Isabelle - Wig, Ears & Tail - Animal Crossing

 The first of my Anime North posts! Lets look at Isabelle! This was made for my older sister Alex. This past Christmas I didn't really have enough time to make a whole bunch of gifts at the end of term, so instead I made a "gift certificate" for my sisters for 1 costume each. Elanne picked Sakura, and Alex picked Isabelle.


Isabelle is a character from the popular game series Animal Crossing. (Called Shizue / しずえ in the original Japanese version.) She is the secretary to the Mayor (the player). I don't play it, but my sister is very much a fan! As you can see, this is a gijinka version of the character, but since the characters in this game are already pretty much humanoid already, there wasn't much redesign necessary to create a gijinka version. This is really just a wig with ears instead of a full mascot head.

She wore this costume on the Saturday of Anime North, while running her Crafters' Corner table, which had her tied up for the majority of the weekend. She did manage to escape for a little bit and did a mini shoot of the costume with Mike of EleventhPhotograph . We got some really cute pics! :D Be sure to check out his con gallery!

The base wig we started with was this one from Epic Cosplay. I really liked this colour of blonde, we chose to go with a colour palette that was a little less yellow than the character is normally. I think it is technically listed as a Vocaloid wig, and it required a large amount of styling to get it to work as an Isabelle wig. First I put it on my sister's head and determined what part I wanted up in the ponytail. I tied that out of the way while I worked on hiding the part at the back. 

The problem with wigs it that when you pull the hair in pretty much any direction it reveals the gaps between the wefts. In order to prevent this you have to add in extra wefts to mask the part. Now, if they had had them in stock I would have bought extra wefts when I bought the wig, because I knew I had to pull the top of the wig into a ponytail, which would leave a gap about 1/2" wide. Unfortunately they did not have any in the colour I needed, so I resigned myself to some serious MacGyver-ing.

I selected 3 separate rows of wefts from the back of the wig--far enough down that they wouldn't be noticeable, and far enough apart that they wouldn't leave a bare patch--and I carefully picked them out with a seam ripper. I sewed this into a mega-weft (3 rows of wefts stacked on top of each other). That was then hand stitched onto the wig along the bottom of the gap. Using a pin I parted the wefts, making 2 go up into the ponytail and 1 go down into the back. Had I had more wefts at my disposal, I probably would have done 4 wefts, with 2 going down as the area under the part is a little bare. But it was still much better than when I started, so I considered it good enough!

At this point I tried it on my sister and gave the bangs, sides and back a little trim.

Then I was ready to permanently secure the ponytail--I double checked on my sister first and foremost, because her head is a different size from the wig head, so if the ponytail was pulled too tight it would look weird on her! Ensuring it was in the position I wanted, I then carefully dabbed/mashed some white glue in around the base of the ponytail. It dries clear, but I was still careful to not be messy during this process. (This is similar to the process of stubbing a wig except that this ponytail was not getting cut off!)

Normal white school glue is good for styling wigs, it dries clear and is washable; if you make a mistake, you can wash it out and try again.

Then my sister dyed the gradient into the ponytail. She did the colour to match the ears I made. She used a combination of brown india ink and rubbing alcohol (70%) to dilute it. She also apparently didn't look up any instructions before doing it. :/ This is the approximate method if you are interested!

After letting that dry sufficiently I artfully arranged the bun the way I wanted it, securing it with another hair elastic. The I hair-sprayed the bejeezuz out of it. (This is a technical term of course! ;D) I let it sit and air dry for several hours. Occasionally spraying it a bit more. Once it was fairly solid I added a touch more glue around the base to hold the ends of the bun in place.

The hair accessory is a piece or red ribbon folded in half length-wise, with 2 silver bells attached. These were simply hand stitched on, and the ribbon was fixed around the bun with a hand stitch. I got the bells downtown and they have little hearts on them, which I think suits the character so nicely. :)

The ears are fleece which was bagged out and lightly stuffed. I closed the stuffing hole with a hand stitch and then stitched them to the wig.

