i wanted to yap about the process of modifying a chibigurumi to make this guy
so i wanted to make a shiro nui and i saw someone else modify existing nuis for the edels so i wanted to try it for shiro. and also as for why I didn't consider commissioning one.. its mostly my pride bc i have been sewing since hs (just plushies and stuff i am no cosplayer) so paying someone else to do it never really crossed my mind and also i wanted it to look as much like the official kukugumi chibigurumis as it could. i do think it would be awesome to get some jhs plushies like factory made but this is just me silly project since ive also barely ever made anything for myself. before the official chibigurumis even came out i had plans to make a mei fan nui from scratch that never came to fruition...
the base for this was the chibigurumi for reno ichikawa from kaiju no. 8. i have not watched that sorry to that guy it seems cool tho.
this pic is dated june 8 2024
what i did to find a base was. i went on jp mercari and just straight up searched ちびぐるみ and sorted by price ascending. and then looked for something with a face and eyebrow color i wanted. the two candidates were this guy and loid forger LMFLAJSK but the colors matched much better with this guy. here he is after i ripped his hair off
then i covered his bald head with the fabric i got for shiros hair. that fabric btw is basically like minky but i bought it from a japanese store thru proxy bc all the actual minky you can find online searching in eng (even on like, aliexpress) is a lot longer pile than i wanted it to be. i did a lot of searching in jp about making nuis and when u search nuigurumi fabric (ぬいぐるみ布) this shop comes up first they call the fabric soft boa. im pretty sure i got this one white blue https://shop.nuigurumi-fabric.com/items/73204824
other fabric i got from various places/some i had some is also from japan. oh uh as for how i did this.. idk .. ball shape so 3 umm.. leaf shape thingies... then i think used a combo of hot glue and sewing to stick it on
if you've read this far you deserve to see this now so disclaimer that this is not meant to be a tutorial. all of the sewing projects ive ever done are simply just vibes i just make up the pattern on some paper as i go and trial and error until it looks right. to really drive home how disorganized i am this is a picture of my desk from today which is basically how i left it when i finished the shironui a month ago.
moving on. after covering the bald head i drew pattern for the hair pieces. i ended up losing one of these pieces and recutting it and i may have swapped around the pieces I honestly dont know and it looks fine now anyway but perhaps not exactly what was originally intended.
now i don't have many progress pics from this point on. i bought some adhesive felt and adhesive nylonish ? fabric and used the nylon one to make the skirt and undershirt and also cover up some of the pattern that was there with skin. glued things if they wouldn't stay by their own power. glue (hot glue and later clear dry white glue) was my best friend.
i also covered the arms and legs with some skin colored minky i had which, was actually too long and too light, so bc i am insane i basically spent some hours shaving down the fur with scissors until it was as thin as possible and then dyed it a little with an orangeish marker. then i sewed two pieces together and pulled it on like a sleeve and sewed it to the body. and you rly cant see it but on the legs i glued some brown fabric where the legs connect to the body so its like her two thigh straps
after this i made the skirt tail and jacket and cape. i have this note here where i was trying to list all the things i had to do but i stopped using it bc i did most of the rest of this work in like. a day. the "embroider skirt tail lining lines" is when i stopped working on this properly in 2024 and i just occasionally worked on the embroidering for that lol..
first i tried to finish this before anime north so i could bring her with me but it didnt happen and i think thats when i stopped using this note. basically i just sewed the two sides of the tail/jacket together and then glued the gold fabric on directly
the skirt tail in question is not even that visible lol but the integrity of everything is important.
uhh then i. so the rest of this i finished while pulling an all nighter right before my trip to japan. i wont try to remember what i did basically just know it involved a lot of glue and pain and glue and glue. by the way, for the back of head hair i used hikari's hair as a reference bc i have her nui and it is similarly long.
thank you hikari for your service being trapped on the sewing desk of hell for a year (shes now back with her friends nanamaya)
thats the pattern. i also realized before i was gonna do hair that the hair wasnt as stiff as hikaris so i put two layers of iron on light interfacing on it. one other thing i wanted to talk about is due to being in a rush i just traced on the back of the fabric i was using with a big black marker and that was a bad idea bc it bled and i had to trim off more of the fabric than planned so the bangs looked thinner than planned and if i had more time i probably would have redone the front hair piece, but i think my 24hr panic to finish it before my trip is part of the love i put in it and it still looks fine so i'm leaving it.
the hair fabric was also fraying a bit on my trip so i bought anti-fray liquid stuff from japan (really good product i found at yuzawaya: https://www.yuzawaya.shop/smartphone/detail.html?id=000000001309) i applied that today and it worked well. i also realized today that the bit of marker I didn't manage to trim off before i left ended up leaving marks on the face. and i also tried today to color the eyes more red with marker but it bled everywhere. so i spent like 2 hours trying to wash out all my marker mistakes and nothing was unsalvageable with some alcohol and water and patience but i will never fuck around with markers again. really it was my greed coming back to bite me bc the eye color is already quite similar all things considered
here's the cape. similar to the skirt tail and jacket i embroidered the two sides separately and then glued the gold edge on. the shoulder pads and clock are made from adhesive felt. they have velcro bits so the cape can stick to shiro properly and the clock can stick too and today i added the velcro on the outside of the cape where the clock sticks bc it was sticking directly to the embroidery thread and kind of destroyed that part. i also put some anti fraying stuff on this today. i wanted to make the cape removable mostly so i could dress him up in stupid outfits
more pics. here u can barely kinda see the brown straps on her legs. i originally wanted to make shoes too but it didn't work out so maybe one day later.
the harness is made with some stretchy synthetic leather it was really forgiving which helped but i still had to recut this like 5 times. as u can see in the pic the inner blue for the jacket does not go down all the way or actually attach to the jacket its just adhesive felt
after some repairs today bro is confined in the containment chamber again. btw this nui holder actually fell apart when we were in kyoto pokemon center and then i sewed the plastic piece back on with a sewing kit from daiso lol. also, some of the gold rubbed off on the gold fabric on the corners and edges but i think it's fine it looks cool and it shouldn't do that anymore bc she is contained
hi hello may i interest you in some worms (keychains) of some little guys (avemygo) and also other goods... everything shown here is available for preorder on my etsy shop! preorders are open until the end of june and will ship in july 😊
(the mei fan is no longer free but she's only 2 CAD)
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