Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Gloves 0.2

[observations]  Let's see what we see.  For Serah's Gloves, they are Grey, have bands of black and chunks of Yellow, and little past the cuff.  Serah also seems to be wearing a pink sleeve (same color as her dress) under her gloves.

Easy to start when you get a $3 pair of Leather Gardening Gloves at the local hardware store.  They aren't quite the right size for me, but $3s is cheaper and more accurate than making my own.  It's cosplay, just go with it. 

As for the Black and Yellow pieces, I could go and get dyed leather or other fabrics, but let's make this easy.  It just needs to look good in photos and not fall apart as i run around playing.  Craft Foam we use!  Cut out the shapes and glue them onto the leather gloves with hot glue, oh yes we will not be able to salvage this glove to it's original state (but who cares it was just $3).  Ok I also made a mistake and my yellow/black pieces ended up being too large to correctly match the character's design, but I didn't realize until after I glued it to the glove.  Once again, it's just cosplay, go with it.

So I made cuffs, aka arm warmers, aka sleeves, using extra material from my dress.  It's basically a tube that is slightly smaller than my wrist.  Since it's stretchy fabric, it conforms pretty comfortably. 

Finished product.  it's not accurate, but if people notice and judge, than they know the character a little toooooooo well.


Aww I forgot, I want to also make the extra black lines by going over those existing orange lines with a sharpie. 

Costume Progress: Riven

I haven't had much time to work on this costume over the last week, but I did get a few things done.

I formed the base of the shin guard from Model Magic and foam board.

The bodice/tabard piece is off to a good start.

I paper-mache'd the shin guard with strips of newspaper and Mod Podge to give it a uniform texture, then spray-painted it black. That's how far I got prior to tonight.

I spent about 2 hours working on everything tonight (Wednesday). First I hotglued the spikes to the shin guard (in some pictures - the Chinese art? - she has spikes on the knee, in others I can't see them, but I figured the spikes were cool so I would add them). Then I used this tube of Kwik Seal Plus that I had lying around to make the base of the spikes flow into the knee piece. That way it will look more like the spikes are coming out of the knee guard rather than having a gap.

Hot knife time! Tonight I also cut and primed the sword and pieces for the left shoulder armor.

I got started on the broken sword, drawing it straight onto a scrap of insulation foam and then cutting it out with the hot knife.

I had my laptop handy for reference pictures.

The first step was to cut out the rough shape.

Then I drew lines for the next cuts - diagonal cuts to shape the edges.

Here's what it looks like after the first round of shaping the edges - really rough. Nothing a little sandpaper can't fix though!

Sanded and ready for primer! Yes, I still have some leftover even after all of the furniture I refinished and the [Staff of Infinite Mysteries] I made this year. Remember, I am making this entire costume for a $0.00 budget and just reusing whatever I have!

Next I cut out pieces for the left shoulder pauldron. I just estimated the shape and drew it onto the foam, then cut it out roughly. This undergoes the same process as the sword - draw, cut, shape, sand, prime... and paint later.

Sanding smoothes the edges of the foam a lot. I used a rough grit first, then a finer sandpaper.

After making both pieces I tried them out on my shoulder to test the fit. Good enough, IMO!

Then I had to let the primer dry on everything so I played a round of Summoner's Rift in League of Legends. For some reason I ended up playing Soraka, who I never play, but we won anyway. The other team quickly surrendered.

When the primer was fairly dry, I hotglued the spikes onto the shoulder armor pieces, then added the Kwik Seal Plus around the bases to cover over most of the gap. I think the blocks look better than the spikes, but I could add something more to it later. This needs to dry overnight.

Last of all I slapped on a first layer of paint on the sword blade really quick, just some black and grey with metallic silver mixed in. I will detail it later after it dries overnight.

Convention Cosplay Planning

PAX is coming up and I need to get crackin' on my cosplay projects if I want to have a different outfit to wear each day! Alas, the amount of work I need to accomplish my goals is somewhat unrealistic. This calls for some project planning.

Target Costumes:
Day 1. Priest from World of Warcraft
Status: Costume complete. In process of making a [Staff of Infinite Mysteries] (prop).


Staff of Infinite Mysteries

Day 2. Vin from the Mistborn Trilogy
Status: Costume complete, mistcloak needs minor repair. I want to make a Giant Koloss Sword (prop).

Day 3. Miss Fortune from League of Legends
Status: Not started.

