Sunday, August 26, 2012

Next up: Maka Albarn and Gogo Yubari

Our next Con is Nekcon in Hampton, VA on Nov 2-4.  That gives me about 70 days to get my next two cosplays together.   


 Gogo Yubari (Kill Bill Vol. 1)

and

Maka Albarn (Soul Eater)



I've already started acquiring and scouting items.  It looks like I may have to buy more Gogo stuff than I would like but I haven't given up yet.  I really want to get the fabric for her skirt as accurate as possible, so I'm still looking for a plaid I can use to make my own before, I just buy a pre-made skirt.

I was also surprised to notice in her fight with the bride (Uma Thurman) that her sneakers are most likely Nike Air Force Ones.  That's hilarious to me, so I will definitely be scouting around Ebay for a pre-worn pair of those in my size.

As for Maka, I'm already working on her sweater vest.  I'm knitting it myself using the Academia pattern from Twist Collective.  I'm using the Cascade 220 Superwash Sport on the Lemon (#820) colorway.  The original pattern as a fair-isle section, but I'm obviously just going to knit the vest plain.

My local fabric store has a cute red/black plaid twill that I'll be buying to make her skirt.  I would like to make the tie if I can find some striped fabric even if it's cotton.  And if I'm feeling brave and still have a few weeks time, I'll attempt her coat and make a scythe.  Otherwise I'll just re-cover some used books and make my own creative and Soul Eater related titles and carry those.

Overall, I'm just hoping that I don't get so involved in work that I run out of time to finish these cosplays.  The beginning of the school year is such a crunch time, that I usually come how and crash.  Wish me luck and . . .

Happy Cosplaying!!


Friday, August 3, 2012

How I made my Yoko Boots

I'm not really labeling this as a tutorial b/c it's totally up to you what info you use and don't.  My method was actually a hodge-podge of info I researched from the internet.  I just combined ideas and added a few of my own to get what worked for me.  I'm posting this in case someone finds something here that helps them.

The hardest part for me was finding a pair of boots that I really liked for this cosplay.  I spent weeks researching online for boots, and was even suggested a great pair by a fellow cosplayer from Cosplay.com, only to find that they didn't come in my size.


Anyway, I found these great boots at Sears.com on sale.  Cutting the buckles and other bits off was really easy.  I took pics of them after, but don't think you need to see that, lol.  After cutting off the unnecessary decorations, I used pure Acetone (bought in the paint dept at Walmart) and took off the layer of finish that's on the boots.  This took off a little bit of the color, but that didn't matter because I was changing the color anyway.  You should be careful with the Acetone, use it in a well-ventilated area and wear gloves to protect your hands.  It won't burn your skin, but will remove the color from carpet and clothing so be careful.  I would put a few cotton balls in a glass jar (Acetone can eat some plastics), and pour enough Acetone to wet the cotton balls without them being drippy.  Then I'd just wipe away.  When the cotton ball had too much gunk on it, I'd get another one. 

 

My BF found these amazing oversized zippers at OrgXIIIOrg.  They are fellow cosplayers who specialize in making huge zippers.  If you just search "large zippers" or any derivative of that, what you get are zippers that are extra long. Instead I now have zippers with HUGE teeth.  Look how huge that zipper pull is compared to my hand!


Yoko's zippers don't go all the way down, so it was decided that mine would only go 7 inches down my boots.  I measured the zippers to 9 inches to have enough zipper tape to attach and cut them from the bottom.  This ensured that I had the top zipper stop intact.As you can also see I cut the extra zipper tape from the top.  I then used Fray Check on the top and bottom edges.    I'm not sure how well you can see it, but for the extra 2 inches of zipper, I put gorilla glue in the teeth to ensure that they wouldn't split during wear.


The zipper teeth were 2cm wide, so from the outside of the boots I cut out an area that was 7 inches long, and slightly wider than 2 cm.  


I hand-sewed the zippers into the boots.  My right index finger and thumb were not happy about that.  The zippers are even still functional.


Here are the boots after 4 coats for paint.  I mentally divided the boot into sections, would paint a section and then use my blowdryer on low before painting the next section.  (Please ignore the disaster that was my living room at the time.  Lol, didn't notice the BF in the corner of the pic until later)



It took 9 coats of the white Angelus leather paint to completely cover the boots.  I could have stopped at 8, but did one more just for good measure.  My BF drew an outline of the flames on in pencil for me.  He used actual pics of Yoko's boots and made sure that the patterns faced opposite directions.  It took 3 coats of the red paint for that level of brightness and then I used one coat of the finisher.

 I forgot to take pics before I wore them so what you're seeing is them after a day of wear.  They held up really well; no chipping, no peeling, and no rubbing off.  I forgot to mention, the zipper pulls are just two layers of the craft foam, cut in a zipper pull shape and glued together.  They're attached to the zipper by small key rings.

Honestly at this point after seeing how well my boots held up to wearing them all day I would swear by Angelus paint and thin layers.  Even after 9 layers of that white paint and 3 layers of red, those boots are totally flexible.  They don't move like they were painted at all. 

So this is basically what I did.  I may have forgotten something, or not explained it well.  Feel free to ask questions and. . .

Happy Cosplaying!

Otakon 2012

First, isn't my new banner amazing!  THANKS BF!






Otakon was pretty fun.  There were TONS of people there as expected.  We only got into 4 of the panels we wanted to get into, but still had a good time.  I got tons of compliments on my Yoko cosplay, and I was happy about that b/c I worked super hard on that.  One girl even asked me if I bought it ^_^ !!  I'll do a post about how I made my boots later. (And I know I'm missing a bracelet.  I hadn't finished sewing on the buttons yet, but I did and put it on later that day.)




I really loved my Lucy cosplay.  It was super comfortable, but I kept forgetting about the horns and bumping them, lol.  There were a bunch of other Lucys there and I took pics with almost all of them.   Being that the dress is the first item of clothing I've ever made I think I did a pretty good job.  I bought the shirt from Amazon.com, the socks from Sockdreams.com, the shoes from Target, and wig from Epic Cosplay, and made the music box.  Well. . .









I bought a pre-made wooden box from Michael's, stained it, lined the inside with some burgundy felt I bought on clearance from Hancock Fabrics.  The lines on the top front and back on the box that would be done with a woodburner "in real life", were just drawn on by my BF with a Sharpie before I stained.  That was totally his idea, and really helped the box looked authentic.  I made the inner and outer "plates" from craft foam and acrylic paint.  At some point I'll have a real gold plate engraved for the inside, but I didn't have time this year.  For the inner plate, I printed Lilium out on some cardstock, glued that onto the craft foam and them painted it.  The box also plays Lilium, with a mechanism I found on Amazon ^_^. 


Cosplaying turned out to be more fun that I thought it would be.  I've already started on my next cosplay which will be, Maka Albarn from Soul Eater; I'll be wearing that for Nekocon in November.  I'm knitting the sweater vest myself.  I'm using the Academia pattern.  It's from Twist Collective, but I found it on Ravelry.  I'm hoping to be finished with that before I have to go back to work in September.  Wish me luck!!

Happy Cosplaying!