've always had my eye on doing either one of the Kiyoshi warriors or Ba Sing Se costumes... So many good choices. Perhaps someday...

As I said in my previous post, I actually started this costume last summer, but after many difficulties with the wig I didn't finish it. This is the part of the costume that I constructed and finished last year for Otakon.

Aside from the extremely heavy wig, the rest of this costume is super comfy. I decided to make it primarily out of stretch fabrics.

The pattern for the pants is based off of a pair of old yoga pants I have. I traced that onto a piece of paper and used it as my pattern. They only needed some slight adjustments to account for the difference in fabric.

The tube top was made from two pieces--a front and back--that were narrower at the waist.

The waist wrap I draped to created the pattern. I pleated the fabric along the front overlap. The waistband for it was folded in half and tapered to a point at each end.

Because I lack a serger, after cutting out all my pieces I went to visit my friends Jen and Amanda--AKA Mai Sheri and Elemental--who were kind enough to let me use theirs! (I paid them in homemade cookies.) I assembled the pants, and tube top with relative ease. Pinning the waistband to the wrap this was serged together in a circle on the inside. Then using a zig-zag stitch I hemmed all the garments.

I inserted an elastic in the waistband of the pants and the top of the tube top. All of these pieces stretch to fit and have no closures.

For the striped pieces draped over the shoulders, they are simply long rectangles. I was using up leftover fabric from another project. The yellow stripe was aligned with the center of one half, then top stitched down. Then I folded them right sides together and sewed along the open edge. Then I flipped them right way out and finished the ends. I tacked them together at the front and back where they overlap so they would stay in place. 

The last piece to create was the cuffs. I used paper to mock up a pattern. Then cut out pieces in the various colours.

I sewed the yellow stripes to the wristbands in the exact same way as I did the draped pieces--just on a smaller scale.

For the pointed piece I sewed the backing and the top edge piece right sides together.

The next step was to clip the excess seam allowance and flip the top edge piece to the front. I ironed it flat. Then I inlaid the red piece, tucking the raw edges of the burgundy piece underneath the trim and top stitching it in place.

After finishing the edges I sewed the pointed piece to the wristband. Then I added some hooks and bars as closures.

Stay tuned for part 3!

Toph (Fire Nation Disguise) - Wig - Avatar: The Last Airbender

This is my first post on Toph. Rather than the traditional green outfit, I decided to make her Fire Nation disguise outfit from season 3. Of all the nations, I really thought the Fire Nation had the nicest designs in the series, but Toph is one of my favorite characters--so this seemed like a good compromise.

This costume was originally supposed to debut at Otakon last summer, and I had managed to get everything finished except the wig and shoes. But without the wig, the costume isn't really wearable, so the costume went on the backburner for a while as I worked on the wig.

I really need to make time to do a real photoshoot of this costume. Perhaps next year...

I thought I would start by talking about the wig--easily the most difficult piece of the costume. This wig took me 3 attempts until I was satisfied with the end result.

It was a nightmare to construct, partially because the reference is so vague. All you can see is that she has a large black blob of hair at the back of her head--which is presumably a bun? I've seen people achieve this in different ways, some opting for a small bun (a bit of a cop-out, and not very accurate), others choosing to do an intricately braided style to create the mass. I wanted to create a smooth rounded "bun" that was as accurate as possible.

My main issue I encountered--which carries over to many costumes--is that I have a small head and not an abundance of hair. This means that 99% of all the wigs I ever bought are loose on me. Back in the day I had waist-length hair which I had difficulty stuffing under a wig, and this would keep it from slipping. But these days, any wig that is remotely back heavy slides out of position like nobody's business. It is a problem I have noticed since I have started to do more elaborate styled wigs (Asuna was a problem in particular because of the heavy metal bells).

To counteract this problem I have found the best way to keep a wig from sliding to to sew a small comb into the front of the wig and then french braid my actual bangs. The comb hooks into the braid and prevents it from sliding out of position. (I did the same thing on my Tomoyo wig.)

Black is such an easy colour of wigs to find, so I was not worried about finding a wig (for once!). To save myself some time, I ordered a ponytail wig from Epic Cosplay, this meant that I wouldn't have to also make my base wig into a ponytail wig first to cover the gaps in the wefts. Their ponytail wig is a short wig that comes with an extension you can wrap around the ponytail base to make it a long wig. This was great for my purposes, as the large extension would be put to use later in creating the bun.

I started by taking out some of the wefts from the middle of the back of the wig. This was done very carefully with a seam ripper. This was to remove bulk under the bun while also procuring more hair to make the bun with.

Out of some back fabric I made the base of the bun and loosely stuffed it. I hand stitched the wefts around the edge. I cut a hole in the middle of the fabric to stick the loose ends of the wefts in.

This is the point where I realized I wasn't going to finish the wig before Otakon, and put it on hold for a while. The next steps were done over the next couple of months before going on hold while I finished my degree and then finally finishing in the weeks leading up to AN.

After that I attached the bun at the top of the wig with a strong hand stitch. I tied the hair that would later be the bangs out of the way.

At this point I also made the wig slightly smaller smaller along the back with some darts that I stitched in to the netting. This helped it fit better. I also hand stitched the small comb into the front of the hairline.

Next I pulled the wig under the bun into a ponytail and stubbed it using regular white glue. Then I cut off the excess hair. 

I also stubbed the bottom of the hair that was draped over the top of the bun.











Next I cut and styled the bangs. The wig was quite thick at the front, so I had to thin it out a fair bit. Because although Toph's hair is supposed to fall into her eyes (which isn't a problem because the character is blind), I kind of needed to be able to see.

To finish off the wig I used some heavy duty hair pins to affix the bun in place.

Next I paper patterned the tiara/headband. Once I was happy with the pattern I cut out 2 pieces of worbla and laminated them together with a heat gun. This was to make it sturdier.

This part of the costume was done after I had finished my independent study on worbla, so I used some of the leftover materials to make this tiara/headband.

I molded some scrap bits of worbla into a long roll and used that to make the raised detail along the edge. Then I heated the whole piece and gently curved it into the desired shape.

Using a dremel with a drill bit, I drilled a hole through the center of the raised loops at each end.

I made the tassels shorter to be more accurate.

Here you can also see how the finished wig looks from the side. The bun is a little smaller than the actual character's hair, but I think this is a more manageable size. It is already insanely back-heavy!

Next was priming the surface for painting. Worbla tends to have a slight bumpy texture to it, so I used a couple of coats of gesso and gorilla glue as a filler.

I primered it with a red spraypaint. The red colour underneath helps to counteract the green-ness that is common in most gold paints. I gave it a light sanding, before doing a second coat of red.

I painted it using a bronze acrylic paint as my main colour and then a gold for the raised detail. It required a few coats.

Then I used a clear gloss spraypaint as my final layer, to seal it and give it some shine. "Metallic" acrylic paints tend to be more sparkly than glossy.

I looped the tassels through the holes I created earlier and hot glued them in place.

To attach the headband to the wig I hot glued a small metal comb and two ties to the inside of the tiara. The metal comb would hook into the wig and then the ties were tied under the bun at the back. This made it secure, but also easily removable.

And in a nutshell, that's how I made the wig. Hopefully I can get some more side shots of the wig at another con.