"Miss Fortune" from League of Legends

Step 1: Sort out your priorities.
As it stands, I have two wearable costumes, but both costumes are lacking without the props. My first goal should be to finish the [Staff of Infinite Mysteries], which I have already started working on. However, my next goal needs to be the Miss Fortune costume because there is going to be a League of Legends costume contest and I want free LoL stuff! Once I finish my staff I need to start working on that costume right away. If I have two nights left and it looks like I can't finish Miss Fortune on time, I will work on the sword and get that done, but I would rather have a completed Miss Fortune costume so I don't want to spend two nights working on a sword I don't really need. Miss Fortune, on the other hand, needs two guns, and I know those props are going to be more difficult to create than the giant Koloss sword; the sword is bigger but quite simple to make.
Step 2: Plan your time.
First, made a list with three columns: A)Costume/Prop, B)Action Item, C)Date and filled in the details for each step I need to complete. Then I color-coded by action type (minor/easy=grey, workshop=blue, primer=yellow, painting=orange, sewing=white). It will be more productive to do similar projects at the same time. I left off Aug 19 because I will be busy that day, but I assigned all of the other tasks to different days. However, looking at my list, I don't think there is any way I can get all of this done! I should have more time to work on the 18th, but there is too much crammed into the 24th and 25th. However, if I am running behind I can eliminate the Mistborn items on the 24th and 25th because of my priorities.

Step 3: Get workin' and stick to schedule!
How much do you think I can accomplish? We'll just have to find out after PAX!

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Armour 0.4

Because these tutorial is already so long I’m skipping the details of obvious steps.

Painting with two colours of metallic grey will give it depth.  Just layer it on top of each other.

I made the basic shape of the front my guessing.  Added the gold embellishments

The collar.  I thought this was going to be hard, to by surprise it’s much easier than real sewing.  I started with a single sheet of foam and cut an ovalish shape out of the center.  Here I’m testing it’s fit.  Similar to a pencil skirt, don’t make the hole as big as you will assume you will need.  Because the material is malleable you can wiggle your way in.  A smaller hole will make it look more fitted.

Started to attach my front and back pieces to my collar base (which will later be painted).  I also made a neck collar which I wrapped around the opening.

I forgot to mention, those studs are just scrapbooking pearls.  I used all weird wild colours, but one spray paint makes them look like rivets.   BoYa!

 Time to attach the shoulder pads.  I use more foam to anchor the armor and the shoulder pads together.  It’s strong enough that it won’t fall apart, soft enough that the ‘heavier’ piece will weigh it down lay and move naturally with your shoulders. 

Ok now to attach this bottom piece (I don’t know what to call these random sections).  When you look at Lightning’s outfit closely you can see that these bars are actually separate pieces.   I wanted to keep that look so I used hot glue (solid and clear) to give structure to it on the backside.  Also notice that (in the picture below) that the foam I used was a lot thicker, also for structural integrity.

Here’s the finished piece.  The red pieces won’t be noticeable because those will be facing my skin.  Although I will need to go through the edges with a silver pen because it’s still weird to have random colours outlining your outfit like a cartoon character (which even Lightning is not).



Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Wing 0.3

Today we'll be focusing on the feather skirt on the left side of Lightning.  I dont know what to call it, I thought of it as a wing, but a girl on DeviantArt referred to it as a feather skirt which sounds more appropriate.  This project ended up turning out a lot better than I assumed it would and costed less than I assumed.  I bought $25 in feathers and ended up only using 2/3s of it.

Ingredients

1. A Few Large Trimmed Feathers
2. A Few More Media Trimmed Feathers
3. A Lot More Small Trimmed Feathers
4. A Lot More Small Fluffy *cheap* Feathers
5. Buckram or some other stiff white fabric. We don't want a flimsy fabric or else it won't keep it's shape, but we dont want stiff material because it should still flow a little in the wind as you walk.  Another alternative would be craft foam.  Honestly I used Buckram just because it's light, white, and just sitting in front of my face while I was thinking about this project.
6. Hot Glue

1)      Cut out a piece of buckram in the shape of an outline of the wing.  It will serve as the backing for the wing, and we will be trimming it later

2)      We want a single feather to be our tip, start with one large feather and lay it pointing out of the bottom tip of the wing, remember that the buckram is serving as our outline so stay inside the lines.

3)      Glue the tip of the bone to the buckram.  We want to limit how much glue we use for several reasons.  A) more glue means more weight which adds no value.  B) more glue down the bone means less freedom for it to shift in the wind.

4)      From there we continue moving up arranging and gluing the large feathers. Follow these arrangement guidelines.

a.       The bone tip should be near the vertical center of the buckram.  Never glue near the edge of the buckram.

b.      Arrange the feathers in different angles but all pointing down (South, Southeast, or Southwest).  Making them all parallel will make it look too manicured. 

c.       Don’t put them all in a row, vary the vertical and horizontal placement of the feathers

5)      Once you’re done with the large feathers you can begin mixing feathers.  Start off my covering a horizontal area* with the fluffy feathers to completely cover up the buckram.  Keep the same guidelines as above, especially not gluing to the edge of the buckram.

*Only do one horizontal area at a time so you can layer the feathers on top of each other as you continue up.

