Since I still don’t really have a firm grasp on hand drafting things (I usually drape or crossing my fingers that something will work out) I opted to purchase a premade vest for Prompto. I searched everywhere for a pattern and could not find one that was still in print.
So, I searched through pages of denim vests on Amazon until I found this one. It’s pretty heavy duty denim so it’ll stand up to the beating and excessive painting I have to do to it - painting, 14 patches, and hundreds of studs poking through it.
In addition to this, inside has two large pockets, one on each side. (I just have to figure out how to line this and keep the functionality.
The last time I made leather gloves left me in tears after weeks of frustration so I also ordered a pair. I have vowed never to make gloves out of anything but spandex ever again. These were also purchased from Amazon.
Prompto’s MT tattoos can be purchased from SwansongbirdArt on Etsy. They offer them in two sizes, 2 1/4in and 3in, I purchased them in the 3in size.
For those that don’t have an embroidery machine or don’t have access to one, QuidVis on Etsy sells them individually and in sets.
I have incredibly unsteady hands so I had to choose whether or not I wanted to attempt to paint Prompto’s geometric line shirt (that reminds me of that pipe screensaver from like windows95) or do buy the print off of Redbubble and modify the t-shirt. I went the Redbubble route. The t-shirt is incredibly soft and the variation in the color of the print saves me from having to further paint it. All I need to do is cut the sleeves and re-hem them.
Back in March, when I decided I at least wanted to make his vest because it’s cool, I bought two plaids that I like. They’re not 100% accurate to the in game render, but I’m not a fan of the mini checkerboard pattern of one of his plaids, reminds me too much of picnic blankets, so I picked a different red/black pattern. Again, these will be heavily weathered.
That’s as much as I have for Prompto so far. I’m mainly waiting on a paycheck at the end of the month before I can buy paints, the buttons I have to alter to cover the snaps, the pants, and boots.
As you can see, plans for the next few costumes has changed. I’ve decided that I am in desperate need for some more comfortable costumes to wear to conventions. Days where I don’t have to wear heals or 30+lbs of fabric.
So! That leads to Prompto form FFXV, which I’m hella excited for because I finally get to make a costume that needs weathering. *throws confetti* And Lance from Voltron, because he’s my favorite character.
That being said, I’m still working on making fancy costumes, progress on Sakizo’s Apprentice is still going, albiet at the pace of molasses.
As for the last one, the Knights of Ren Rogue, I have the fabric for it, and I’d like to get it done before the next Star Wars movie comes out in December, but aside from the artbook there are just no clear production shots of this costume so I’m a little apprehensive about it. The fabric was kinda expensive...
I’ve got about 50% of the stuff already for Prompto, so this one should be finishd in the next few months or sooner depending on my work schedule. Lance will probably be done in a couple weeks, gotta wait for a paycheck. IDK about Apprentice, she’s a long burning costume, though if I really sat down I could probably finish her in about 6 weeks. And the Rogue has a TBD on it.
To say that this costume was a last minute decision would be an understatement. And in all logical reason, in order to keep your sanity, you do not attempt a Sakizo costume on a three week timeline.
But what is sleep?
The shoes are Demonia T-strap Mary Janes that I purchased off of Ebay.
The wig I used for Alice is a lolita wig I’ve had for years that I purchased from Gothic Lolita Wigs however, rather unfortunately, the color and style are no longer available.
Tights were purchased from We Love Colors in the color Ivory.
The base fabrics for Alice were purchased June 5th but actual progress on the costume didn’t start for another full week. All of the lace used on her was purchased at Joann’s when I had about 7 different 50% off coupons. Use the coupons kids, ‘cause Joann’s has upcharged their stuff 3-5 times their actual price.
You’re probably wondering why I didn’t buy all the lace in the fabric district in LA. Well, at the time I was there I didn’t know what kind of lace I wanted and the stuff I was looking at didn’t really stand out to me for Alice. However, solely relying on Joann’s severely limited my options and color matching was extremely difficult.
First thing I did was start on the under dress using McCall’s M6989.
I ended up only using this pattern for the bodice and collar. I wanted the skirt to be one piece and a bit fuller to accommodate two lolita petticoats. Everything was cut out of a French blue linen. I used an hand drafted skirt pattern for the skirt and then added a 12yd ruffle to the bottom.
It was a lot of gathering. But that would be a recurring theme for this costume.
Before I added sleeves to the dress I went ahead and patterned the apron, the base pattern being the same bodice pattern from the dress.
Instead of just stitching the ruffle that falls just above the bust like on top of the apron, I decided that I wanted it to actually be a seam. Once I had my pattern, everything got cut out of a linen/polyester blend in cream.