For the tail I made a paper pattern of the approximate shape I wanted and cut out a piece that was a lot wider at the widest point. This was so it would be nice and round I made an inner tail piece in a cream colour, and an outer tail piece in my yellow/gold. The yellow one ends in an open spiky end, which is different on each side. The nice thing about fleece is it isn't neccessary to finish the edges because it doesn't fray.

I bagged each of them out and stuffed the inner tail to be nice and round.

The gold/yellow colour matches the blonde wig and the tights, and the brown ears match the bun gradient like on the character. It was a bit of a challenge finding 2 complimenting colours that both matched the wig, and tights that would match the tail. But we managed it!

Then I slotted the outer tail over the inner tail and sewed them together at the tail base.

This piece was then attached to an elastic waistband, which was just slipped on over the skirt, under the vest. And presto! A cute tail!

Kero & Suppi - Wigs & Ears - Cardcaptor Sakura

Lets talk wigs and ears! So for these costumes I actually had to start by ordering the wigs. Because these gijinka costumes are so colour specific,  I had to ensure I had the right colour wig and then buy my fabric to match that colour. I got both wigs from Epic Cosplay. This was my wig for Kero, and this was my wig for Suppi. It was difficult for us to decide on a colour for Suppi, as he is one of those characters that is a different colour in every reference picture; sometimes he's grey, navy, black or purple. We decided to go with purple as it complimented Kero's yellow nicely.

Once again, thanks to Eleventh Photograph for our mini photoshoot! Go here for the Shirts & Shorts! 

I started by cutting bangs into both Kero and Suppi's wigs. I was careful to feather/layer the hair so it wouldn't look straight cut.

On Kero's wig I shortened the back a bit. I like this wig style for Kero as the kick at the back give him a little more attitude. I also added a cowlick (or ahoge) because he is a bit of an idiot and I think it suits him. :P

On Suppi's wig I left the back long, which was later tied into a cute ponytail. :D

I then made a paper cutout of the shape I wanted for the ear to help me determine sizing. I cut out a foam piece using my paper as a tracer. Then I cut a c-shape to fill the outer rims of each ear. These border pieces were hot glued in place. I bevelled all the edges of the foam pieces so they weren't so square. They would look less blocky in the cases that way.

 I cut 4 pieces that would be the ear covers. Then I made the inner ear accent pieces. These were sewn right sides together and flipped inside out so they could be neatly top-stitched onto the ear. With one piece of the cover pinned carefully in place underneath, the inner ear accent pieces were top-stitched directly to the foam insert.

Then the cover pieces were sewn right sides together, then flipped right way out to cover the foam inserts. Then I added an extra layer of foam into the back of each ear.

The raw edges were then folded inside neatly and the bottom of the ear was stitched closed.

I carefully marked where I wanted the ears place on the wig using hair clips, parted the hair and stitched the ears to the wefts and undernetting of the wig.

For Suppi's ears the process was a little different. I made a paper cutout that I curved and mocked up on the wig. When I was satisfied with the shape and size I cut 2 ears out of foam. I cut out a small dent at the base where I wanted the ear to bend the most.

The covers were much easier than Kero's. Each ear cover was simply made from 2 pieces of fabric (one side teal, one side purple), slightly larger than the foam insert. These were sewn right sides together then turned right way out and pressed.

The foam was then slipped (more like shoved) inside the cover, and the bottom stitched closed with the raw edge folded inside neatly.

Like I did for mine, I tried the wig on my sister and used hair clips to mark the placement. (This is particularly important if you have a large head, as placement will look different on the wig head than on your actual head.) Then I put the wig on a foam head and re-marked where the ear would go using sewing pins. Then I clipped the loose hair back, away from the area and stitched the ears on by hand.

I liked having the ears attached to the wig as opposed to clipped on. It's nice to wear the wig and not have to worry about the ears slipping/becoming lop-sided, though it does make the wigs a tad more difficult to store. The foam ears were really light and easily stood up on their own, without needing any wires (though I imagine larger ears would require some infrastructure).

Overall these wigs were great to wear, and fun to make. My cowlick sustained some damage during the trip down (which was not unexpected as the car was pretty packed with stuff), so it needed some TLC at the con, but it held up well when I wore it.