  

6)      Lay a few of the trimmed feathers on top of the fluffy feathers.  You can mix the medium and small feathers, or you can use the medium first and the smaller ones up north.  Up to you.

7)      Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you’ve reached the top.  Because the top line is covered up my the belt for lightning you can skip this step, but I’ll include it for anyone who’s making a wing for other projects. Cover the top row with fluffy feathers.  In this case they should point to all different direction and glue up and past the edge.  The fluffy feathers should use one another to try to cover up their bones.

8)      Now you’re complete with one side of the wing.  Time to start trimming.  We want to trim off as much of the “boarder” of the buckram so that the feathers on the edge are hanging off.  I try to cut off as close to any glued spots as possible. 

Depending on your project you may not need a back, or you may need to only fill up a portion of the back, or may need to fill up all.  Just remember to think about your cosplay being viewed from all angles of a sphere.  In the case of Lightning, pieces of the inner side of the wing will be visible as I walk, so I do want to cover it up. 

9)      I usually more of the nicer feathers for the front and save more of the cheaper feathers for the back since they won’t be viewed as often.  From here you repeat steps 4-7 again. 

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Belt 0.2

So the first thing I focused on for my XIII-2 Lightning cosplay was the belt.  I thought it was a good starting project to test to see if I would have the skills to continue to make the armour. 

Ingrediants

• Craft Foam,
• Round Gems
• Brown Vinyl
• Sewing elastic
• Gold Paint
• Two different coloUrs of metallic GrAy spray paint 

1. I started off by cuting out the shapes out of craft foam; created the curves by heating the pieces with an iron and letting them cool in shape.
2. Then I  glued on these Mini Round Gems for the studs found all over Lightning's armour.

3. Spray paint the pieces with the metallic gray paint.  This will give the armour some depth because of the shadowing.
 
4.  Basically the same thing for the gold pieces for the tails of the belt.

5. I cut some strips of vinyl for the tails and glued everything together with E6000 (super glue).  The clips ensure that the craft foam and the vinyl stay together as the glue dries since the craft foam doesn't lay flat.

6. I glued the front and side panels of the belt together with hot glue, but for the back pieces I attached it with sewing elastic.  This is so I can climb into the belt by stretching it out like stretch pants, but it will shrink back a more slim size.

Here's the finished product so far.

There is still some adjustments I need/should make but will do based on time

• The front will be secured with a hook to the top armour so it will stay up, but the back sags a bit.  I will glue a safety pin so I can secure it to the back of my shirt at a higher level
• I made the side panels too large which made the overall belt too large.  It's not slimming as it should be, but I rather spend my time on finishing the whole cosplay than to fix a piece that most people wouldn't even know was incorrect.  The fix this would just be to resize some pieces.

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning 0.1

So I had previously planned on cosplaying Fang from Final Fantasy XIII for SakuraCon. I even had my entire cosplay complete, but then my coworker had to show me a video. A NEW Final Fantasy that is coming out. ~Sigh~, inspiration and addiction attacked me. And so begins my adventure to build a new cosplay. I thought this time I would do what Ava did and show you my progress.

Let's start with the design process. I need to be able to replicate the outfit and the best way is from images. The only source of visuals for this new game in from their teaser trailer that they just released last week. I went through and cut some images from the video.

We'll start with these first two images (the two above).  We can learn how she stands (her poses can also be studied by looking at the previous game where Lightning was introduced, she's the same person so likely she'll pose the same).  We can see that she's got both a Gunblade (sword that can turn into a gun) and a shield.  She's also got lots of shiney armor.  She's still got her side sweep pink hair.

 

Here we can see some details on her chest.  She's got a round collar and some gold embellishments.  

 Her shoulder is armed similar to her previous armor of shoulder pads?? but this time it's double layered

I am taking a lot of time to look at her belt.  It can be broken down into 6 Sections.  Front Top, Front Bottom, Back Top, Back Bottom, and two sides.  I might have some left over vinyl to use for the leather pieces  It seems like she's not wearing any pants or skirt.  Hmmm might need to break out a swim suit for this. 

She's got this swooping feathers coming from her left side.  Just like her hair.  Should I use real feathers or make my own?  I could cut a ton out of craft foam, but real ones would look awesome (but expensive).  Need to think about that.

Her gloves are a bit of a mystery to me.  I will need to go through more of the pictures to figure it out.

 

Using several of the pictures I'm going to need to figure out how this gunblade looks.  I'm not really good with these crazy props, but I guess another opportunity to practice.   The shield is going to be ever harder because there are no full on views of it.  I might need to just make this part up.  That bothers me.  When it comes to cosplay I'm usually for accuracy.  How to be accurate here? 

 

Just another picture I have, giving me some more details on the position of the belt, more details of her glove.  Etc