Once that was finished I laid out all of the lace and pinned it on to be machine stitched down with long basting stitches. There wasn’t going to be any stress on the lace itself so basting stitches made this process somewhat quicker.
The large medallion appliques that run down the center were purchased from the Esty store The Swan Pond in Ivory. A total of 8 were purchased and evenly spaced down the front and back of the apron.
It was a whole lot of lace. In total I think I used 12 different types of lace on this costume.
Once the lace was secured down it was time to ruffle. Each skirt piece had a 5yd ruffle gathered down to 60in and each side of the bodice had 1/2yd pieces gather down to 16-17in depending on whether it was the front or back. The piece that wrapped around the bust and upper back of the bib was also 5yds gather down to 60in.
On top of the ruffles, to blend the seam, another piece of lace was stitched down.
Once the ruffles were finished it was time to begin assembly and this was scary. With the addition of the sheer yardage of the ruffles, seam thicknesses were scary.
The seams where that bib attaches to the lower part of the bodice was 3/4ths of an inch thick.
At this point in the process I took a break from the overload of ruffles to finish off the dress. The sleeves were made with Simplicity’s 2325 Alice pattern.
For all of the black ribbons on Alice I used Joann’s black micro velvet. It is the softest velvet they sell and it is heavenly. However, it costs a pretty penny so please utilize coupons on it as it runs normally at $30/yd.
The velvet band that goes around the seam between the skirt and the ruffle was a little over 4yds, and once stitched down was then edged with a black scallop lace.
Over top that was two more laces, a small daisy chain (I bought 16yds of this to do the diamonds) and a scallop flower edge lace.
At this point, stressing over the color of the lace matching was a little unrealistic so I just went with what was available to me, and I actually ended up liking the subtle differences in color. You can tell on the apron as well that all of the laces aren’t quite the same color.
Underneath there is an ivory underskirt using the same pattern as the actual skirt that was then stitched to the waist of the dress.
Once the sleeves were complete and the zipper and hook/eye were stitched into the back, the dress was officially complete. It was time to finish the apron.
And I had one day left before I had to leave for LA.
The apron was lined before any of the waist bands were added on. The waist bands of the apron were also lined in velvet and the apron closes with 4 heavy duty sew on snaps.
Lace was then stitched over top the seams to blend the harsh lines between lace and velvet.
The last things to be made were 3 different bows. Two for the waist band and one to go on a headband. The bows themselves are 3 pieces each, the puffy part of the bow and two tails. These were lined with an off black linen that I had lying around from a previous project.
In the centers of each bow three bridal applique flowers were stitched by hand. the same goes for the headband. I still plan on going back and adding more pearls and possibly some swarovski rhinestones for even more texture, but it’s not an immediate need. I like her as she is.
I took a 1in wide headband and covered it in velvet before stitched the bow in the center at the top.
And with that, Alice was finished at 12:14am the day I had to leave for LA.
Unfortunately, I never managed to get a full outfit picture in this costume. so expect a photoshoot sometime in the future. But have a photo I took of me in the dress without petticoats and apron since we had to drive to the convention center and still needed to eat food.
Overall, Alice is probably one of my most comfortable cosplays to date. Despite my initial worries that the she was going to be really heavy with all the lace and ruffles, once she was on, the weight was very well distributed.
She’ll more than likely be worn to many future conventions since she’s so easy to wear.
Ok so, this is hella late (*coughArreWonderConwas4monthsagocough*), but better late than never I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let’s talk Espeon progress.
WARNING: This post is image heavy.
I’ll admit, I gave myself 3 weeks to do this costume, and for me, that’s a really short amount of time for everything I had planned to do for this costume, and even then, I didn’t quite get everything accomplished. But she was at 98% when I wore her, and for myself, I count that as a win.
Artwork by Cowslip
I had originally intended to make a cupped corset for her but that went out the window after I spent a week futzing around impossible patterns. As with most purchasable corset patterns, they won’t really fit you without a ton of tweaking and changes and I just didn’t have the time for that. I had already drafted a Victorian corset for another costume so I ended up defaulting to that.
Progress went smoothly... for a time.
Now, unfortunately I don’t have any progress photos of this particular corset, however all of my corsets are made roughly the same depending on whether they have a busk or not. The base either being coutil (fairly expensive for those on a budget from most online retailers ($20-30/yd from what I’ve found) or duck cloth (pretty cheap from Joann’s about $10/yd, less with coupons or sales), double bones at each seam with either straight or spiral steel, double straight steel in the center front in lieu of a busk, and straight steel flanking the grommets in the back.
Espeon was a bit tricky creation wise because there was no way to actually fit her until she was almost done as the grommets were one of last thing to go in, so, even though I knew my corset pattern fit me, it was still nerve wracking.
