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.

Cupcakes with Heart

Everyone loves cupcakes!

But no one likes writing mushy valentines to everyone they know, right? So what's the solution? Make cupcakes instead! Even without words, they say Happy Valentine's Day to someone you care about and can be as romantic OR platonic as you want them to be.

For these cupcakes I bought the mix, wrappers and heart toothpicks from Target, and just... put them together. Ta da! ZERO creativity required.

If you have more time on your hands and want to get fancy you can always (1) make frosting and cake from scratch, and/or (2) buy some toothpicks and design your own paper toppers based on whatever special occasion you need the cupcakes for!

Inspiration - Characterized Gaming Consoles Part II

So previously we had posted Xbox Consoles that have been done up to be characterized as popular video games
Inspiration - Characterized Gaming Consoles

This is round two.  Not as 3D glamours but still a fun way to doll up your consoles.  These have all been inspired by Japanese Icons


DomoKun - A Television station mascot in Japan

Hello Kitty, if you don't know who she is you must live in a hole.

Keroro - A popular anime character

Sparkly Peter Pan Tricorne

This is the first hat I've made from scratch, including the frame.  I fell in love with a Tricorne hat I found on the head of a steampunk cosplayer at SteamCon.

So I liked how real tricornes have the bowl shape curve for the head instead of those ~cheaters~ who make the middle stick out like a top hat.  I was able to get this shape by molding the buckram in a bowl and letting it dry.  Buckram is covered in starch and can be stretched and shaped wet and will stiffen in that shape when dried.  Or course being me it had to be a mini hat :)

This was definately a lot of *firsts* in this project.  It was the first time I used fabric glue.  I didn't want to stitch on the trim, just cause it makes it look less magical.  So I tried fabric glue.  Wow I'm impressed at how well it worked.

Being my first time and expecting to fail I used fabric scrapes; because the hat ended up turning out better than I expected I was now stuck with this sparkly green hat (Previously used for a TinkerBell costume).  Um how to make this less flamboyant and more cool.  Looking online at some other tricornes I noticed a lot of them used feathers.  So adding some red feathers, and oh a pirate sword, and that's how I got my Peter Pan theme.  Pretty cool huh?


When I started I said I was going to judge my success based on how much I wanted to make a second hat after I was done.  Like I said, I expected the first one to be a failure, but if I learned enough to make a better second one than that's considered a success.The fact that my first hat came out great means I met beyond my expectation. ~SCORE~