Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Photoshop

TadA!  My cosplay is complete (although you guys may have seen it ages ago on the blog from the SakuraCon post back in April,) but here's my final post about making this cosplay.  Actually it's the post processing of this photo to make it internet worthy.

As you can see here below here is the original photo I took.  I used a timer and had to run back and forth trying many different poses and whatnot.  I probably took 40 pictures and only ended up with a handful I liked.  So how did I turn the bottom photo into the top photo?

• Layer 1, the original photo. 
• I didn't actually do any manipulation here

• Layer 2, the border
• Found a border on the DeviantArt stock images (credit  http://karma-manipulation.deviantart.com/art/Grunge-Border-156054027)
• From the stock images I inverted the colors and softy erased out the center white area.  I let the middle fade out as to not create any solid lines
  
• Layer 3 Logo
• I took the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Icon from online, removed the excess background
  
• Layer 4, the color
• I overlayed a pink color with a 20% transparency

2012 Pax Prime Day 2 & 3 Cosplays

I decided to split up cosplay pictures into a separate blog posting since there were so many amazing outfits.

Isn't this baby adorable as the Marshmallow Guy from Ghost Busters Movie

Halo meets Captain America, pretty clever

Love the details

Loving the ColoUrs

Diablo 3 Mage

We've seen this girl before on the blog.  She was at SakuraCon with her Steampunk Mario Cosplay group.  But this time she has continued to enhance her outfit even more that I fell it love with it all over again.

The added a Donkey Kong this con to the Steampunk Mario group, and I thought his poses were accurate and hilarious.

This Wii and Xbox 360 couple was so cute.  I laughed when I noticed the Xbox was a white girl, and the Wii was an Asian girl.  Don't think they did it on purpose though.

Ok this outfit was just freaking cute.

Annie as Tibbers from League of Legends?

Love this guy for the way he did the makeup for his scars.  Need to study and practice this style.

Posion Ivy and Harley Quinn in War gear.  Pretty cool crossing themes.

Guardians Of Middle-Earth booth was giving out Gandalf hats.  I didn't want one since it would clash with my outfit, but the guy was very insistent.  I must admit, I do look pretty cute as a witch.

You can check out more of SmallRiniLady's PAX pictures on Facebook

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Bag 0.4

As you can see Serah Farron comes with this handy dandy bag that hangs off her waist.  Does that mean it's a duffle bag?  And I played the game through, she doesn't use the thing once! so what the heck is it for?

I didn't wnat to work with the bag panel by panel, so I made the front/bottom/top/back all out of one strip.  I put a band across it with some grey silk like fabric on to of white canvas.

Folding it into the odd shape I cut out more white canvas to match

Whoops I guess my grey panels didn't align properly.  Oh well.

Now for the waist band.  I'm using this shiny vinyl material which will also be used for the skirt.

Sewing two strips together for strength.

Drawing the cirlces and cutting them out after the sides have been sew together.  This will make it an accurate match.

Using the Piping concept.  To give texture to the edge of the waist band, I'm filling and sewing in a pipe (some extra satin cord I had laying around).

For the button I cut out a circle from the left over vinyl, and glued on a pink bead I made from air dry clay.   There's a lot of gold trim around the bag that I will create using long strips of the vinyl. 

I do admit that the gold vinyl for the bag trim doesn't look as refined as if i used real piping, or just put more TLC into it.  But I'm taking a lot of time to finish this Serah outfit, so any short cuts will make an over all difference. 

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Boots 0.3

I was going to go to the clearance store and try to get a flip flop shoe with the extra thick sole, but found this ugly rubber shoe instead.  It's PERFECT

I cut out fabric pieces from felt to cover the shoe to make it more of a boot style with it's straps.

I glued the laces into the inside of the flap.

Ok I lost the front strap in the process because got glue doesn't stick to rubber, so I had to with Industrial super glue.  But now I have the perfect Serah shoes

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. 

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Base of the Dress 0.1

I've always had problems with zippers, and being a self taught sewer, how else can I get a form fitting outfit without being resourceful.  Use DanceWear fabric.  It's stretchy and thick (less of that see through crap). 

Making a double layer tub top is done in less than 20 minutes.  As for the Pink dress, I'm going to leave it separate from the tube top and have it held up with pant elastics which I will dye the crimson colour. 

It's not very clear in the design of how the pink works into the bottom of the dress but I chose to make it one piece instead of two hanging segments.  This way I am sure that when the fabric shifts due to movement it doesn't start flapping around and will always stay centered.

I know this picture looks a little weird, but dont all projects at the beginning?

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron Research 0.0

I saw this at PAX and couldn't move.  Serah's one of the primary characters of Final Fantasy XIII-2.  I've done Lighting from both XIII and XIII-2, and I've done Serah from XIII, so it's only fitting that I rought it off by doing her from XIII-2.  And her cross bow it AWESOME.

At this moment I dont know if I can do her crossbow, it might to a little too far advanced for me.  Also watching the PAX Prime trailer and apparently the Moogle turns into a crossbow.  I have plans on making a Moogle (but i can't give away all my secret plans yet), so if I fail at making the crossbow or just dont have the time for it than the Moogle will be fine.  Besides wouldn't the Moogle just not make sense if I am also carrying the cross bow?