After the corset I started with the skirt. I wanted something with a little flare and an a-line was perfect. Instead of drafting my own I used Simplicity’s 3673 pattern, dress C.
Heavily shortened obviously. The darting that was already in the pattern really helped fitting it to the shape of my corset. For all of the pale lavender on her I used a 100% silk shantung that I found in the LA fabric district for $11/yd. Which was really surprising. The base skirt is made from two layers of the skirt shown above, one of the lavender silk and the lining made from a silver metallic polyester. That got stitched down directly onto the corset just under the bust line.Next I cut the corset pattern out again out of the silk. At this point I was still debating on how true to the original art I was going to be and wasn’t sure if I was going to cut the petal shapes into the hem of it. In the end I did end up doing that and I’m really glad I did. Once I had the shape of the corset shell I pinned on the lace trim that sits under the bust and hand embroidered sequin flower all over her using silver and white AB sequins, clear AB seed beads, and purple metallic AB bugle beads.
This took and excruciatingly long period of time. Which had me freaking out because I was on a time crunch. Once that was finished, the shell was lined with the silver polyester.
On a trip to Las Vegas with friends we hit up a few fabric stores and I found a really beautiful piece of embroidered, double edged bridal lace that I knew I needed to use on Espeon. There was only about a yard of it and it was $18.
It ended up going over top the silk skirt and underneath the sequined corset shell.
Before stitching the shell to the dress, I cut bias tape out of the silk and stitched it around the base of each of those petals. Also in this picture you can see that the hem of the skirt has been gathered slightly to give it the asymmetrical shape. I chose to make this a bit longer than in the artwork simply for modesty purposes since the pants were going to be made of chiffon.
At this point was when I realized that I didn’t buy enough fabric on my LA trip and didn’t have anything for the draped “tails” of her dress. So a quick trip to Joann’s for some lavender organza and I was set.
I had also gone back and added purple crystal bicones to all the small centers of the flowers on the lace layer.
Once the tails were gather and hand stitched on, I took a break from the dress and made the pants and bolero using Simplicity’s 5359 and 3809 respectively.
The pants were super simple and cut from a medium shade of purple chiffon, the ankles were modified to allow for a band cut from silk dupioni to then be embroidered with sequin flowers to match the corset.
The bolero was modified from the blouse that featured raglan sleeves which were gathered down to fit to sit just off the shoulder. The longer portion of the sleeves were made using Butterick’s 6630.
Once that was finished I moved back to the dress. I added a BUNCH of Swarovski rhinestones in opal white and lavender AB, crystal bicones, more sequins, resin flowers with pearls and amethyst rounds, and little clapper bells (which are not pictured in the following photos but were added to the high points of all the petals).
At this point, I was super crunched for time and my friend very graciously made my bracelets for me in exchange for dinner. Pictured below is just one of the bracelets.
As I finished up the bracelets with the chiffon swags I drafted up Espeon’s hat and ears.
Please ignore the mess in the back, my sewing room also doubles as the storage room.
I had never made ears before so it was an interesting process. Both the ears and the hat are made with a buckram base covered in silk and lined with silver polyester with a ruffle of organza and a gathered piece of chiffon for decoration. Lace trim, crystals, and sequins were added. All were stitched onto a headband for ease of wear.
It was at this point where things started to not get completely finished as I was running out of time. I still need to add the tufts to the inner ears and make the small bows that hang off the front tails of her hair.
The bell that hangs off the bow off the side of her dress was super easy, I used a pattern I had made for an Ariel costume as the base and cut it out of silk. It was then hand stitched onto the dress.
The very last thing I did before packing was her wig. Which started as a Venus Classic from Arda Wigs in the color Light Strawberry Blonde. I again deviated from the artwork here by giving her two braids down the back.
As far as shoes went, I had fully intended on buying a pair that looked like the artwork, but they were going to be quiet expensive and I didn’t quite feel like they matched the overall aesthetic of Espeon so instead I ended up ordering a pair of punjabi juti in silver with clear AB sequins and silver beads.
And with that, she was “done” for WonderCon.
I obviously have some things that I need to go back and either fix or complete, but overall she was a successful costume and surprisingly comfortable to wear despite being in a corset all day.
Progress on Alice continues! I love ruffles probably more than any sane person should, and while I love this so far, I'm pretty tired of making ruffles. One more 5 yrd go around for the last skirt panel on the apron and then the sleeves of the dress and ruffling should be finished. Then it's time for waist ties and anything else that is going to be out of black micro velvet. The end is in sight.
Sakizo’s Alice! This cosplay was on the list, but I was dead set on finding the right pair of shoes before I even started, so when I found these t-strap mary janes by demonia on ebay, this costume when from tentative to “LET’S DO THIS!”
And from there, it was from yeah, I’ll look for fabrics to, this is going to be done by Anime Expo. So like, yeah, I gave myself another 3 week deadline.
Anyway, the blue is a really nice French blue linen and the cream for the apron is a cream polyester/linen mix.
I got all of the lace at Joann’s, I had a lot of 50% coupons that I used, about 8 of them, so it made it worth it.
Most of the body of the dress is complete, I need to add sleeves before it gets any lace details, and I actually like to get the apron ready for lace before that too just I can spend a day on lace.
Find me at Wondercon this weekend!! Long time no see guys! I'll be wearing Espeon on Saturday with my friends as Typhlosion and Professor Willow. Write-ups for Espeon will come in the days to follow after Wondercon and I'll be posting which patterns I used and modified for her.
I’m sorry for the lack of updates to this blog! Things have gotten a bit lax on my end regarding cosplays recently. I am still working on things, just very, very, very slowly.
Costume write-ups will be coming as well as current works-in-progress posts.
A bunch of people asked me to make a tutorial about how I did my glowing lyrium potion, so I finally made one! It works for any kind of glowing potion you want to drink so you can use any liquid. It’s also really, really, really easy.
Supplies - pick your Lyrium (I used Blue Gatorade for my first potion and am using blue vodka for this tutorial because I am an adult), waterproof LEDs (that waterproof part is important, I used plain white ones but any color will work depending on your potion, I recommend getting a bunch of these because sometimes you get a dud, and they glow for 8+ hours but they do fade over time), glass bottles with corks, non-toxic glue, leather or clothe cording, a knife or tiny scissors.
Clean your bottles and your LEDs.
Hollow out the inside of your cork with a knife or scissors. You want a little space for the LED to snugly sit in.
Attach the LED to the cork with a touch of non-toxic glue. Turn on the LED at this point too.
While the glue sets up, fill your glass bottle with your lyrium or potion.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to mess with hollowing the cork and gluing the LED into place, you can also just “frost” over the bottom of your glass and drop the LED straight in. The LED sinks and the “frost” disguises it. I used a touch of white acrylic paint to frost it. It took about 30 seconds.
Back to the cork method! - Once the glue has dried and the cork is secure, pop it back into the bottle.
Wrap your leather cording around the neck of the bottle to disguise the LED hanging there.
And done! Go drink your lyrium like the drug addicted Templar you are!
Your cosplays are gorgeous, the Snow one is wonderful and intricate!!! For the cosplay ask 4,8,& 15?
Thank you so much! Snow is one of my favorites to wear.
4. Stupidest thing you’ve done for cosplay?
Oh boy. A lot of the things I do for cosplay could be perceived as stupid. But the stupidest thing that comes to mind is hand gluing over 3000 foil-less Swarovski crystals on to my belt for Snow’s royal coat. I had to order more batches of crystals four times because I SEVERELY underestimated how many I was going to need.
8. What are some of the most memorable comments you’ve received on your cosplays?
Surprisingly, my most memorable comment comes from a convention I don’t have a lot of happy memories from. At Comikaze’s National Cosplay Championships (the first time I’d entered a competition in 5 years) there were a lot of things that I felt were poorly organized, but when the all the judges commented on how they were awed by the dedication I put into making my Elementalist match the artwork, from the understructure of the hoop skirt to the hand-stitched beaded diamonds all over it, I felt pretty validated despite not placing what-so-ever.
15. Best bystander experience?
Also at Comikaze, just after the cosplay contest ended, my friend, KurisuchieKitty, who was dressed in Sakizo’s West Witch got completely gushed over by these two girls. It was cute and they were so inspired and impressed by her it was pretty great.
1. One of your best cosplay memories?
2. Ever met someone involved in the creation of a series you’ve cosplayed from?
3. Cosplay pet peeves?
4. Stupidest thing you’ve done for cosplay?
5. Who are four cosplayers you look up to?
6. Cosplay crushes?
7. Who is that cosplayer who inspired you to push yourself out of your comfort zone?
8. What are some of the most memorable comments you’ve received on your cosplays?
9. Comfort over accuracy, or it’s not cosplay until you’re in pain?
10. Cosplay typecast(s)?
11. Is there a type of character you’ll never cosplay?
12. Most embarrassing cosplay memory?
13. Most embarrassing cosplay photo?
14. Who is your cosplay crew (AKA the people you collab with the most)?
15. Best bystander experience?
16. Best photoshoot?
17. Ever had any interactions with kids while you’ve been in cosplay?
18. Any funny experiences being misidentified as a certain character?
19. What’s something you’ve made that looks decent in photos but in reality, you just royally half-assed?
20. Name a cosplay cheat.
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